The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1922-07-13
Copyright, 1870. by The Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.

1DzEIe between the tawny CornfieldS
a8d the smutty CoaltieldS of Illinois,
a}e rain-crow flies low when autumn
threatens, croaking of wet days and
chest protectors, of nights filled with
The commotion of wind and leaves flop
ped wetly against windowpanes like
homeless hands tapping
Then. and Oh, so surely, come the
melancholy days themselves, and
ssverybOdy'S piclletfenced-in garden
turns TO mud with a pull to it, suck
ing in overshoes and Oozing up Slip
Eerily over the plank sidewalks.
Wagon wheels Slither along the I'M
snzde streets as if cutting through
cold grease. Children, rejoicing in
-s1ouble-session, bob homeward an hour
earlier beneath their enveloping um-
bgellas like procession of low muSh-
rooms.
Factory hands, their homes in the
very gigantic shadow of the Yelling
SnA-LOwney Consolidated Wire Works,
carry with them grotesque newspaper
AhA1nS VI AhliNll bSuAIlol a llpOilhuS bhN
Sain-driven return home. On such days
sine WellingtOn-LOwney Consolidated
Wire Works provides each of its five
hundred employees tin of hot coffee
and a five-minute period to drink it.
The bOx-shaped houses of Spartan,
gray as old wimples, drip rheumy
sears from tin cutters. All of an ex-
preston, with their secOnd-story win
siOws set fiat, like frogs eyes, the
square parlOr window with the shade
drawn and the santing bit of roof
over the small front door. Much in
effect these houses dripping, as if
statue done in the manner the Greeks
loved to chiSel them, with eyes not
lnarred by pupils or irises, should sud
denly and without change of express
sion thaw to tears.
Before Steven Kineadys 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
rransplanting to tin can and kitchen
EIndOW-Sill.
Within that kitchen, the rain hard
as sleet against the windoWpane, and
beside the range a wool shawl and
pair of wOman's overshOes eXuding.
Annie Kineady, her hair the color Of
ned Goals, disheveled in her black
thick stuff dress and her large white
hands clasped at the back of her neck,
Jay low in her rocker beside the range,
z&ce upturned to the squat ceiling and
a rain of tears slashing it.
"If only l was laying out next to
asy baby, Liddy. If l only was"
Opposite her, erect in a sawed-off
chair, Liddy Kineady swallowed
through so tight throat that cords
-sprang out in her long fleshless neck.
TITS a sin before the Lord that a
wife should take on so, Annie Beasley
Kineady-a sin before the Lord, and
ne could strike you down for it,"
At that Annie Kineady leaned for
ward in her chair, wet lips parted and
ger bosom, high as Juno's, rising.
"Then why don't He, Liddy? Why
don't Hef"
"Girl, girl, it's afraid l am even to
listen to you, for fear you'll be struck
down before my eyes," And she with
drew, shuddering, to the stove side.
why don't He? What l got left?
WhatY'
Amt you got your husband? Your
big, likely husband, girl? What in the
good Lords name has got you? Come
what will, he's your husbandw
Yes, Llddy, but"
you that's been the one all these
three weeks to comfort him and keep
him away fr.n the terrible blues that
gets him when he comes home nights,
all of sudden to turn like-like this,
Annie"
~Yeh, to comfort him. To-comfort
him. Bah! ~
Liddy Kineady fell to fumblng 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 indoor clstern. 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 years"
ayes, Annie Beasey Klneady, five
years since that April morning you
stood up with him in the back parlor
of your millinery shop and was mar
ried to him"
God, five years.
give years, and you knew what you
was doing and Dragged about it, lie
wasn't saint, but he wasn't devil
Neither, and it is mOren you can ex-
pe:t of any man he should be morn
II. ddlin."
oil, L4ddy, what does a mans SIS
ter know about
''Slster! Didn't 1 raise him like
m"tneI Raised that boy, motherin
him when / was so young myself
seeded q mother almost as bad as he