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 glass and slipped it into her pocket, then went back rather hurriedly into the kitchen.

The undertaker came bringing a coffin and they laid Dan out in the middle of the best room. When she saw him stretched out straight in the long, shiny coffin, Lizzie May realized to the full the hard inexorableness of death. It came to her as though she had not known it before, that Dan was really dead, that her life with him was over, that her children were without a father. Beside the hard, cold coffin she burst into new paroxysms of grief.

When they were all gone back into the kitchen, Aunt Nannie came and hung dumbly over the body of her boy.

The neighbors and relatives began to go home, slipping away unobtrusively. They had their own affairs to attend to. There remained at last only Dan's family and Lizzie May's father, her sisters, and brothers. They decided among themselves that Dan's mother, Lizzie May's father, and Luella should stay with her over night. Toward the close of the afternoon the others went home to look after the horses, the cows and chickens.

As Jerry and Judith were driving home, she roused herself from the daze into which Dan's death had cast her to ask herself if she would have felt as desolate as Lizzie May if it had been Jerry who was brought home dead. Often of late she had wondered if she loved Jerry as Lizzie May loved Dan. For a moment she imagined him lying cold and stiff, a great gash on the side of his head, never to speak to her again nor whistle nor laugh nor throw the children to the ceiling. The thought was unbearable. For reassurance she looked sidewise at his healthy weathered cheek and snuggled close against the warmth of his body.

In the evening, after the children were in bed, she came to him where he sat by the stove thinking of Dan, slipped her arms about his neck, and kissed him again and again with mingled tenderness and passion. Instantly he forgot Dan. He was happy, and eager with warm and joyful response. It was a long time since she had given him such kisses.