nd."

Frank's neck stiffened. "Not-a-much, I won't. I keep my hogs
home. Other peoples can do like me. See? If that Louis can mend
shoes, he can mend fence."

"Maybe," said Alexandra placidly; "but I've found it sometimes pays
to mend other people's fences. Good-bye, Marie. Come to see me
soon."

Alexandra walked firmly down the path and Carl followed her.

Frank went into the house and threw himself on the sofa, his face
to the wall, his clenched fist on his hip. Marie, having seen her
guests off, came in and put her hand coaxingly on his shoulder.

"Poor Frank! You've run until you've made your head ache, now
haven't you? Let me make you some coffee."

"What else am I to do?" he cried hotly in Bohemian. "Am I to let
any old woman's hogs root up my wheat? Is that what I work myself
to death for?"

"Don't worry about it, Frank. I'll speak to Mrs. Hiller again.
But, really, she almost cried last time they got out, she was so
sorry."

Frank bounced over on his other side. "That's it; you always side
with them against me. They all know it. Anybody here feels free
to borrow the mower and break it, or turn their hogs in on me.
They know you won't care!"

Marie hurried away to make his coffee. When she came back, he was
fast asleep. She sat down and looked at him for a long while, very
thoughtfully. When the kitchen clock struck six she went out to
get supper, closing the door gently behind her. She was always
sorry for Frank when he worked himself into one of these rages, and
she was sorry to have him rough and quarrelsome with his neighbors.
She was perfectly aware that the neighbors had a good deal to put
up with, and that they bore with Frank for her sake.

VII

Marie's father, Albert Tovesky, was one of the more intelligent
Bohemians who came West in the early seventies. He settled in Omaha
and became a leader and adviser among his people there. Marie was
his youngest child, by a second wife, and was the apple of his eye.
She was barely sixteen, and was in the graduating class of the
Omaha High School, when Frank Shabata arrived from the old country
and set all the Bohemian girls in a flutter. He was easily the
buck of the beer-gardens, and on Sunday he was a sight to see, with
his silk hat and tucked shirt and blue frock-coat, wearing gloves
and carrying a little wisp of a yellow cane. He was tall and fair,
with splendid teeth and close-cropped yellow curls, and he wore a
slightly disdainful expre