Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/262

 mosphere was dense with the intensity of the two women's dislike for each other.

"When times like these comes, they show up folks in their real nater," sniffed Aunt Mary, after an angry pause.

"Yes, they do," answered Judith, with cold incisiveness.

Jerry, the only true devotee of peace, was made miserable when his wife and his mother sparred about the war. He shifted uneasily and looked from one to the other with dumbly beseeching eyes, like those of a gentle dog.

One morning when she was churning on the porch, Bob Crupper sauntered around the corner of the house.

For some time he hung about, talking of this and that: last night's rain that would bring the tobacco beds along, the new flagpole that they had just set up in the school yard, the big price that the sheep men were going to get for their wool. As he talked, he sat on the edge of the porch and whittled aimlessly at a stick or trundled a toy wagon up and down the porch floor with his hand.

At last, after a silence broken only by the thump of the dasher in the churn, he roused himself and stood up.

"Well, I must be a-goin'. I'm off to-night for the trainin' camp. So I'll say good-by."

She released the dasher and gave him her hand. He took it in his which was large, firm, and warm. His face twitched with embarrassment.

Suddenly she felt his face close to hers and heard his voice in a quick, hoarse whisper.

"Judy, mebbe I won't never see you agin. I'm to hev one kiss anyway afore I go."

She felt herself melting into his arms as he kissed her on the mouth long and passionately. The next moment he was gone.

Her hands trembled as she took hold of the dasher again. Had she kissed him back or had she not kissed him back, she wondered. For a long time her lips burned from his kiss, as once before her neck and shoulder had burned from his look.