different, you see, from all I've been
accustomed to."

"Yes," Marsh answered grimly, "I've no doubt it is. Go ahead, Sally, and
tell them about it."

And Sally did. Gladly taking her husband's aggressive tone, she started
out almost with a sneer. Her remarks at first were disjointed and brief,
but I told her I was writing the story of her husband's life, that I
wanted her side of it from the start. I promised to show her what I
wrote and let her cut anything she had told me if she did not want it in
print. And so in scattered incidents, with bits thrown in now and then
by Marsh, the lives of these two began to come out. And we understood
her bitterness.

* * * * *

"Mr. Marsh was born," she said, "in one of the poorest little towns in
Southern Iowa. It was nothing but a hole of a place about six miles from
the county seat where my father was a lawyer. But even in that little
hole his family was the poorest there. I've been all over the States
since then, and I've seen poor people, the Lord knows--but I want to say
I've never seen people anywhere that were any worse off than my husband
was when he was a boy. And yet he got out of it all by himself. He
didn't need any strikes to help him."

"But of course," Sue put in smoothly, "your husband was an exceptional
man." Mrs. Marsh threw her a bitter glance.

"He might have been," she answered.

"What was he like as a boy?" I asked.

"A fighter," she said. For a moment her sharp voice grew proud. "His
father took diabetes and died, and they went into debt to bury him. Jim
helped his mother run the farm and missed half his schooling. But his
teacher loaned him text-books--and at home they had no candles, so he
used to work with his back to the fire--half the night. My father used
to call him a regular little Honest Abe. That's a surprise to you, isn't
it," she added with a hard little laugh.

"But then the town had a sudden boom. A new branch of the railroad came
through that way and houses and stores went up over night. Jim was only
sixteen then, but he grabbed the chance to get into the building. In
less than a year he had earned enough money so he could quit and go to
school. He came over to high school in our town, walking his six miles
twice a day. And that's where I met him.

"My father took a shine to him right off and promised to make him a
lawyer. He loaned him law books the first year, and the second Jim
worked in his offic