left our home."

My work was cut for me, all right. I guess I'd failed if I hadn't been
helped by her getting a sick spell from worry over what the good God
would do to Clyde if he should end it all in some nasty old river, and
from the grocery being sold to a party that had his own cashier. But I
won, she being too sick to hunt another job just then. A least I got a
fair compromise.

She wouldn't come here to live with me, but she remembered that Clyde had
often talked of Southern California, where he had once gone with genial
friends in a private car. He had said that some day when he had acquired
the means he would keep a home there. So she was willing to go there
herself and start a home for him. I saw it was the best I could get from
her, so I applauded.

I says: "That's fine. You take this three hundred and eighty dollars you
got saved and I'll put a few dollars more with it and get you a little
country place down there where you can be out of doors all day and raise
oranges and chickens, and enough hogs for table use, and when the dear
boy comes back he'll be awful proud of you."

"Oh, he always was that," says Vida. "But I'll go--and I'll always keep
a light in the window for him."

And a lot of folks say women ought to vote!

So we start for Los Angeles, deserting Clyde just as mean as dirt. Sure,
I went with her! I didn't trust her to finish the trip. As it was, she
wanted to get off the train twice before we got to Chicago--thinking
of the shock to her boy's tender heart if he should come back and find
himself deserted.

But then, right after we left Chicago, she got interested. In the section
across from us was a fifty-five-year-old male grouch with a few gray
bristles on his head who had been snarling at everyone that come near
him ever since the train left New York. The porters and conductors had
got so they'd rush by him like they was afraid of getting bit on the arm.
He had a gray face that seemed like it had been gouged out of stone. It
was like one of these gargles you see on rare old churches in Europe. He
was just hating everyone in the world, not even playing himself a
favourite. And Vida had stood his growling as long as she could. Having
at last give up the notion of tracking back to New York, she plumped
herself down in the seat with this raging wild beast and begged for his
troubles. I looked to see her tore limb from limb, instead of which in
three minutes he was cooing to her in a rock