Bobby bit his lip, looked down at his toes. “Thank you, sir. Sure was a awful shock. Seemed like she was doin fine, like she could go on and on. Then she took sick again with the tuberculosis. We thought she’d pull through, because she always had before, but then she was gone. I can’t hardly get used to it, tell you the truth.”

The boy looked pale. He had dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping much. Eli put a hand on his shoulder. “Can’t nobody get used to a thing like this. Damned shame, is what it is. But you’re goin at it right, doin your chores. When you come to the worst times in your life, hard work always helps. Harder the better. That way, you’re too wore out at night to lay awake and stew over things.”

Bobby nodded. “Yessir. Jim Lindquist told me the same thing.”

“Well, your stepdad is a wise man, then. There aint no cure but time for what you feel in your gut, but there’s things that can make it a little better and things that make it worse. Looks like you found yourself a heckuva job, bustin through that ice.”

“Yep. I broke it out once already this mornin, but it’s so darned cold it froze up again, and the livestock has to drink.”

Eli took the axe, waited for Bobby to step back before he began swinging it in long steady strokes, making the ice chips fly, biting deep into the foot-thick layer of ice with each swing, putting the power of his legs and back and shoulders and wrists into it. When Eli had chopped the ice into sections, he reached into the tank barehanded, heaved a dozen heavy blocks of ice out of the frigid water. Three thirsty milk cows, a team of heavy draft horses, and an old, swaybacked saddle horse shuffled up to drink. He set the axe down, rubbed his hands dry.