UPSTAIRS

When the man’s head reappeared, he came up briskly.

“All right?” she asked.

“All right,” he responded.

“Did you test the other end?”

“Right enough—­” said the man.  “Safe as a church!  The water barrel in the garden stuck a little—­but I eased it up—­” He looked back into the hole, as he stepped out.  “Too bad we had to take her down,” he said regretfully.

“The police might ‘a’ stopped,” said the woman.  “You couldn’t tell.”

They swung the barrel in place, and blew out the lantern, and the man ascended the stair.  After a few minutes the woman came up.  The kitchen was empty.  The fire burning briskly cast a line of light beneath the hearth, and on the top of the stove the kettle hummed quietly.  She lighted a lamp and lifted the kettle, filling her dishpan with soft steam....  Any one peering in at the open window would have seen only a tall woman, with high shoulders, bending above her cloud of steam and washing dishes, with a quiet, round face absorbed in thought.

When she had finished at the sink and tidied the room, she took the lamp and went into the small hall at the rear, and mounted the steep stairs.  At the top she paused and fitted a key and entered a low room.  She put down the lamp and crossed to the door on the other side—­and listened.  The sound of low breathing came lightly to her, and her face relaxed.  She came back to the bureau, looking down thoughtfully at the coarse towel that covered it, and the brush and comb and tray of matches.  There was nothing else on the bureau.  But on a little bracket at the side the picture of a young girl, with loose, full lips and bright eyes, looked out from a great halo of pompadour—­with the half-wistful look of youth.  The mother’s eyes returned to the picture and her keen face softened....  She must save Mollie—­and the child in the next room—­she must save them both....  She listened to the child again, breathing beyond the open door.  She looked again at the picture, with hungry eyes.  Her own child—­her Mollie—­had never had a chance—­she had loved gay things—­and there was no money—­always hard work and wet feet and rough, pushing cars....  No wonder she had gone wrong!  But she would come back now.  There would be money enough—­and they would go away—­together.  Twenty-five thousand dollars.  She looked long at the pitiful, weak, pictured face and blew out the light and crept into bed....  And in the next room the child’s even breathing came and went... and, at intervals, across it in the darkness, another sound—­the woman’s quick, indrawn breath that could not rest.

XXX

ASLEEP

In the morning the woman was up with the first light.  And as the men came grumbling in to breakfast, the round face wore its placid smile.  They joked her and ate hastily and departed for the open field.  It was part of a steady policy—­to be always in the open, busy, hard-working men who could not afford to lose an hour.  The excursion had been a quick, restless revolt—­against weeks of weeding and planting and digging....  But they had had their lesson.  They were not likely to stir from their strip of market garden on the plain—­not till the time was up.