nd for
seven days Mary goes mourning around wondering which one of her precious
chickens she can part with,--and live. We hear the virtues and the vices
of each old biddy, cause my wife loves each feather. The other day after
heart breakening talks Mary decided that Peggy could be killed, and a
motherly old hen who wanted to set should be tied up. We caught them at
night and put a blue string on Peggy, and a white string on the motherly
hen, and tied them to the ice-house door. Mary took an hour and a half
to explain to me that the chicken with the blue string was to be eaten,
and she of the white string was to be left tied to the ice-house door
until her longings toward motherhood would stop. In the morning when I
went out to see those chickens, blest if I could tell which was to be
killed, and which was not, but I thought I would take my chance on the
fattest, and I took her head off. I suppose you noticed Mary's eyes--it
was the wrong head."

Billy and the kid played out-doors all day and his face got sun burnt
and his eyes sparkled, and he looked just like another baby. Her boy is
only six months older than Billy, but he is so much bigger, and it just
makes me sick to think I can't give this to Billy and let him have a
chance to grow up big and strong like other boys. All the way in on the
train, I kinda cussed under my breath, to think I had to take him back
to that dirty little room, and the girls who were always talking to him
and feeding him things he orter not have, and him a hearing things that
perhaps he will remember when he grows up, and it may make him do a lot
of thinking by himself. I wish I could do something, but I don't know
what I can do. I feel helpless, as if my hands was tied down by my
sides, and I couldn't get them loose. Good-bye, I am kinda sore
to-night. Seems to me we got in wrong somewhere, Kate, and I don't know
where nor how. It ain't your fault, and it ain't mine, but it don't seem
to me we have had our chance like other women have. I saw a picture the
other day on a calendar. It was a happy looking woman dressed in a long
blue gown carrying a baby up a beautiful stairs with flowers everywhere,
and they were looking over her shoulder at the father down below. Now,
can you imagine anything nicer than that to be in a home of your own
with a pretty dress on, your baby in your arms, going to put it in its
bed and your husband looking up at you proud? Nothing to be ashamed of,
and nothing to