thlessly up the stairs, carrying a hamper basket full of
jars, her hands and face streaked with black.

"Well, I should say it is dusty!" Ralph snorted. "You might clean
your fruit closet once in awhile, you know, Mahailey. You ought
to see how Mrs. Dawson keeps hers. Now, let's see." He sorted the
jars on the table. "Take back the grape jelly. If there's
anything I hate, it's grape jelly. I know you have lots of it,
but you can't work it off on me. And when you come up, don't
forget the pickled peaches. I told you particularly, the pickled
peaches!"

"We ain't got no pickled peaches." Mahailey stood by the cellar
door, holding a corner of her apron up to her chin, with a queer,
animal look of stubbornness in her face.

"No pickled peaches? What nonsense, Mahailey! I saw you making
them here, only a few weeks ago."

"I know you did, Mr. Ralph, but they ain't none now. I didn't
have no luck with my peaches this year. I must 'a' let the air
git at 'em. They all worked on me, an' I had to throw 'em out."

Ralph was thoroughly annoyed. "I never heard of such a thing,
Mahailey! You get more careless every year. Think of wasting all
that fruit and sugar! Does mother know?"

Mahailey's low brow clouded. "I reckon she does. I don't wase
your mudder's sugar. I never did wase nothin'," she muttered. Her
speech became queerer than ever when she was angry.

Ralph dashed down the cellar stairs, lit a lantern, and searched
the fruit closet. Sure enough, there were no pickled peaches.
When he came back and began packing his fruit, Mahailey stood
watching him with a furtive expression, very much like the look
that is in a chained coyote's eyes when a boy is showing him off
to visitors and saying he wouldn't run away if he could.

"Go on with your work," Ralph snapped. "Don't stand there
watching me!"

That evening Claude was sitting on the windmill platform, down by
the barn, after a hard day's work ploughing for winter wheat. He
was solacing himself with his pipe. No matter how much she loved
him, or how sorry she felt for him, his mother could never bring
herself to tell him he might smoke in the house. Lights were
shining from the upstairs rooms on the hill, and through the open
windows sounded the singing snarl of a phonograph. A figure came
stealing down the path. He knew by her low, padding step that it
was Mahailey, with her apron thrown over her head. She came up to
him and touched him on the shoulder in a way whic