igid under her touch, and she went on, pouring out the
mother sorrow that was the more overwhelming because it had been locked
in her so long.

"Isr'el, I could tell you every minute o' my life sence you married me.
If 'twas wrote down, you could read it, an' 'twould be Bible truth. An'
if God has laid His hand on that poor baby--Isr'el, you take that back.
It's like cursin' your own flesh an' blood."

"I do curse him," he muttered. "I curse him for that--not bein' my flesh
an' blood." With the renewed accusation, his anger against her seemed to
mount like a wave and sweep him with it, and he shook himself free of
her. "Jezebel!" he cried. "Let go o' me."

Tira rose and went back to her chair. But she did not sit down. She
stood there, looking out of the window and wondering. What to do next?
With a man beside himself, what did a woman do? He was talking now,
drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair and looking at her.

"Sometimes," he said, "when it all comes over me, I think I'll shet you
up. I'll leave him asleep in there an' lock you in, up chamber, an' you
can hear him cry but you can't git to him. An' mebbe you can work it out
that way. He'll be the scapegoat goin' into the wilderness, cryin' in
there alone, an' you'll be workin' out your punishment, hearin' him
cry."

Tira stood listening and thinking. This was a new danger. If he shut her
away from the child (and he might do it easily, when his foot would
serve him again) nobody would hear. They were too far away. He was
frightening her. She would frighten him. She walked up to him and stood
looking down on him.

"Isr'el," said she quietly, "don't you git it into your head you could
shet me up."

"Yes," said he, and his tone was as ominous as her own, "I guess I could
shet you up all right."

"Yes," said Tira, "mebbe you could. But if you do, I'll break out. An'
when I've broke out"--she towered over him--"I'll break your neck."

Tenney, looking up and seeing in her eyes the mother rage that sweeps
creation from man to brute, was afraid, and Tira knew it. She looked him
down. Then her gaze broke, not as if she could not have held his
forever, but haughtily, in scorn of what was weaker than herself.

"I've been a true wife to you, Isr'el," she said. "You remember it now,
'fore it's too late. For as God's my witness, if you turn your hand
ag'inst a little child--whether it's your own or whether it ain't--an'
that baby in there is yourn an' no man b