The Able McLaughlins
Then, before she had expected him, Wully was standing over her, reaching down for the baby. She scarcely knew him. His face was white. His eyes were shining strangely.
"What ails you?" she cried. "You're sick, Wully! What's the matter?"
"I'm all right!" he said sharply. His voice quivered with feeling. He couldn't trust himself to speak. His mouth was set in a hard line.
She rose and followed him, frightened. She got into the wagon, and he handed her the baby. He climbed up beside her, and they were off. She saw he couldn't tell her what had happened just there. She could wait—a little.
They were almost out of town now.
"Wully, what's the matter? Are you sick?"
"I'm all right!"
She was more anxious than ever. She waited till the baby was asleep in her arms, and then she laid him carefully down in the little box in which Isobel McLaughlin had taken her babies back and forth to town. Then she turned towards her husband with determination. And hesitated. He looked too stern—too fierce. She sat undecided, wretched, glancing quickly at him and then away. After a few perplexed moments, her face darkened with terror.
"Oh, I know! You're—you've seen him! You were like that on the Fourth!"
He turned toward her, trying to speak.
"Yes!" he broke forth. "I saw him dying."
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