Daily Bread by Edward Everett Hale

Three o'clock in the morning saw Huldah's fire burning in the stove, her water boiling in the kettle, her slices of ham broiling on the gridiron, and quarter-past three saw the men come across from the barn, where they had been shaking down hay for the cows and horses, and yoking the oxen for the terrible onset of the day. It was bright star-light above, -- thank Heaven for that. This strip of three hundred thousand square miles of snow cloud, which had been drifting steadily cast over a continent, was, it seemed, only twenty hours wide, -- say two hundred miles, more or less, -- and at about midnight its last flecks had fallen, and all the heaven was washed black and clear. The men were well rested by those five hours of hard sleep. They were fitly dressed for their great encounter and started cheerily upon it, as men who meant to do their duty, and to both of whom, indeed, the thought had come, that life and death might be trembling in their hands.

They did not take out the pungs to-day, nor, of course, the horses. Such milk as they had collected on St. Victoria's day they had stored already at the station, and at Stacy's; and the best they could do to-day would be to break open the road from the Four Corners to the station, that they might place as many cans as possible there before the down-train came. From the house, then, they had only to drive down their oxen that they might work with the other teams from the Four Corners; and it was only by begging him, that Huldah persuaded Reuben to take one lunch-can for them both. Then, as Reuben left the door, leaving John to kiss her "good-by," and to tell her not to be alarmed if they did not come home at night, -- she gave to John the full milk-can into which she had poured every drop of Carry's milk, and said, "It will be one more; and God knows what child may be crying for it now."