Marching Men

inery store. Her life was almost devoid of colour. On Sunday morning she wrote a long letter to her family on an Indiana farm and then put on a hat from among the

reatened rain she sat in the larger of the two rooms back of the shop sewing on new dresses for h

er dress to fill it out. In her youth she had had a sweetheart-a fat round-cheeked boy who lived on the next farm. Once they had gone together to

bed on herself. The label on the bottle spoke of the contents with great respect as a wonderful developer. The heavy pads wore raw

you," it said. After that one letter she did not hear from him again. He had the phrase out of a book he had read and had written the letter to Edith that he might use it. After

igs and horses. Once he encountered Edith on the road and tried to get her into the wagon to ride with him. Although she had walked along the road ignoring him she took the letter about the wind that blew over them both out of a drawer on spring evenings or after a walk in the park and read it over. After s

who didn't work came in, throwing dollars about and talking about "gentlemen friends." Edith hated the bargaining but attended to it with shrewdness and with a quiet disarming little smile on her face. What she liked was to sit quietly in the room and trim hats. When the business grew she had a woman to tend the s

dance was held in a hall over a saloon and was given for the benefit of a political organisation in which the baker was a leader. The wife of th

street. Edith sat in the darkness behind the bolted screen door and looked at the people who hurried homeward down the street. A wave of revolt at the narrowness and emptiness of her life ran through her. Tears sprang to her eyes. She clos

eer. A tall young man in white trousers and white slippers went about on the dance floor. He smiled and bowed to the women. Once he started across the floor toward Edith and her heart beat rapidly, but just w

rls came and sat beside her. They were customers of her store and lived together in a flat over a grocery on Monroe Street. Edith ha

, the little man keeping up a running stream of comments about the people on the floor with Edith's two companions. A dance struck up and taking one of the women the black-bearded man danced away. E

ittle tables and made a sign to the red-haired man to follow. A boyish looking fellow appeared

t watching people hop about on their toes. If you want to come with me we'll

a man," she thought, exulting. That the man had deliberately chosen her she knew. She had heard the introductions

into a man, driving down the road in the wagon and leeringly asking her to ride with him. A flood of anger at the memory

e going now?

," he said. "I was sick of this place. You ought to know wher

t he would like to take this woman over the h

room at the back of the shop on the evening when she had decided to come to the dance. She wondered if the great adv

n hands as she unlocked the door. A delicious feeling shook

least excited and with a steady hand lighted the fire in the little stove and then looking up he asked Edith if he might smoke. He had the air of a man com

hicago. He talked freely, letting himself go as a man might in talking to one of his own people after a long absence

er chair smoking and talking. A delightful feeling of safety and coziness crept over her. She thought her room beautifu