Other Main-Travelled Roads

middle-aged, distorted with work and child-bearing, and looking faded and worn as one of t

tiently fighting the flies and mosquitoes swarming into their skins, already wet with blood. The evening w

hung from her lean arms, her bare feet slipped on the filthy ground, her greasy and faded calico dress showed her ti

ould be heard. Calves were querulously calling for their milk, and

ath the eaves of a huge roof. Its light brought out Lucretia's face as she le

st the power to shape itself into a kiss, and had a droop at the corners which seemed to announce a brea

way called her girlhood back to her, though there was little in her girlhood to give her pleasure. Her large gray eyes grew round, deep,

and hurried to the well. Arriving there, she cuffed the children rig

in' f'r him, ought 'o be enough f'r one day! Sadie, you let him drink now 'r I'll slap your head off, you hateful thing! Why can't you behave, when y

ne cuffed last, sniffed

-field; where'd y

ll swim! Sadie, le' go Pet, an' go 'n get them turkeys out of the grass 'fore it gits dark! Bob, you go tell y'r dad if he wa

nto the pails all at once, and in consequence spilt nearly all of the milk on the ground. This was the last trial; the woman fell down on the damp grass and moaned and sobbed like a crazed thing. The children came

ered, but she was too desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, and

eady?" he

wo hour

"That devilish corn is gettin' too tall to plough again, and I

t of

many

hr

Which

d Brin, a

I don't see why you play out jest the nights I need ye most." Here he kicked a

e child. "You're a reg'lar ol' hyeny,-that's what you ar

r my feet." And he strode off to the barn after his team, leaving her with a fierce hate in

to make up in some way for her previous harshness. The ferocity of her husband had shown up her own petulant

awful feeling at her heart as she sat there and the house grew quiet. She thought of suicide in a vague way; of somehow taking her children

ws left unmilked, and listened to them stirring uneasily in the yard. She rose, at last, and stole forth. She could not rid herself of the thought that th

n to stop and rest them, while the tears fell unheeded into the pail. She saw and felt little of the external as she sat there. She thought in vague retrospect of how sweet i

tall, strong girl, attractive with health and hope, could be the same soul as the woman who now sat in utter

o had fine houses of four or five rooms. Even the neighbors were better off than she, for they didn't have such quarrels. Bu

there, she put on a pair of horrible shoes, without stockings, and crept stealthily into the house. Sim did not hear her as she slipped up the stairs to

ut off his head as acknowledged himself in the wrong. As he wen

he creaking bed. "Do as y' damn please about it. If y' want to sulk y' can." And in such wise the f