VIThe sun rose behind Ase as he drove home. The faint warmth touched the nape of his neck, reminding him of the feeling there of Nellie’s mittens. The snow-piled roofs of the red barns were rosy. The large white Linden house was snow-capped, too, the drifts were piled to the windows. It would be not much longer aloof and bare, unwelcoming.
He changed his clothes to do the morning chores. He moved quietly, not to disturb his mother. Since Benjamin had gone, she slept late, making no pretense at preparing breakfast. He built a fire in the kitchen range and put on the coffee pot and the double boiler of oatmeal. The handling of the milk and cream and butter had devolved on him.
He went to the dusky cellar and lit a lamp there. The Jersey cream was nearly an inch thick in the wide shallow mi
