“Oh,” said Nick.

I don’t know, Nick.

“I see,” Nick said.

Nick did not watch.

“I know,” said Nick.

Not very many, Nick.

Nick didn’t look at it.

Nick said, “All right.”

“See, it’s a boy, Nick,” he said.

Nick held the basin for his father.

“I want to go with you,” Nick said.

No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick.

Nick trailed his hand in the water.

Dick Boulton turned to Nick’s father.

Nick put the basin out in the kitchen.

“Where are we going, Dad?” Nick asked.

Nick lay back with his father’s arm around him.

You can watch this or not, Nick, just as you like.

“This lady is going to have a baby, Nick,” he said.

“Take Nick out of the shanty, George,” the doctor said.

“I know where there’s black squirrels, Daddy,” Nick said.

He found Nick sitting with his back against a tree, reading.

“Do ladies always have such a hard time having babies?” Nick asked.

Nick watched his father’s hands scrubbing each other with the soap.

They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing.

Dick Boulton came from the Indian camp to cut up logs for Nick’s father.

Nick heard the oarlocks of the other boat quite a way ahead of them in the mist.

“Oh, Daddy, can’t you give her something to make her stop screaming?” asked Nick.

You see, Nick, babies are supposed to be born head first but sometimes they’re not.

“If you see Nick, dear, will you tell him his mother wants to see him?” his wife said.

She screamed just as Nick and the two Indians followed his father and Uncle George into the shanty.

Nick’s father ordered some water to be put on the stove, and while it was heating he spoke to Nick.

Nick’s father went into the kitchen and poured about half of the water out of the big kettle into a basin.

Nick and his father got in the stern of the boat and the Indians shoved it off and one of them got in to row.

Nick, standing in the door of the kitchen, had a good view of the upper bunk when his father, the lamp in one hand, tipped the Indian’s head back.

Nick’s father always assumed that this was what would happen, and hired the Indians to come down from the camp and cut the logs up with the crosscut saw and split them with a wedge to make cord wood and chunks for the open fireplace.