Beth was very still and her breath came in small jerking gasps. The thin legs twitched convulsively once, then Kate felt the little body stiffening in her arms and heard one strangled sound. The scant flesh grew cool beneath her frantic hands. The child was gone.

When Juanita awoke, Kate was still rocking the dead child, still crooning in disbelief, ``No, no, oh, no!'' They put Kate to bed and wired Jonathan and sent for the young Presbyterian minister. He sat beside Kate's bed with the others throughout the morning, talking, talking of God's will, while Kate lay staring angrily at him. When he told her God had called the child to Him, she rejected his words rebelliously.

Few of the neighbors came, but Mrs. Tussle came, called by tragedy. ``It always comes in threes,'' she sighed heavily. ``Trouble never comes but in threes.''

They held the funeral the next morning from the crossroads church and buried the little box in the quiet family plot. Kate moved through all the preparations and services in a state of bewilderment. She would not accept the death of such a little child. ``God called her to Him,'' the minister had said. God would not do that, Kate thought stubbornly.

Jonathan's letter came, as she knew it would, and he had accepted their child's death as another judgment from God against both Kate and himself. In blind panic of grief she accepted Jonathan's dictum, and believed in her desperation that she had been cursed by God. She held Jonathan's letter, his words burning like a brand, and knew suddenly that the bonds between them were severed. She had nothing left but her duty to his land and his son. Joel came and sat mutely with her, sharing her pain and anguish, averting his eyes from the ice packs on her bosom.