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

| indoor cistern. Rain battered like pep
per shot.
"To think I'm sitting here in my
brothers s own house listening to his own
wife only five years after.
Five years "
"Yes. Annie Beasley Kineady, five
years since that April morning you
stood up with him in the back parlor
of your millinery shop and was married
TO him. "
"God, five years!'
"Five years, and you knew what you
was doing and Dragged about it. lie
wasn't a saint, but he wasn't devil
neither, and it is more'n you can ex
pect of any man he should be more n
middlin'."
"Oh, Liddy. what does mans sister
know about"
"Sister! Didn't I raise him like q
mother? Raised that boy, motherin'
him when l was so young j myself
needed mother almost as bad as he
did"
II know. Liddy. ] know"
Raised him like my own. You can
remember yourself when you was kids
together back in your own mother's s
/ time, that there wasn't boy in Spar
. tan, from the Lowneys down, was
starchier of a Sunday than Stevey,
, Or
Eyes, yes, Liddy.'
RAISED him and fed him by plating
wire nettings when | ought to been
playing dolls, tryin' and slavin' to keep
that boy out of the Shelter Home. Don't
tell me a sister don't know"
"Liddy, Liddy, Steve amt forgot all
you done for him"
1T amt that! He's paid it back a
thousand times, working himself up to
assistant foreman at the works, and
as good a brother as comes and all but
don't say don't know him, Annie, any
body that's nursed boy from measles
to marriage like / have him.
But Liddy--'
That why l know what I'm talking
about when l say he amt drunkard
in the bones, Steve amt. His father
before him went through few bad years
Just like Steve, and after his pledge
lived in temperance till he died in old
age. II amt in his bones, Annie; it's
only tickling in the palate
That what ] thought, Liddy, those
three years while his breath was as
sweet as our baby's, but"
ITS the pledge that'll do the work
now Annie
i1e--he won listen
Hes a God fearing man, Annie, like
his father before him. If you can only
get him TO take the pledge, now that
he feels himself slippin back. II you
only cam"
"Oh, God. nothing counts.
'Shh h. ] tell you it's just the hole
in his heart that drove him home that
way last night"
And don't forget the night before,
and the night before that! Three run
min nights"
ITS drop to warm him, Annie. be-
fore he comes home these first nights
to find his little one not here. Just
drop to warm him.,
And what about me? What about
me- DO | need drop to warm me for
sitting here day in and day out, my
baby gone? Do I?''
1T was always sin before the Lord,
j used to say, man should crowd the
whole world out of his heart over
child, and his being taken this way
proves it. 1t was a sin before the Lord
how he banked on that child, running
1t with too much love. No good can
come of it, always said, and it's hard
TO live to see the day how right I was"
Ihere-therc just never was father
and baby like them together. Liddy.
You know for yourself there just-nevcr
--was!"
Now, now, dearie! -
1T $ one drop too much can send
Steve off, Annie. Two glasses make
him silly where another can carry six.
and you know it. Steve never got rough
from it in his life; I've seen him silly,
but"
I'D rather he came home beating me
than-than the silly way he does when
he's-that way. God, when he-gets |
silly :"
"But-''
81 tell you it's his Stiffness. Liddy. |
and the way he gets talking to himself !,