Was the hearth fire kindled in the Yellow House sending its glow through the village as well as warming those who sat beside it?  There were Christmas and New Year’s and St. Valentine parties, and by that time Bill Harmon saw the woodpile in the Carey shed grow beautifully less.  He knew the price per cord,—­no man better; but he and Osh Popham winked at each other one windy February day and delivered three cords for two, knowing that measurement of wood had not been included in Mother Carey’s education.  Natty Harmon and Digby Popham, following examples a million per cent better than parental lectures, asked one afternoon if they shouldn’t saw and chop some big logs for the fireplaces.

Mrs. Carey looked at them searchingly, wondering if they could possibly guess the state of her finances, concluded they couldn’t and said smilingly:  “Indeed I will gladly let you saw for an hour or two if you’ll come and sit by the fire on Saturday night, when we are going to play spelling games and have doughnuts and root beer.”

The Widow Berry, who kept academy boarders, sent in a luscious mince pie now and then, and Mrs. Popham and Mrs. Harmon brought dried apples or pumpkins, winter beets and Baldwin apples.  It was little enough, they thought, when the Yellow House, so long vacant, was like a beacon light to the dull village; sending out its beams on every side.

“She ain’t no kind of a manager, I’m ’fraid!” said Bill Harmon.  “I give her ’bout four quarts and a half of kerosene for a gallon every time she sends her can to be filled, but bless you, she ain’t any the wiser!  I try to give her as good measure in everything as she gives my children, but you can’t keep up with her!  She’s like the sun, that shines on the just ‘n’ on the unjust.  Hen Lord’s young ones eat their lunch or their supper there once or twice a week, though the old skinflint’s got fifty thousand dollars in the bank.”

“Never mind, Bill.” said Osh Popham; “there’s goin’ to be an everlastin’ evenupness somewheres!  Probably God A’mighty hez his eye on that woman, and He’ll see her through.  The young ones are growin’ up, and the teacher at the academy says they beat the devil on book learnin’!  The boy’ll make a smart man, pretty soon, and bring good wages home to his mother.  The girls are handsome enough to pick up husbands as soon as they’ve fully feathered out, so it won’t be long afore they’re all on the up grade.  I’ve set great store by that family from the outset, and I’m turrible glad they’re goin’ to fix up the house some more when it comes spring.  I’m willin’ to work cheap for such folks as them.”

“You owe ’em somethin’ for listenin’ to you, Osh!  Seems if they moved here jest in time to hear your stories when you’d ’bout tuckered out the rest o’ the village!”

“It’s a pity you didn’t know a few more stories yourself, Bill,” retorted Mr. Popham; “then you’d be asked up oftener to put on the back-log for ’em, and pop corn and roast apples and pass the evenin’.  I ain’t hed sech a gay winter sence I begun settin’ up with Maria, twenty years ago.”