od as another. When Bayliss fought the
dram and the cigarette, Wheeler only laughed. That a son of his
should turn out a Prohibitionist, was a joke he could appreciate.
But Bayliss' attitude in the present crisis disturbed him. Day
after day he sat about his son's place of business, interrupting
his arguments with funny stories. Bayliss did not go home at all
that month. He said to his father, "No, Mother's too violent. I'd
better not."

Claude and his mother read the papers in the evening, but they
talked so little about what they read that Mahailey inquired
anxiously whether they weren't still fighting over yonder. When
she could get Claude alone for a moment, she pulled out Sunday
supplement pictures of the devastated countries and asked him to
tell her what was to become of this family, photographed among
the ruins of their home; of this old woman, who sat by the
roadside with her bundles. "Where's she goin' to, anyways? See,
Mr. Claude, she's got her iron cook-pot, pore old thing, carryin'
it all the way!"

Pictures of soldiers in gas-masks puzzled her; gas was something
she hadn't learned about in the Civil War, so she worked it out
for herself that these masks were worn by the army cooks, to
protect their eyes when they were cutting up onions! "All them
onions they have to cut up, it would put their eyes out if they
didn't wear somethin'," she argued.

On the morning of the eighth of April Claude came downstairs
early and began to clean his boots, which were caked with dry
mud. Mahailey was squatting down beside her stove, blowing and
puffing into it. The fire was always slow to start in heavy
weather. Claude got an old knife and a brush, and putting his
foot on a chair over by the west window, began to scrape his
shoe. He had said good-morning to Mahailey, nothing more. He
hadn't slept well, and was pale.

"Mr. Claude," Mahailey grumbled, "this stove ain't never drawed
good like my old one Mr. Ralph took away from me. I can't do
nothin' with it. Maybe you'll clean it out for me next Sunday."

"I'll clean it today, if you say so. I won't be here next Sunday.
I'm going away."

Something in his tone made Mahailey get up, her eyes still
blinking with the smoke, and look at him sharply. "You ain't
goin' off there where Miss Enid is?" she asked anxiously.

"No, Mahailey." He had dropped the shoebrush and stood with one
foot on the chair, his elbow on his knee, looking out of the
window as if he had forgott