Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/333



women woke up, and one of them ran to the doorway screaming and howling. Voices from the other houses answered and people came running down the street and into the room until it was jammed full. Everybody was moaning except Maum Hannah who stood outside in the yard, sending her long death cries out into the dawn so the whole world could know that Unex was gone.

"Oo—Oo—Ooo—Ee—Ee-Eee!

"Oo—Oo—Ooo—Ee—Ee-Eee!"

The cries rose higher and higher breath by breath. Mary felt that if they kept on they would cut the thread of her own life in two, tough and strong as it was.

Her bare feet kept padding across the room as she blundered back and forth from the bed to the window. She strove to think of the things that must be done, but she needed air to keep her from smothering.

Somebody had hung up an old shirt for a curtain and it kept fluttering backward into the room, then outward again, as two strong winds,