nd felt little of the external as
she sat there. She thought in vague retrospect of how sweet it seemed
the first time Sim came to see her; of the many rides to town with him
when he was an accepted lover; of the few things he had given her--a
coral breastpin and a ring.

She felt no shame at her present miserable appearance; she was past
personal pride. She hardly felt as if the tall, strong girl, attractive
with health and hope, could be the same soul as the woman who now sat in
utter despair listening to the heavy breathing of the happy cows,
grateful for the relief from their burden of milk.

She contrasted her lot with that of two or three women that she knew
(not a very high standard), who kept hired help, and who had fine houses
of four or five rooms. Even the neighbors were better off than she, for
they didn't have such quarrels. But she wasn't to blame--Sim
didn't--Then her mind changed to a dull resentment against "things."
Everything seemed against her.

She rose at last and carried her second load of milk to the well,
strained it, washed out the pails, and, after bathing her tired feet in
a tub that stood there, she put on a pair of horrible shoes, without
stockings, and crept stealthily into the house. Sim did not hear her as
she slipped up the stairs to the little low unfinished chamber beside
her oldest children. She could not bear to sleep near _him_ that
night,--she wanted a chance to sob herself to quiet.

As for Sim, he was a little disturbed, but would as soon have cut off
his head as acknowledged himself in the wrong. As he went to bed, and
found her still away, he yelled up the stairway:--

"Say, old woman, ain't ye comin' to bed?" Upon receiving no answer he
rolled his aching body into the creaking bed. "Do as y' damn please
about it. If y' want to sulk y' can." And in such wise the family grew
quiet in sleep, while the moist, warm air pulsed with the ceaseless
chime of the crickets.

II

When Sim Burns woke the next morning he felt a sharper twinge of
remorse. It was not a broad or well-defined feeling--just a sense that
he had been unduly irritable, not that on the whole he was not in the
right. Little Pet lay with the warm June sunshine filling his baby eyes,
curiously content in striking at flies that buzzed around his little
mouth.

The man thrust his dirty, naked feet into his huge boots, and, without
washing his face or combing his hair, went out to the barn to do his
chores.