“She fine so far. Liddle bleed. Nothing more, not yet.” And poured water from the copper boiler into a washbowl. Crossed the kitchen as if it were her own and took a stack of worn washed sacking towels from a cupboard, draped them over one arm and took up the bowl. “Least you got plenty water ready. Most likely won’t need but still. I’m gonna clean her up some, set with her, me. You make up some coffee so’s ready them men when they get here. They be runnin a liddle late, hey?” Grinning at Connie, teeth like amber shards. “Then come up you, tell her about you ride.”

So Connie was still in the kitchen, still in the oversized ballooning wool trousers, still flushed and animate from the marrow out, leaning over the range with a spit of crushed eggshell in her palm, waiting for the coffee to come to a boil so she could drop the shell in to settle the grinds, when her brother came through the entry way with the short stout doctor following, the doctors cleated bootheels reporting against the boards in perfect counterpoint to his ragged wheeze. Connie dropped the eggshell in and pulled the coffee to the cool side of the range and turned as Norman spoke to her.

“What’s that Pete horse doing dragging a pair of lead-ropes around the yard?” His face splotched red and white with cold and wind and anger rising already from knowing something somehow was done without his plan or guidance: knowing of action beyond him, behind him. How he’d see it, she knew. And before she could speak he went on, the anger rising even more clearly now and she understood it was fear as much as any other thing and she wondered if he knew that as he said, “Why aren’t you up with her? She all right?” His eyes scanning the stovetop, the hot water, the effects of Marthe.

The doctor was coming out of his overcoat as if from a tight embrace. His pince-nez were steamed and his vest was stretched over a great tight ponderous stomach, the watch chain a line of gold links fine as sutures. “The girl’s upstairs.” It was not a question. “I’ll want hot water, strong soap and old clean quilts or blankets for when her water breaks. Or whatever mess we face. She’s far enough along we should get a baby out of it. But we’ll know that when it bawls. Also, that coffee, and applejack if you’ve got it; not, cider’ll do. He had a handkerchief out to wipe his lenses clear and dab at his face, now throwing out a fine sheen of sweat. He loosened the knot of his bowtie and the collar of his shirt and lifted up the snap-top bag of cracked leather. He saw the basket then on the tabletop and prodded it with his finger. “What’s this?”