Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/160

Rh She gasped. Both women gave a frightened start.

"No; 'course I don't mean that," she added hastily. "I jes' mean you love 'em so that it don't seem no ways right for 'em to have to grow up to what you see in front of 'em."

"Well, we better quit talkin' an' lay out th' baby's things. 'Spose we look in the bureau in the bedroom."

They moved again to the inner room and pulled out the top drawer of the old-fashioned marble-topped bureau.

A few shirts, a pile of carefully mended underwear and some socks, rolled and turned together in two's, met their gaze.

"That's Jed's drawer. Let's see what's in the next one."

The second drawer revealed a freshly-ironed white waist carefully folded above a meager pile of woman's underwear. Without a word, Mrs. Prentis pushed it shut.

The third drawer proved to be the one they wanted. Small piles of carefully made baby clothing of cheap material but workmanship of infinite pains, met their view.

Mrs. Collins wiped the tears from her cheek with the corner of her apron.

"See—they're nearly ever'one made by hand and all white. Most of 'em jes' flour sacks, but look how Mamie's bleached 'em. An', see this drawn-work."

As she spoke, she placed a work-reddened hand beneath a narrow strip of openwork.

"Yes, you can go home now," in answer to a question from Selina in the kitchen.

"My, the pains she's took on all these little things! Seems 's if she must 'a' been gettin' 'em ready all these years, an' now—" Her voice trailed off into silence.

The little clothing was laid on the bed in readiness for the morrow, and the women looked about as though hunting something more to do. Used to the busy hours of farm life, they felt impelled to some task that would occupy the passing hours.

"Let's see if there's anything we ought to do upstairs."

They climbed the narrow ladderlike stairway to an unfinished half-story garretlike room above.

Y LAND, she was house-cleanin' this hot weather!"

Half of the stuffy little room had been thoroughly overhauled and the other end begun. A little old horsehair trunk stood in the middle of the floor, with portions of its contents scattered about.

"I'll bet she was goin' to empty that for the baby's things. I showed her mine, jes' like it, that I fixed up for Selina when she was little."

"Well, we might as well pick up the things and put 'em back," said orderly Mrs. Collins, who suited the word to the action by laboriously bending with slight grunt.

Mrs. Prentis pushed her back.

"Here, let me pick 'em up. There ain't no call for you to go stoopin' 'round in this heat. First thing you know you'll be havin' a stroke."

Some clothing and small articles were collected, and several bundles of yellowed old letters lay on the floor. From one of the packages the string had broken, evidently when it had been lifted from the trunk. One letter lay crumpled near its empty envelope, where it had been dropped.

With a wondering glance, the two women smoothed it out. The first paragraph was so yellowed and faded as to be illegible, but part of the second paragraph had been protected by the folded paper and they could read:

" will say that your wife is hopelessly insane. She may live for years, but will never regain her mentality, as cases like hers are incurable. We find upon investigation that the women of her family, for several generations, have become hopelessly insane at her age.

"In view of the fact that your small daughter is tainted with this inherited insanity, we strongly advise you to take her to some new environment and, when she grows older, explain to her why marriage