ned. The boys had gone to bed without washing their feet, which now
looked like toads, calloused, brown, and chapped.

Part of this the mother saw with her dull eyes as she came down, after
seeing the departure of Sim up the road with the cows. It was a
beautiful Sunday morning, and the woman might have sung like a bird if
men had been as kind to her as Nature. But she looked dully out upon the
seas of ripe grasses, tangled and flashing with dew, out of which the
bobolinks and larks sprang. The glorious winds brought her no melody, no
perfume, no respite from toil and care.

She thought of the children she saw in the town,--children of the
merchant and banker, clean as little dolls, the boys in knickerbocker
suits, the girls in dainty white dresses,--and a vengeful bitterness
sprang up in her heart. She soon put the dishes away, but felt too tired
and listless to do more.

"Taw-bay-wies! Pet want ta-aw-bay-wies!" cried the little one, tugging
at her dress.

Listlessly, mechanically she took him in her arms, and went out into the
garden, which was fragrant and sweet with dew and sun. After picking
some berries for him, she sat down on the grass under the row of
cottonwoods, and sank into a kind of lethargy. A kingbird chattered and
shrieked overhead, the grasshoppers buzzed in the grasses, strange
insects with ventriloquistic voices sang all about her--she could not
tell where.

"Ma, can't I put on my clean dress?" insisted Sadie.

"I don't care," said the brooding woman, darkly. "Leave me alone."

Oh, if she could only lie here forever, escaping all pain and weariness!
The wind sang in her ears; the great clouds, beautiful as heavenly
ships, floated far above in the vast, dazzling deeps of blue sky; the
birds rustled and chirped around her; leaping insects buzzed and
clattered in the grass and in the vines and bushes. The goodness and
glory of God was in the very air, the bitterness and oppression of man
in every line of her face.

But her quiet was broken by Sadie, who came leaping like a fawn down
through the grass.

"Oh, ma, Aunt Maria and Uncle William are coming. They've jest turned
in."

"I don't care if they be!" she answered in the same dully irritated way.
"What're they comin' here to-day for, I wan' to know." She stayed there
immovably, till Mrs. Councill came down to see her, piloted by two or
three of the children. Mrs. Councill, a jolly, large-framed woman,
smiled brightly, and greeted her in a