the chair snapped. It sounded like Grandma Twilly's knees snapping as
they did whenever she stooped over to pull the wings off a fly. She was
a mean old thing. Her knuckles were grimy and she chewed crumbs that
she found in the bottom of her reticule. You would have hated her. She
hated herself. But most of all she hated Grandfather Twilly.

"I certainly hope you're frying good," she muttered as she looked up at
his picture.

"Hasn't the undertaker come yet, Ma?" asked young Mrs. Wilbur Twilly
petulantly. She was boiling water on the oil-heater and every now and
again would spill a little of the steaming liquid on the baby who was
playing on the floor. She hated the baby because it looked like her
father. The hot water raised little white blisters on the baby's red
neck and Mabel Twilly felt short, sharp twinges of pleasure at the
sight. It was the only pleasure she had had for four months.

"Why don't you kill yourself, Ma?" she continued. "You're only in the
way here and you know it. It's just because you're a mean old woman and
want to make trouble for us that you hang on."

Grandma Twilly shot a dirty look at her daughter-in-law. She had always
hated her. Stringy hair, Mabel had. Dank, stringy hair. Grandma Twilly
thought how it would look hanging at an Indian's belt. But all that she
did was to place her tongue against her two front teeth and make a noise
like the bath-room faucet.

Wilbur Twilly was reading the paper by the oil lamp. Wilbur had watery
blue eyes and cigar ashes all over his knees. The third and fourth
buttons of his vest were undone. It was too hideous.

He was conscious of his family seated in chairs about him. His mother,
chewing crumbs. His wife Mabel, with her stringy hair, reading. His
sister Bernice, with projecting front teeth, who sat thinking of the man
who came every day to take away the waste paper. Bernice was wondering
how long it would be before her family would discover that she had been
married to this man for three years.

How Wilbur hated them all. It didn't seem as if he could stand it any
longer. He wanted to scream and stick pins into every one of them and
then rush out and see the girl who worked in his office snapping
rubber-bands all day. He hated her too, but she wore side-combs.

PART 2

The street was covered with slimy mud. It oozed out from under Bernice's
rubbers in unpleasant bubbles until it seemed to her as if she must kill
herself. Hot air coming out f