““Though unaware of it at that moment, Missie had just made some friends for life. Not one of those men sitting round her tiny soddy would have denied her anything that was in their power to provide. There she sat, just a little scrap of a girlwoman, youthful and pretty, her cheeks glowing with health, her eyes sparkling near tears, her trim figure clothed attractively in a bright calico, the tiny fair-skinned, chubby-cheeked Nathan contentedly in her arms studying her face. That picture was their Christmas gift, one they would remember all their lives.””
