band.

"Seein' you love your sister so much better than your wife, why did you
want to marry me, that's borne your children for you, an' slaved for
you, an' toiled for you, an' worked her fingernails off for you, with
no thanks, an 'insultin' me before the children, an' sayin' I'm crazy
to their faces. An' what have you ever did for me? That's what I want to
know--me, that's cooked for you, an' washed your stinkin' clothes,
and fixed your socks, an' sat up nights with your brats when they was
ailin'. Look at that!"

She thrust out a shapeless, swollen foot, encased in a monstrous,
untended shoe, the dry, raw leather of which showed white on the edges
of bulging cracks.

"Look at that! That's what I say. Look at that!" Her voice was
persistently rising and at the same time growing throaty. "The only
shoes I got. Me. Your wife. Ain't you ashamed? Where are my three pairs?
Look at that stockin'."

Speech failed her, and she sat down suddenly on a chair at the table,
glaring unutterable malevolence and misery. She arose with the abrupt
stiffness of an automaton, poured herself a cup of cold coffee, and
in the same jerky way sat down again. As if too hot for her lips,
she filled her saucer with the greasy-looking, nondescript fluid, and
continued her set glare, her breast rising and falling with staccato,
mechanical movement.

"Now, Sarah, be c'am, be c'am," Tom pleaded anxiously.

In response, slowly, with utmost deliberation, as if the destiny of
empires rested on the certitude of her act, she turned the saucer of
coffee upside down on the table. She lifted her right hand, slowly,
hugely, and in the same slow, huge way landed the open palm with a
sounding slap on Tom's astounded cheek. Immediately thereafter she
raised her voice in the shrill, hoarse, monotonous madness of hysteria,
sat down on the floor, and rocked back and forth in the throes of an
abysmal grief.

Willie's silent weeping turned to noise, and the two little girls, with
the fresh ribbons in their hair, joined him. Tom's face was drawn and
white, though the smitten cheek still blazed, and Saxon wanted to put
her arms comfortingly around him, yet dared not. He bent over his wife.

"Sarah, you ain't feelin' well. Let me put you to bed, and I'll finish
tidying up."

"Don't touch me!--don't touch me!" she screamed, jerking violently away
from him.

"Take the children out in the yard, Tom, for a walk, anything--get them
away," Saxon said. She was s