church; their son was christened in the church and they loved him. The eighth summer of their marriage there was no rain. The bills kept piling up and there would be no money with which to pay them unless at least half of the stunted crop could be harvested. The struggling young farmer loved his land almost as much as his life. Often after he had finished; his day's labors he would study the land, scoop up some in his sun-browned hand, and let the clean dirt sift through his fingers. It was healing and soothing, and it promised times when he would own all the land in Peaceful Grove, and then more and more land all over the face of the earth, almost -- land, land, land! Sometimes when he would dream too long, his wife would begin to worry and instinctively find him there, and the two would dream together as the walked back to the clean white house. On this particular day the boy was ill with a fever. The woman dared not leave him to help her husband in the fields. After a whoie season's growth the wheat had only grown as high as June grass; the farmer had postponed the harvest as long as possible. The woman knew the importance of the harvest to them. She knew she was desperately needed in the fields but what if something serious should happen to the sick boy? So she stayed with him, worrying about the harvesting all the while. The man hired a young, gangly neighbor boy to help. They rode to the edge of the field and stopped. They climbed down from the hay wagon. Silently they cut a few of the thickest patches. It was useless. The man dismissed the boy. He stared at the land for a long time, unable to understand the great power of land, how it can give everything and suddenly delight in taking it all away without any feeling, any sympathy. Because he could not understand, he became angry. He spat upon the parched, brittle earth that was so dry the spittle didn't even soak in, but remained a miniature puddle. "Damn the land!" he cried, and stalked through the dry stubble to the empty wagon. The woman fed her son and kept the rest of the food hot in the oven. She sent him to bed early and waited till he slept. For a long while she dared not leave the boy. Finally she slipped out. The gravel crunched under her frail, white feet; her pale arms hung loose as she walked to the end of the path that led to the road in front of the house. She stopped at the gate. Cold, icy stars reflected in her soft eyes as they searched, unfulfilled. Hot night air brushed her wet cheek, her lips. She stood there a long time. There is something that loves a mother, something in a child that elicits a strange, sightless sympathy, a confused need to comfort, to rebuild his fallen, perfect idol. Alone in her empty bed the woman cried. The boy heard her muffled sobbing and slid in close between the warm blankets, touched her face with his soft hand. It was still and wet. The boy slept after awhile. The woman's body shook frightened all night. When in the morning the bank agent came to foreclose, nothing the woman or the boy said mattered. The woman's husband came home two two days later and he saw her packing. He said nothing, but brought the wagon to the front gate and carried out the furniture and bedding; she brought the clothes. The boy whined. They drove to town in silence. They lived with the woman's sister until the man got a job driving a streetcar, then moved into a cramped 18 three-room house behind a house in a middle-class neighborhood. The man worked, the boy attended school, the woman kept her place. She got on all right with the neighbors; but each day she grew more quiet and gloomy, forgetting to smile or laugh. Her face thinned and her eyes clouded as her lonely nights became more frequent. Youth fades as flowers. Many times in her childhood and the early years of her married life she had known complete happiness. Happiness for her was unselfish sacrifice. She often remembered how her mother had never begun a meal without her father, always saving the largest serving for him, and had never gone anywhere without him when he was home. Her father, in turn, had always protected and upheld his wife, and the two had raised their children to do, or at least to want to do, the same. But the woman was young and did not understand the nature of men. She waited patiently, silently hoping that her unhappy life would somehow change; she asked no questions, trying to restore the faith that was gone. At last, when her husband's shift was changed to "graveyard," she hoped that perhaps her misery would end. It didn't. Sunday morning he came home drunk. The boy went to church, but the woman was afraid that her husband would leave again if he awoke and found her gone; so she stayed home and cooked for him. She used the best china, silver and linen, hoping in this way to regain the love that he tried to drown, like he would have drowned the land years before. He absorbed the attention and the food, and came home drunk again the next Sunday. And so, for years she performed the duties of her house noiselessly while he slept days, laid his clothes out for him when he dressed for work in the afternoon, served his dinner at 3:30 every day -- gave love, got nothing. When the boy's shoes wore thin and had to be patched with cardboard she did not question; nor did she complain when the green sofa upholstery frayed and a spring popped through. She merely accepted poverty and believed in her husband's judgment. The year the boy graduated from high school something happened. Graduation for him was important and wonderful. All the fellows were getting new suits to wear, and he wanted a new one, too, like the others. He was not in the habit of asking favors because he knew the situation and understood understood until his father refused this time. "You don't need no new suit. Your old one is plenty good 'nough for that. You're jus' tryin' to rob your pa, that's whut you're doin'. Jus' tryin' to take my money. Well, listen here, I need my money, an' you ain't gettin' none of it--Unnerstan'? None of it!" The whole room rattled as the angry man slammed the door. The boy stood there, stunned. His father had the money all right, but it was all for whisky. How could he be so cruel-to his own son? The woman, hearing the door bang hard, ran to the room where the two had been talking. She saw the boy standing, staring at the dumb door. They talked all night. Great truths hide in small things. Once when the boy, as a baby, had tipped his mush onto the floor, the man had slapped him in his unreasonable rage. After, he felt sorry and had cried, vowing never to touch the child again. Now he had found new ways to hurt. The next morning when he came home drunk, the woman let him sleep it off, waited. Never before had she 19