The widow, who was consumptive, thrust her head and shoulders, muffled in a white shawl, out of her kitchen window into the soft spring air.
"So the corn has come up," said the son, throwing himself back on his heels with a lordly air.

The mother smiled dimly at the green spears from between the woolly swaths of her shawl.

She coughed, and pulled the white fleece closely over her mouth and nose.

Then only her eyes were visible, which looked young as they gazed at the green spears of corn.

The book-keeper nodded his elderly, distinctly commonplace, and unimportant head with the motion of a conqueror who marshals armies.
After all, it is something for a man to be able to call into life, even if under the force which includes him also, the new life of the spring.