The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-01-21
CuAPTER XIX

EARLY in April we still owed G the bank si50. our business had been picking up with spring, but the money had gone out as fast as it had come in. The roof had to be repaired. The tank had to have Q new lining. We had oil stopped talking about going home.
 My father worked very hard and even sent out monthly bills. My mothers smile grew more and more determined. Though they were very polite and very kind to each other, we sensed for the first time in our lives barrier between them.
 That barrier concerned Mir. Cut. ter. Right after my mother had found the oil stove empty, her att titud toward him had changed vislbly. She became quite sharp.
 "The spittoons, Mir. Cutter. You've forgotten to clean them"
 '"These chairs look very dusty"
 The telephonel Didn't you hear
 When there was pumping to be done, she herself went to get him. What was more, she stayed right in the kitchen while, with each hand wrapped in a handkerchief, he swayed listleSsly backward and forward, hardly moving the handle.
 One day she noticed that the ink well had disappeared from the desk in the office. At first she thought that one of the girls had taken 1t SN s.A4f~aNnI Nk
 We hadn't. We couldn't imagine. We would look.
 We searched everywhere.
 "A thing like that hasn't just dropped from sight" she said when we made our report.
 The paperweight did, Mama l reminded her.
 She began to look, too. We follow ed her from place to place. 'Tisn't there" "Tisnt there" At the end of 20 minutes she was ready to give up.
 Never mind" she said shortly. There's a bottle of ink up in the parlor. Get that"
 A TIER that she gave up prod-' n ding MT. Cutter and herself took over the work of the office, sweeping, dusting, winding the clock. No matter where she was when she heard it, she came run ming to answer the telephone. Once my father found her emptying spit toons. He looked miserable, but he didn't say anything. He was just as kind to MT. Cutter. Just as consid- crate.
 MT. Cutters maps heightened. His yawns became more frequent. Hi- Ho-Huml -Ho-Humm! Some times, coming out of a clear sky, they sounded fierce and frighten- ing. Now that no one reminded him, he never did bit of pumping.
 We could feel the barrier be- tween my father and my mother rising higher and higher.
 Things were building up in the kitchen, too. Mrs. Guptill complain ed constantly about Ada. Some days the girl don't even act likely" she declared. She's about as much good as a last years crows nest" !" SoAlC 4uSoCO, JO, aVOub bAAC cgOfC. Benjamin hadn't been able to change it, for he was away all day, hauling gravel for the road crew. Once in a while she would claim that she could catch the odor of kerosene.
 My mother never acknowledged this odor. All houses smelled of kerosene, she said, and would smell of it, too, just as long as there were lamps. But every now and then We would catch her snifing. Two or three times We came upon her in unexpected places.
 What are you doing, Mama?"
 "Oh, just looking for something"
 We might have been more curi- ous had not a really exciting event lain in the ofing.
 CINCE the beginning of the year O the newspapers had been print ing stories about a comet which would appear in May.
 As the time approached, the pa- pers began to remind us that com cts had often portended moment