Then she ran to her bell and rang so frantically that Adam came running.  Kate was at the little garage they had built, and had the door open.  She told him what she had heard, ran to get the baby, and met him at the gate.  On the way she said, “You take the baby when we get there, and if I’m needed, take her back and get Milly and her mother to come stay with you.  You know where her things are, and how to feed her.  Don’t you dare let them change any way I do.  Baby knows Milly; she will be good for her and for you.  You’ll be careful?”

“Of course, Mother,” said Adam.

He called her attention to the road.

“Look at those tracks,” he said.  “Was she sick?  She might have been drunk, from them.”

“No,” said Kate, “she wasn’t sick.  She was drunk, drunken with joy.  She had a picture of the most beautiful little baby girl.  They were to start to Chicago after her to-night.  I suspect she was driving with the picture in one hand.  Oh, my God, have mercy!”

They had come to deep grooves in loose gravel, then the cut in the embankment, then they could see the wrecked car standing on the engine and lying against a big tree, near the water, while two men and a woman were carrying a limp form across the meadow toward the house.  As their car stopped, Kate kissed the baby mechanically, handed her to Adam, and ran into the house where she dragged a couch to the middle of the first room she entered, found a pillow, and brought a bucket of water and a towel from the kitchen.  They carried Nancy Ellen in and laid her down.  Kate began unfastening clothing and trying to get the broken body in shape for the doctor to work upon; but she spread the towel over what had been a face of unusual beauty.  Robert came in a few minutes, then all of them worked under his directions until he suddenly sank to the floor, burying his face in Nancy Ellen’s breast; then they knew.  Kate gathered her sister’s feet in her arms and hid her face beside them.  The neighbours silently began taking away things that had been used, while Mrs. Howe chose her whitest sheet, and laid it on a chair near Robert.

Two days later they laid Nancy Ellen beside her mother.  Then they began trying to face the problem of life without her.  Robert said nothing.  He seemed too stunned to think.  Kate wanted to tell him of her final visit with Nancy Ellen, but she could not at that time.  Robert’s aged mother came to him, and said she could remain as long as he wanted her, so that was a comfort to Kate, who took time to pity him, even in her blackest hour.  She had some very black ones.  She could have wailed, and lamented, and relinquished all she had gained, but she did not.  She merely went on with life, as she always had lived it, to the best of her ability when she was so numbed with grief she scarcely knew what she was doing.  She kept herself driven about the house, and when she could find no more to do, took Little Poll in her arms and went out in the fields to Adam, where she found the baby a safe place, and then cut and husked corn as usual.  Every Sabbath, and often during the week, her feet carried her to the cemetery, where she sat in the deep grass and looked at those three long mounds and tried to understand life; deeper still, to fathom death.