The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1922-02-11

puzzle between the taWny cOrntieldS
| and the smutty coalfields Of Illinois.
the rain-crow flies low when autumn
threatens, croaking of wet days and
chest protectors. of nights filed with
the comm0tion of wind and leaves iop-
ped wetly against windowpanes like
homeless hands tapping.
Then, and Oh, 50 surely, come the
! melancholy days themselves. and
everybody's picket-fenced-in garden
turns 10 mud with a pull to il, suck
ing in overshoes and oozing up slip
perily over the plank sidewalks.
| Wagon wheels slither along the I'M
made streets as if cutting through
double-Session, bob homeward an hour
! .;r!ier beneath their enveloping um-
! br"lIas like procession of low mush-
| rooms
/ Factory hands. their homes in the
very gigantic shadow of the Yelling
tOn-Lowney Consolidated Wire Works.
/ carry with them grotesque newspaper
/ packs of lunch against MONDAY and
| rain-driven return home. On such days
the WelIington-Lowney Consolidated
| Wire Works provides each of its five
hundred employees tin of hot coffee
/ and a five-minute period 70 drink If.
| The box-shaped houses of Spartan.
| gray as old wimples, drip rheumy
| tears from tin cutters. All of All ok
| 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. Much in
effect these houses dripping, as if
statue done in the manner the Greeks
! loved to chisel them, with eyes not
marred by pupils or irises, should sud
| denly and without change of express
sion thaw to tears.
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
died as they waited for their usual
! transplanting to tin can and kitchen
| window-sill.
Within that kitchen, the rain hard
as sleet against the windowpane, and
! beside the range a 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 range,
face upturned to the squat ceiling and
| rain IF foorS aIn ehinu
IF only was laying out next to
my baby, Liddy. II only was
Opposite her, erect in q sawed off
chair, Liddy Kineady swallowed
through 80 tight a throat that cords
sprang out In her long heshless neck.
Its a sin before the Lord that a
wife should take on so, Annie Beasley
Kineady-a sin before the Lord, and
he could strike you down for IT,"
At that Annie Kineady leaned for
ward in her chair, wet lips parted and
her bosom, high as Juno's, rising.
Then why don't He. Liddy7 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 eyesw And she with
drew, shuddering, to the stove side.
"Why don't Hel what l got lefti
WhatT
Amt you got your husband? Your
big, likely husband. girl? What In the
good Lords name has got your Come
what Will. he's your husbandi
Yes, Liddy, 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 a sudden TO turn like-like this,
Annie"
"Yeh. to comfort him. To-comfort
him. BAH
Liddy Kineady fell to fumbling deep
in a region of her black petticoat for
oozing tears. and while she fumbled
her streaming gaze fixed ON nothing
1 II particular between the range and
the indoor cistern. Rain battered like
repper shot.
To think I'm sitting here in my
.,rother's own house listening to his
own wife only five years after"
Five years"
Yes. Annie BeasIey Kineady, five
wears 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
Five years. and You knew what yor
was doing AMI Dragged about it. H
wasn't saint, but he wasn't devil
neither. and it is more'n you can eX
pect of any man he should be morn
middlin'"
.Oh. Lfddy. what does mans sis
ter know about"
Sister! Didn't / raise him like &
! mother? Raised that boy. mctherin
him when | was SO young | myself
needed a mother almost as bad as h
did
II know. Liddy. know"
Raised him like my own. You cal
! remember yourself when you was kid
together back in your own mother
time, that there wasn't a boy in Spar
tan, from the Lowneys down, was
starchier of a Sunday than Stevey
Or"