Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/195

 bales did you make this year?" They now sighed and asked, "Where will we get seed enough to plant a crop next year?"

In the spring they no longer asked, "Is your cotton up to a stand yet?" but, "Is your field as thick with boll-wevils as mine?"

For a few years June struggled on trying to fight weevils and make a crop but fall after fall came and found him with nothing to show for his whole year's work. He got discouraged and gave up and went away to find something else to do. He could not write so no ietter ever came to tell Mary where he went or what he was doing.

Unex had grown up tall like July. His eyes glittered with the same boldness and his white teeth pierced the blackness of his face when he boasted that he knew how to work, that his back would never bend under a load. But at last he gave up too and left to find better work and easier money somewhere out in the world. He went with a laugh in his mouth, he took nothing but a little bundle of clothes and his father's old battered guitar (they were all he wanted in the world); but he had never learned to write and no word ever came from him. Only God knew if he was alive or not. Mary had reared every child she had brought into the world, for she knew how to start them off right. Her