Evening star., 1920-11-28

ture puzzle between the tawny
cornfields and the smutty coal
fields Of Illinois, the raincrow
flies low when autumn threatens,
croaking Of wet days and chest pro-
tectors. Of nights filled with the COM
motion of wind and leaves Topped
wetly against windowpanes like bone
less hands tapping.
Then, and oh. SO surely. come the
melancholy days themselves. and
everybody's picket-fenced-in garden
turns to mud with a pull to it, suck
ing in overshoes and oozing up slip
perily over the plank sidewalks.
Factory hands. their homes in the
very gigantic shadow of the yelling
ton-Lowney Consolidated Wire Works,
carry with them grotesaue newspaper
packs Of lunch against a MONDAY and
rain driven return home. On such
days the wellington Lowney Consoli-
dated Wire Works provides each Of its
five hundred employees a tin of hot
coffee and a five-minute period to
drink 1t.
The box-shaped houses of Spartan.
gray as old wimpies, drip rheumy
tears from tin CUTTERS. All OF an eX-
preston. with their second-story win
dows set fiat. like frogs eyes. the
square parlor window with the shade
drawn and the slanting bit of roof
over the small front door.
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
transplanting to tin can and kitchen
window sill.
Within that kitchen. the rain hard
as sleet against the windowpane. and
beside the range wool shawl and a
pair OF woman's overshoes 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
telling and a rain Of tears slashing it.
IF only I was laying out next to my
baby. Liddy. If I only wasr'
Opposite her, erect in a sawed-off
Chair. Liddy Kineady swallowed
through so tight q throat that cords
sprang out in her long neshless neck
IT'S a sin before the Lord that
Eife should take on 30. Annie Beasley
kineady. sin before the Lord. and
he could strike you down for it,"
A T that Annie Kineady leaned for
ward in her chair. wet lips parted
and her Dosom. high as Juno's, rising.
Then why don't he, Liddy? Why
don't hep
Girl. girl. it's afraid am even to
listen to you. for fear you'll be struck
down before my eyes," And she with
drew. shuddering. to the stoveside.
why don't he?" What I got left?
what?'
"Ain't you got your husband? Your
big. likely husband. girl? What has
got you? Come what will, he's your
husband"
Yes. Liddy, but
You that's been the one all these
three weeks to comfort him and keep
him away from the terrible blues that
all Of a sudden to turn lIke-like this.
Annie"
"Yeh. to comfort him To-eomfort'
him. BAH"
Liddy Kineady fell to fumbling deep
in q region Of her black petticoat for
her handkerchief. blinking back the
DOSING tears. and while she fumbled
her streaming case fixed on nothing
In particular between the range and
the indoor cistern. Rain battered like
pepper shot.
TO think I'm sitting here in my
brothers own house listening to his
own wife only five years after"
''Five yearsr'
''Yss, Annie Beasley Kineady, nve
years since that April morning you
stood up with him in the hack parlor
q your millinery shop and was mar
Rae1 to him.
'frive years. and you knew what you
was doing and Dragged about 1t. He
wasn't q saint. but he wasn't q devil
neither. and 1t 10 more'n you can ex-
pect Of any man he should be more'n
middlin'."
"oh. Hddy. what does . mans sis
ter know about -"
Sister! Didn't raise him like a
mother? Raised that boy, motherin'
needed . mother almost as bad ~ he
did"
Il know. Liddy. know"
Raised him like my own. You can
remember yourself when you was
kids together back In your own moth
er's time. that there wasn't . boy in
Spartan, from the Lowneys down. was
starchier Of Sunday than Sevey,
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 o sister don't know"
'Liddy. Liddy. Steve amt forgot all
you done for him."
att ain't that! He's paid it back a
thousand times. working himself up
to assistant foreman at the works.
and a. good . brother ~ comes and
all, but don't say ] don't know him.
Annie, anybody that's nursed q boy
from measles to marriage like I have
him."
But, Liddy-
that's Why I know what Tn talk
Ing about when I say he amt q
drunkard In the bones. Steve ain't.
His father before him went through
. few bad years just like Steve. and
till he died in old age. It amt in his
bones. Annie. It's only q tickling in
the palate"
That's what thought. Liddy. those
three years-
~1t's the pledge that'n do the work
now. Annie"
"He-he won't listen"
Hes a God-fearing mas>> Annie, like
his father before him. II you can only
get him to take the iiedge. now that
he feels himself slippin' back. II you
only cam"
'IOh. nothing counts"
'Shh-h! I 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
It's q drop to warm him. Annie. be-
.ore he comes home these first nights
to find his little one not here. Just
a drop to warm him"
And what about me? What about