.

She stared at the ancient dusty suitcase on the porch and said, "Come
up from Texas, have you?"

"There's no jobs lef for a man seventy-six years of age, Myrtle,
except dyin.' I run a saloon in San Antonio by the Plaza. Walked from
Greenville, Mississippi, to Little Rock. An old lady give me carfare,
there, when I told her I was goin' home to my wife that I'd treated so
bad. There's plenty Christians in Arkansaw. And they've pulled down
the old Presbyterian church your mamma and I was married in."

"Yes; last year. Sadie, take Mr. Packer's bag up to the spare room.
Stop cryin', Papa."

She spoke against her will. She could not let him sit on the floor
sobbing any longer. His gleaming head afflicted her. She had a queer
emotion. This seemed most unreal. The gray hall wavered like a
flashing view in a film.

"The barn'd be a fitter place for me, daughter. I've been a----"

"That's all right, Papa. You better go up and lie down, and Sadie'll
fetch you up some lunch."

His hand was warm and lax. Mrs. Egg fumbled with it for a moment and
let it fall. He passed up the stairs, drooping his head. Mrs. Egg
heard the cook's sympathy explode above and leaned on the wall and
thought of Adam coming home Wednesday night. She had told him a
thousand times that he mustn't gamble or mistreat women or chew
tobacco "like your Grandfather Packer did." And here was Grandfather
Packer, ready to welcome Adam home!

The farmhand strolled off, outside, taking the seed of this news. It
would be in town directly.

"Oh, Dammy," she said, "and I wanted everything nice for you!"

In the still hall her one sob sounded like a shout. Mrs. Egg marched
back to the dining room and drank a full glass of milk to calm
herself.

"Says he can't eat nothin', Mis' Egg," the cook reported, "but he'd
like a cup of tea. It's real pitiful. He's sayin' the Twenty-third
Psalm to himself. Wasted to a shadder. Asked if Mr. Egg was as
Christian an' forbearin' as you. Mebbe he could eat some buttered
toast."

"Try and see, Sadie; and don't bother me. I got to think."

She thought steadily, eating cold rice with cream and apple jelly. Her
memory of Packer was slim. He had spanked her for spilling ink on his
diary. He had been a carpenter. His brothers were all dead. He had run
off with a handsome Swedish servant girl in 1882, leaving her mother
to sew for a living. What would the county say? Mrs. Egg writhed and
recoiled from duty. Perhaps she would ge