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 shoulders she shuddered convulsively, clenched her hands, and bit into her under lip, struggling against tears.

In the night a strong wind sprang up and the sky grew overcast. In the blackness she lay awake feeling the house rock in the gusts, listening to the rattle of window sashes, the uneasy creaking of doors, the flapping of loose shingles on the roof. A broken molasses jug lying under the edge of the house, caught the wind in its funnel and whistled eerily. The shed door swung on its hinges and banged intermittently as the gusts of wind slammed it violently shut. From time to time a rat scampered the length of the loft over her head.

The baby in the cradle by the bedside, also lying awake, talked to herself, making soft, cooing little noises, delicate little purling sounds as sweet as flower petals. Jerry slept heavily.

Lying between her husband and child, she felt alone, cold and dismal, alone yet inextricably bound to them by something stronger than their bonds of common misery. Their future lives stretched before her dull, drab and dreary, and there was nothing at the end but the grave. She began to cry into the pillow, repressing her sobs so as not to wake Jerry. For a long time she cried in a stifled, bitter, despairing way. As she wept the baby's babblings ceased and she fell into the sleep that in puny children seems closely akin to death. Toward morning Judith, too, fell mercifully asleep, pale from tears and bitter thoughts; and when the ghostlike dawn peered into the little window it saw them all three lying stretched out stark and pallid like corpses.