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She heard Burns threshing his team at the well, with the sound of oaths. He was tired, hungry, and ill-tempered, but she was too desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, and his extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous. His eyes gleamed wrathfully from his dust-laid face.

“Supper ready?” he growled.

“Yes, two hours ago.”

“Well, I can’t help it!” he said, understanding her reproach. “That devilish corn is gettin’ too tall to plough again, and I’ve got ‘o go through it to-morrow or not at all. Cows milked?”

“Part of ’em.”

“How many left?”

“Three.”

“Hell! Which three?”

“Spot, and Brin, and Cherry.”

“Of course, left the three worst ones. I’ll be damned if I milk a cow to-night. I don’t see why you play out jest the nights I need ye most.” Here he kicked a child out of the way. “Git out o’ that! Hain’t you got no sense? I’ll learn ye–“

“Stop that, Sim Burns,” cried the woman, snatching up the child. “You’re a reg’lar ol’ hyeny,–that’s what you are,” she added defiantly, roused at last from her lethargy.

“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: “Git around there, damn yeh.”

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 previous 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 little Pet slept.

She heard Burns come growling in and tramp about, but she did not rise. 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 katydids 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 in vague retrospect 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 personal pride. 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 neighbors were better off than she, for they didn’t have such quarrels. But she wasn’t to blame–Sim didn’t–Then her mind changed to a dull resentment against “things.” Everything seemed against her.