“Nine,” Abbie moaned. She held onto the last far-reaching branch of the first cedar while Christine felt for the second.

“Zwei!”

Pushing on, cowering before the white smother, they crawled. The storm tore Abbie’s shawl from her and the frozen icicles of her wet hair beat her face like tiny razor blades.

“Drei.”

As she felt Christine pulling her forward, the hideous agonizing childbirth pains shook her freezing body again and she sank in a wildly whirling drift.

“Du narr!” Christine snarled at her ear. “Come . . . du narr . . . fool!”

She set her teeth and plunged ahead while the icy needles drew something moist and trickling from her face.

“Vier.”

And now her breath was going. One could not struggle on when there was no air to breathe. Christine was pulling her. Because she had no breath, Christine was pulling her.

“Fünf.”

Abbie sank to her knees in pain. Christine jerked at her fiercely. “Get you up.” In her ear Christine was yelling. “You die . . . you like dat dyin’ maybe . . . nein? Your baby . . . you keel heem . . . you like dat keelin’ your baby maybe?” No, she must not kill her baby, so she must do as Christine said. But it was so painful——

“Sechs.”

Abbie began to be too numb to feel the cold. What was the use of obeying Christine? Christine had no right to boss so.

“Sieben.”

The white suffocating smother was turning dark. There seemed no use fighting the hideous black thing that was closing her breath.

“Acht!”

Christine was pushing and dragging her. She ought to help Christine push and drag . . .

“Nein!”

Together they plunged to the wall of the house. By the loyal cedars they had found their way. In a war of snow, when the whole world was fighting it in mortal combat, only the cedars seemed not to have lost their heads. Only Abbie’s cedars and Christine seemed faithful to her. Abbie knew that Christine was dragging her now into the warm shelter of the house. She heard Christine say something about: “Heis vater, qvick!” and then she tumbled into a sea of suffering to which there seemed no shore and in which time was not measured. It was hard to breathe. Sometimes she saw faces dimly which came and went. Sometimes she vaguely heard whisperings. Sometimes she smelled steamy woolens and moist hot flannels. Most of the time she was sinking under cold smothering water. Only one thing brought her back,—a light,—a lantern shining down into the icy waters. It shone to light the way back up for her. Each time she sank, she kept her eyes on the light and said, “Will . . . Mack . . . Margaret . . . John . . . Isabelle . . .” And the saying of the names bore her back to the surface and the light.

And then, in some queer intuitive way, she knew her life was going out with the tide. The light grew fainter and farther away.