“I—­I-oh—­oh—­”

“‘S-s-s-s-h, darlin’!  Don’t!”

“I—­oh, I can’t help it; but I ain’t cryin’, Harry, I ain’t!”

“All worn out and cold and wet, that’s what’s a-hurtin’ you.  All worn out and hysterical and all!  Poor little Vi-dee!”

“I—­I ain’t.”

“It’s all over now, Vi.  See, I’m all right!  Everything’s all right!  Just my luck to have the first one since noon right when you get home.  It’s all over now, Vi.  Everything’s over, Christmas rush and all.  Don’t you worry about the snow, neither, darlin’.  I knew it would scare you up, but it takes more than a doctor’s line of talk to down-and-out me.”

“I—­I ain’t worryin’, darlin’.”

“You’re the one I been worryin’ about, Vi.  It’s just like the kid was worried too—­cried when Mrs. Quigley sung her to sleep.”

“Oh, my baby!  Oh, my baby!”

“Don’t worry, dear.  She don’t even know it’s Christmas—­a little thing like her.  And, anyways, look, Vi-dee, Mrs. Quigley brought her up that little stuffed lamb there.  But she don’t even know it’s Christmas, dear; she don’t even know.  You poor, tired little kiddo!”

“I ain’t tired.”

“I been lying here all night, sweet, thinking and thinking—­a little doll like you hustling and a big hulk like me lying here.”

“’S-s-s-s-h!  Honest, Harry, it’s fun being back in the store again till you get well—­honest!”

“I never ought to let you done it in the beginning, darlin’.  Remember that night, even when I was strong enough to move a ox team, I told you there was bum lungs ’way back somewhere in my family?  I never ought to let you take a chance, Vi-dee—­I never ought!”

“‘S-s-s-s-h!  Didn’t I say I’d marry you if you was playin’ hookey from the graveyard?  Wasn’t that the answer I give you even when you was strong as a whole team?”

“I didn’t have no right to you, baby—­the swellest little peach in the store!  I—­I didn’t have no right to you!  Vi-dee, what’s the matter?  You look like you got the horrors—­the horrors, hon!  Vi-dee!”

“Oh, don’t, Harry, don’t.  I—­I can’t stand it, hon.  I—­I’m tired, darlin’, darlin’, but don’t look like that, darlin’.  I—­got news—­I got news.”

’"S-s-s-s-h, baby, you’re all hysterical from overwork and all tired out from worry.  There ain’t no need to worry, baby.  Quigley’ll say it can go over another week.  She ain’t dunning for board, she ain’t, baby.”

“I—­oh—­I—­”

“Shaking all over, baby, just like you got the horrors!  I bet you got scared when you see the snow coming and tackled Ingram to-day, and you’re blue.  What you got the horrors about, baby—­Ingram?”

“No!  No!”

“I told you not to ask the old skinflint.  I told you they won’t do nothing after twelve weeks.  I ain’t bluffed off by snow-storm, Vi.  I don’t need South no more’n you do, I don’t, baby.  I ain’t a dead one by a long shot yet!  Vi, for God’s sake, why you got the horrors?”