Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-26

of her LoUe made her successful.
CHAPTER I
TN SPARTAN, which lies like pic.
l. ture puzzle between the tawny corn
fields and the smutty coalfields o.
Illinois. the rain crow flies when au
tumn threatens, croaking of wet day
and chest protectors, of nights fillet
with the commotion of wind and leaves
| Topped wetly against window -panes
like boneless hands tapping.
Then, and oh, so surely, come the
melancholy days themselves, and every
body's picket fenced in garden turns
to mud, with pull TO it, suck
| over the plank sidewalks. Wagon wheels
slither along the unmade streets as il
cutting through cold grease. Children
rejoicing in double session, bob home
ward an hour earlier beneath their
enyeloping umbrellas like procession
of low mushrooms.
| Factory hands, their homes in the
very gigantic shadow of the Welling
ton Lowney Consolidated Wire Works
| carry with them grotesque newspaper
packs of lunch against u MONDAY and
rain driven return home. On such days
the Wellington Lowney Consolidated
Wire Works provides each of its five
hundred employees a tin of hot coffee and
a five minute period to drink it.
The box shaped houses of Spartan
gray as old wimples, drip rheumy tears
from tin cutters. All of an expression,
with their second story windows set
fat, like frogs eyes, the square parlor
window with the shade drawn and the
slanting bit of roof over the small front
door. Much in effect these houses drip
ping, as if statue done in the man =
ner the Greeks loved to chisel them. with
eyes not marred by pupils or irises.
should suddenly and without change of
expression thaw to tears.
Before Steven Kineady's square =
faced house the garden lay beaten into
the mud, buried half alive. A row of
geraniums with brown bruised heads
died as they waited for their usual
transplanting to tin can and kitchen
window sill.
Within that kitchen, the rain hard as
sleet against the window pane, and be-
side the range wool shawl and pair
of woman's ovcrshoes exuding, Annie
Kineady, her hair the color of red Goals,
disheveled in her black thick stuff dress
and her large white hands clasped at the
back of her neck, lay low in her rocker
beside the range, face upturned to the
squat ceiling and a rain of tears slash
ing it.
eff only was laying out next to my
baby, Liddy. If l only was.'
Opposite her, erect in sawed
off chair, Liddy Kineady swallowed
through so tight a throat that cords
sprang out in her long fieshless neck.
cts sin before the Lord that wife
should take on so, Annie Beasley
Kineady. A sin before the Lord, and
he could strike you down for it"
At that Annie Kineady leaned for
ward in her chair, wet lips parted and
her bosom, high as Juno's. rising.
Then why don't He, Liddy? Why
don't He?"
Girl, girl, it's afraid ] am even to
listen to you, for fear you'll be struck
down before my eyes y And she with
drew. shuddering, to the stove side.
why don't He?'' What l got left?
What?'
"Ain't you got your husband? Your
big likely husband, girl? What in the
good Lords name has got you? Come
what will, he's your husband ~
eyes, I.iddy, but
You that's been the one all these
three weeks to comfort him and keep
him away from the terrible blues that
gets him when he comes home nights,
all of sudden to turn like--Iike this,
Annie"
"Yeh, to comfort him. To-comfort
him. Bah"
Liddy Kineady fell to fumbling deep
in a region of her black petticoat for
her handkerchief, blinking back the
oozing tears, and while she fumbled
her streaming gaze fixed on nothing in
particular between the range and the