nd on her arm. They were dumb with the tragic, eloquent
dumbness of their kind. If she could have spoken the words that were
churning in her mind, they would have been something like this:

"Oh, Chuck, I wish I was married to you. I wouldn't care if only I had
you. I wouldn't mind babies or anything. I'd be glad. I want our
house, with a dining-room set, and a mahogany bed, and one of those
overstuffed sets in the living room, and all the housework to do. I'm
scared. I'm scared I won't get it. What'll I do if I don't?"

And he, wordlessly: "Will you wait for me, Tessie, and keep on
thinking about me? And will you keep yourself like you are so that if
I come back----"

Aloud, she said: "I guess you'll get stuck on one of those French
girls. I should worry! They say wages at the watch factory are going
to be raised, workers are so scarce. I'll probably be as rich as Angie
Hatton time you get back."

And he, miserably: "Little old Chippewa girls are good enough for
Chuck. I ain't counting on taking up with those Frenchies. I don't
like their jabber, from what I know of it. I saw some pictures of 'em,
last week, a fellow in camp had who'd been over there. Their hair is
all funny, and fixed up with combs and stuff, and they look real dark
like foreigners."

It had been reassuring enough at the time. But that was six months
ago. And now here was the Tessie who sat on the back porch, evenings,
surveying the sunset. A listless, lackadaisical, brooding Tessie.
Little point to going downtown Saturday nights now. There was no
familiar, beloved figure to follow you swiftly as you turned off Elm
Street, homeward bound. If she went downtown now, she saw only those
Saturday-night family groups which are familiar to every small town.
The husband, very damp as to hair and clean as to shirt, guarding the
gocart outside while the woman accomplished her Saturday-night trading
at Ding's or Halpin's. Sometimes there were as many as half a dozen
gocarts outside Halpin's, each containing a sleeping burden, relaxed,
chubby, fat-cheeked. The waiting men smoked their pipes and conversed
largely. "Hello, Ed. The woman's inside, buyin' the store out, I
guess."

"That so? Mine, to. Well, how's everything?"

Tessie knew that presently the woman would come out, bundle laden, and
that she would stow these lesser bundles in every corner left available
by the more important sleeping bundle--two yards of oilcloth; a spo