Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-28


and moving toward her between it and
the range.
"Steven 70
Heat and quick thawing had sent
his blood rushing to his head, enhanc-
ing his dizziness and flowing up over
his face.
"Steven!'
He veered sharply away from the
stove and toward her.
"Get my boy, dye hear? You get
him 1t was your foreign germs. Get
him, by God, Or"
"Steve!' -
He did not even complete the ges-
ture, but instead fell sobbing, with his
face buried in the back of the rocker
she had vacated; and even as she re-
coiled, with her great bronze head flung
hack from him and quivering with out
rage, as il the very withes of her were
unwrung, in spite of her, she yearned
toward him, her compassion flowing
over her like warm waters.
Steven " she cried, reaching out.
Get my boy, you get him.
Steven, you're crazy With
"Shut up" he shouted, raising his
thead from his arms and regarding her
through inflamed eyes. Shut up or get
out. Shut up! My boy Get my boy,
dye hear?" He rose and came crafty
toward her, with his head forward like
bull lunging.
With cry that rose somewhere from
the primordial depths of her, Annie
Kineady leaped backward from him.
| laid hold of by rage that sent the
blood darkly up into her face, overlay
ing her heavy white skin, creamlike in
its thickness, and on up into her hair,
where it poured back from her brow,
"You now, You, nowl" Springing
back, she held herself well away from
him. "No, you don't! No-you
don't! -
Her hat and wool coat dangled
from a peg, and, with a challenging
gaze which she did not once remove
from him, she slid into them. A strap
ped telescope, bulging like an old has
sock, stood by. She reached for it, edg-
ing along the wall and from him. She
was breathing so that even the side
of her which sagged to the consider
able weight of the telescope rose and
| fell in her travail.
you" she cried with her hand
finally on the knob and her hat fallen
half back from her great bronze bell
of head, "you crazy devil, you! Why
you don't even get drunk like a man.
You only blubber Now. Steve Kineady
stand and stare, you Crazy devil,
you. Shut up or get out? Eh? Shut
up or get out Well, then, crazy devil,
you watch Watch -
"Annie girl. Annie" and in the
face of the slammed door he fell for
ward, weeping weak tears into the
rocker seat.
Outside the rain came down like
pins, pecking and pricking. When
Annie Kineady, plunging through the
uudrained streets, reached the rail
road tracks, her skirts clung so that
she stopped for moment in the down
pour to wiring at her hens and the
flare Of her jacket.
The lights of the village burned
through the wall Of rain like the glazed
eyes of the dying, but in Spartan the
nights are long, and even as she walked
the tracks tie by tie, she could see
them blink out in the box shaped
houses, except in the glazier's, whose
wife lay low of typhoid pneumonia, and
in Abe Brodie's, made simple, poor soul,
by sunstroke, and who loved to count
far into the night imaginary ransoms
Of imaginary kings. Across the tracks
and in the hollow an unaccustomed
lamp in Liddy Kineady's side window
burned without flicker.
But Annie Kineady gathered her
strength and ran. A whistle rose off
the fatlands behind her. She ran
faster, her black skirts tapping about
her and wisp of black veil flying
back. AT the dim station, low and
squat as hut, the telegrapher raised
up regarding her from under his eye
shade.
'H'llo, Annie"
III 'llo, Joe."
"St. LOUISE"
CONTINUED TOMORROW