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 ning medals to the coat lapels of heroes of war, well brushed and subdued for the solemn occasion, pictures of dismal, stuffy people who had been given new life by Tanlac or Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, pictures of actresses and movie stars, some simpering and insipid, others with grace and charm diffused over the pure lines of youth, pictures of people who had been killed in automobile accidents, pictures of murderers and the murdered.

Her interest was only mildly stirred by all these pictures of strange people in strange walks of life that she would never tread. They seemed, with but few exceptions, solemn and sodden creatures in no way to be envied. From them her eyes traveled with heightening interest to the streaky discolorations that the rain beating through the walls had made on the papers. There she never failed to find pictures that beguiled the eye and inspired the imagination.

Often when the children were at play out of doors she sat a long time looking at these weird freaks of water. At such times her hectic energy and the determination that lay back of it were gone, and with the graying twilight there came instead dark thoughts of the emptiness and purposelessness of life, of Bob who had died and of the death that lay in wait for her and hers. When the corners grew shadowed and the rats began to peer out of their holes with bright, furtive eyes, she would get up with a heavy sigh and begin to mix the batter for corn cakes.

As the weeks went by her relations with Jerry grew daily more strained. She rarely spoke to him except to call his attention to an empty woodbox or a broken door hinge or a loose board in the floor or the fact that the boys' feet were on the ground. Daily he grew more morose and evil tempered. A brooding animosity looked out of his eyes as he furtively followed her movements about the house. At the least excuse this smoldering fire broke out into the fierce flame of violent and brutal quarreling. The quarrels usually ended by his taking his hat and slamming the door behind him as he went to seek diversion in some neighbor's barnyard. For her there was