for her lips were stiff.

Joe stood up and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" asked his wife.

"Going to get a job somewhere," replied Joe, and went. Soon the women
saw him driving a neighbor's cart up the street.

"He's going to cart gravel for John Leach's new sidewalk!" gasped Alma.

"Why don't you stop him?" cried her sister. "You can't have your husband
driving a tip-cart for John Leach. Stop him, Alma!"

"I can't stop him," moaned Alma. "I don't feel as if I could stop
anything."

Her sister gazed at her, and the same expression was on both faces,
making them more than sisters of the flesh. Both saw before them a stern
boundary wall against which they might press in vain for the rest of
their lives, and both saw the same sins of their hearts.

Meantime Jim Bennet was seated in his best parlor and Susan Adkins was
whispering to Mrs. Trimmer out in the kitchen.

"I don't know whether he's gone stark, staring mad or not," whispered
Susan, "but he's in the parlor smoking his worst old pipe, and that big
tiger tommy is sitting in his lap, and he's let in all the other cats,
and they're nosing round, and I don't dare drive 'em out. I took up the
broom, then I put it away again. I never knew Mr. Bennet to act so. I
can't think what's got into him."

"Did he say anything?"

"No, he didn't say much of anything, but he said it in a way that made
my flesh fairly creep. Says he, 'As long as this is my house and my
furniture and my cats, Mis' Adkins, I think I'll sit down in the parlor,
where I can see to read my paper and smoke at the same time.' Then he
holds the kitchen door open, and he calls, 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' and
that great tiger tommy comes in with his tail up, rubbing round his
legs, and all the other cats followed after. I shut the door before
these last ones got into the parlor." Susan Adkins regarded malevolently
the three tortoise-shell cats of three generations and various stages
of growth, one Maltese settled in a purring round of comfort with four
kittens, and one perfectly black cat, which sat glaring at her with
beryl-colored eyes.

"That black cat looks evil," said Mrs. Trimmer.

"Yes, he does. I don't know why I didn't drown him when he was a
kitten."

"Why didn't you drown all those Malty kittens?"

"The old cat hid them away until they were too big. Then he wouldn't let
me. What do you suppose has come to him? Just smell that awful pipe!"

"Men do take queer streaks every n