ck
to anyone, to Dave least of all, for she worshipped the very ground he
walked on, and married him against all our wishes. She thought she
could reform him!"

She said it sadly, but without bitterness.

"Was he good to her?" I asked. People draw near together in the stormy
dark of a winter's morning, and the thought of Annie in her narrow box
ahead robbed my question of any rudeness.

"He was good to her in his own way," Annie's mother said, trying to be
quite just, "but it was a rough way. She had a fine, big, brick house
to live in--it was a grand house, but it was a lonely house. He often
went away and stayed for weeks, and her not knowing where he was or how
he would come home. He worried her always. The doctor said that was
part of her trouble--he worried her too much."

"Did he ever try to stop drinking?" I asked. I wanted to think better
of him if I could.

"Yes, he did; he was sober once for nearly a year, and Annie's health
was better than it had been for years, but the crowd around the hotel
there in Rose Valley got after him every chance, and one Christmas Day
they got him going again. Annie never could bear to mention about him
drinkin' to anyone, not even me--it would ha' been easier on her if she
could ha' talked about it, but she wasn't one of the talkin' kind."

We sat in silence, listening to the pounding of the rails.

"Everybody was kind to her in Rochester," she said, after a while.
"When we were sitting there waitin' our turn--you know how the sick
people wait there in two long rows, waitin' to be taken in to the
consultin' room, don't you? Well, when we were sittin' there Annie was
sufferin' pretty bad, and we were still a long way from the top of the
line. Dr. Judd was takin' them off as fast as he could, and the
ambulances were drivin' off every few minutes, takin' them away to the
hospital after the doctors had decided what was wrong with them. Some
of them didn't need to go to the hospital at all--they're the best off,
I think. We got talkin' to the people around us--they are there from
all over the country, with all kinds of diseases, poor people. Well,
there was a man from Kansas City who had been waitin' a week, but had
got up now second to the end, and I noticed him lookin' at Annie. I was
fannin' her and tryin' to keep her cheered up. Her face was a bad color
from the pain she was in, and what did this man do but git up and come
down to us and tell Annie that she could have his p