Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1922-06-08

1
he was loving me too with every kiss
he gave the child. Lovin me for bein'
/ its mother i never cared bit, Liddy,
! when he came home evenings, you
know how big and clean he can look"
Wasn't it town talk when he was
| boy how May Wellington used to drive
past our house every evening in her
swell phaeton just for glimpse of him
in the yard?''
"Her and her long nosel With all
/ her money, Steve couldn't see past
| that"
"Just the same, you wasn't the only
one could have married above you,
Annie"
II never used to care, Liddy, / tell
you, when he used to come home eve
ming after evening and kiss the child
a dozen times before he even seen me
standing by and waiting for mine.
never cared, Liddy. SO long as night
after night he walked home big and
strong and steady, and my baby could
look right down into his daddy's eyes
like they was cisterns and see to the
bottom of 'em. AS long as his eyes
wasn't thick like water with mud
stirred up. II knew, Liddy, didn't
have nothing to be afraid Of"
81 know that look, Annie. When he
lived at home / always used to say
his eyes was like cistern water"
"As long as / seen that look Liddy,
didn't care about nothing except l
/ II, yel1 ot hn
and baby. Two babies, Liddy, because
those three years it was hard telling
which l had to baby most, Big Steve
or Little Steve, Liddy. Two babies
had"
Hes good boy in the bone, Annie.
God knows he is. It's that crowd Of
mechanics used to come over here from,
Granite City the year before he mar
ried woke up his taste for it."
"Oh, we were happy all right, Liddy,
them three years. Him, too, Liddy,
him that wanted three or four of 'em
didn't even care when there could
never be another. All that he wanted
was wrapped up right In our one; just
that one child was his whole life
Liddy, and now, oh, my Cod"
.'Everything's for the best. Annie
: His coming home these few nights
don't mean nothing; it's the baby gone
that"
ITO think that three weeks age he
! was playing right here on this kitchen
| floor while I was putting new collar
. bands on his daddy's shirts and tryin'
. to learn him new little trick to toddle
, to the door and holler to his poppa
, when he heard him coming around the
: side yard, Giddy-app, Daddy-gidd-'"
Annie, Annie"
ale never learned it, Liddy. 1t was
, next day, a Wednesday, when all of a
; sudden he quit playing and laid down
sick-like next to his blocks, his little
curlS-curls-"
l "HiS-his little yellow curls-how
, he did used to holler when dis old maid
: aunt corkscrewed 'em!"
"And only that morning, Liddy, God
forgive me, 1 had slapped his little
hands, soft like, for grabbing at my
needle when 1 sewed snag In the little
, sailor blouse his pap bought for him.
! Oh, my God, Liddy, what l got left?
. And TO think slapped his-little-
hands,"
) And they wept, these two, crumpled
forward In their chairs and the strings
t of Renaissance plucked and quiyering.
) Last night, Liddy, after he got home
: from the Works, and an hour late at
{ that, he sat right down in the chair
t you're sitting la, Liddy, while l was
) fixin' his superior know the way
i, he sits and stares and sits and stares
, when-when--"
"II-know, Annie"
| "Got to talking to himself, Liddy,
: about that time year ago / went to
( st. Louis to visit Lucy Beasley when
/ her old man died and they was threat
i ening to sell out her rooming house on
her.
. "He himself was the one wanted you
! to go; said body should 60 to her
, own relations funeral, even IL he was
ne'er-do-well and seventy mile away"
"Yes, yes, that's just 1t. But last
night and the night before, Liddy, he
kept mumbling and throwing 1t up to
me that THAT / was the one let him
!. get the meningitis. and all Me, Liddy,
/ was the onei"
"Annie!"
eyes, like he don't remember how
the child slept that one night I was
gone all tucked up In your bed, and
how we laughed when you said your
self how you couldn't sleep for keep
ing him covered and watching his lit
tie curls all spread out over the pill
low the way his daddy liked EN-"
] you mustn't pay attention to Steve,
Annie, when he gets to talking that
away. tell you just drop makes
| silly out Of him. Just dropw
II tell you, Liddy, it's killing mel
Poisoning mel / can't stand hearing
II. II won't. It's the same as If he
,