ll in water alike, an' most on 'em gits fat an' smooth, but this one
stays small an' shriveled up. There's no accountin' fer ther
difference."

Nannie turned and walked toward the house. She was restless and felt
at a loss to know what to do with herself. Since her caper in the
garden Steve had left her absolutely to her own way, and she had
found, as folks will soon or late, that nothing could be more dreary.
She finally started over to see her cousins, the Misfits, but on her
way thither she had occasion to pass the house of some plain folk by
the name of Meader, and she suddenly decided to go in there. It was
the same house from which Steve had heard that anguished wail, and
when Nannie entered, shortly after Steve had passed on, she found Mrs.
Meader weeping bitterly. The woman was so far gone in misery that she
did not resent Nannie's entrance or her question.

"What is the matter?"

"Oh, I can't stand it no longer. He don't give me nothin' to git
anything with, an' we can't live on nothin'. Whenever he gits mad he
plagues me by keepin' everything out o' my han's, an' he won't answer
when I ask him fer anything. I'd like to know if a woman an' five
children kin live without money! Before I was married I used to earn
some. I had enough to live on, but now, what with the cookin', an'
washin' an' nussin' all these babies, I ain't no time ter earn a
livin'!"

"I should say you _were_ earning it! You earn more than he does!"
exclaimed Nannie hotly.

"He don't look at it that way," sobbed the woman. "He's ferever makin'
me feel so beholten ter him fer every penny an' ter-day when I needed
some money awful fer tea an' I went ter his pocket an' got it, he went
on so afore ther children it seems like I can't never look them in
ther face agin. He said--he said"--she stammered amid her sobs--"thet
I was a thief--a low-down common thief--that's what he said, and the
children heard him."

Nannie rose from her chair with clinched hands and a flaming face.

"Where is he?" she asked under her breath.

"He's gone ter ther grocery. He ain't working ter-day. He said he'd
'tend ter the spendin' of the money. I couldn't be trusted with it. He
said thet, he did, afore the children."

And she broke down again.

Just then the man himself came walking in.

"What's up now?" he asked when he saw Nannie's face.

"You are!" she blazed, "and you're a contemptible brute!"

His face flushed. He looked both ashamed and angry, but