.

"You're a--beauty, that's what _you_ are," he said, pitilessly. "Keep
your brats out f'um under my feet;" and he strode off to the barn
after his team, leaving her with a fierce hate in her heart. She heard
him yelling at his team in their stalls.

The children had had their supper so she took them to bed. She was
unusually tender to them for she wanted to make up in some way for her
harshness. The ferocity of her husband had shown up her own petulant
temper hideously, and she sat and sobbed in the darkness a long time
beside the cradle where the little Pet slept.

She heard Burns come growling in and tramp about,--the supper was on
the table, he could wait on himself. There was an awful feeling at her
heart as she sat there and the house grew quiet. She thought of
suicide in a vague way; of somehow taking her children in her arms and
sinking into a lake somewhere, where she would never more be troubled,
where she could sleep forever, without toil or hunger.

Then she thought of the little turkeys wandering in the grass, of the
children sleeping at last, of the quiet, wonderful stars. Then she
thought of the cows left unmilked, and listened to them stirring
uneasily in the yard. She rose, at last, and stole forth. She could
not rid herself of the thought that they would suffer. She knew what
the dull ache in the full breasts of a mother was, and she could not
let them stand at the bars all night moaning for relief.

The mosquitoes had gone, but the frogs and katy-dids still sang, while
over in the west Venus shone. She was a long time milking the cows;
her hands were so tired she had often to stop and rest them, while the
tears fell unheeded into the pail. She saw and felt little of the
external as she sat there. She thought of how sweet it seemed the
first time Sim came to see her, of the many rides to town with him
when he was an accepted lover, of the few things he had given her, a
coral breastpin and a ring.

She felt no shame at her present miserable appearance, she was past
that; she hardly felt as if the tall, strong girl, attractive with
health and hope, could be the same soul as the woman who now sat in
utter despair listening to the heavy breathing of the happy cows,
grateful for the relief from their burden of milk.

She contrasted her lot with that of two or three women that she knew,
not a very high standard, who "kept hired help," and who had "fine
houses of four or five rooms." Even the neighbo