Show I 1 KA JV ta H L E E N ama I 1 by bt kathie norris IM TIRED synopsis doctor strickland retired la is living in mill valley near san francisco his family consists of till bin daughters allx alax 21 land and cherry 13 and anne lila its niece 24 their closest friend Is peter joyce a lovable sort of recluse marun martin lloyd a visiting mining engineer wing chary Chi lurry marries her and carries her oay oft to el nido a mine town peter realizes that ho he loves cherry justin lullo woos anne ann cherry comes home tor for anne a wedding cherry realizes her marriage Is a failure allure peter tells cherry 0 of his grand position passion without naming the girl martin comes tor for cherry CHAPTER vill 7 martins Martl ns work was in the contra costs costa valley and he be and cherry had a small house in red creek the only town of any size near dear the mine red creek was in a fruit farming and dairy region and looked its prettiest on the spring evening when cherry saw it first iier her little house was a cottage with a porch running across the front where windows looked out from the sitting bitting room and the front bedroom back of these rooms were mere a dark tittle little bathroom that connected the front bedroom with another smaller bedroom a little dining room and B n kitchen martin man fashion had merely camped in kitchen and bedroom while au awaiting altIng his wife but cherry buttoned on her crisp little apron on the first ati orning after her arrival and attacked the accumulated dishes in the sink and the scattered shirts and zia collars bravely for a few weeks the novelty lasted and cherry was enthusiastic about everything she looked out across her dishpan at green fields and the beginning of the farms she saw the lilacs burst into fragrant plumes on the bare branches of her dooryard tree spring flushed the whole world with mith loveliness and she was aas young and healthy and too busy to be homesick the days went on and on each bringing its round of dishes beds weeping sweeping marketing folding and unfolding tablecloths going back anti and forth between kitchen and dining room martins breakfast was either promptly served and well cooked in which case martin was silently satisfied or it was late and a failure when he be was very articulately disgusted in either case cherry was left to clear and wash and plan for another meal in four hours more she soaked fruit beat up cake chopped boxes into kind lings heated a kettle of water end and another kettle of water dragged sheets from the bed only to replace them filled dishes with food only to find them empty and ready to wash again 1 I get sick of it I 1 she told martin well lord 1 he exclaimed dont iou you think everybody does dont I 1 get sick of my work you ought to have the responsibility of it all tor for a while 1 in his tone was humorously reproving rather than unkind but such a speech would fill cherrys chernys Cher rys eyes with tears and cause her to go about the house bouse all morning with a heavy heart she would find bud herself looking thoughtfully at martin in these days studying him as if he were an utter stranger it bewildered tier her to feel that he be actually was no more than that after two years of marriage she not only did not know him but slie she had bad a baffled anse that the very nearness of their union prevented her from seeing him fairly she knew that the she did him injustice in her thoughts it must be injustice decided cherry for martin seemed to her less clever less just less intelligent and less lesa generous than the average man or of hr nar acquaintance and yet lie he did not seem to impress other people in the way lie he impressed tier her ile he was extraordinarily healthy bealtho and had small sympathy for illness weakness tor for the unfortunate and the complaining lie ile whistled over his big dressing read the paper at breakfast and nd was gone at noon he d in alwaes late devoured his lunch appreciatively and was gone again at night hemas he was usually tired inclined to quarrel about small smal matters inclined to disapprove of the alie new dew positions of the bedroom furniture or the way cherrys chernys Cher rys hair m was as dressed lie he 0 loed o ed to play poker and was hospitable to a certain extent ile he would whistle and joke jake over the preparations eforo for a rarebit after a game and would willingly walk five blocks tor for beer it if cherry had forgotten to get it IL on sunday lie liked to see her prettily gowned now and then they motored with his friends front from the mine more often walked ate a hearty chicken ilcken cl dinner and went to a cold supper lu in he be neighborhood wah five hundred to follow at ten sen their hostess would flutter into her kitchen there bucia be leino lemo aide und beer and rich layer cafa P iben the men would begin to 1 tich t ich atch poker hands and the women to discuss babies in low tones cierny never saw her husband so BO ADI animated DaRted or so 0 o interested late rested as when wen men he be had bad known before chanced to adrift antu iou ablat al men from N vada or from el aldo or meu men he had known in college they would discuss personalities would shout over recollected good times would slap each other on the back and laugh tirelessly she thought him an extremely difficult ninn ann to live with and was angered when alien her hints to this effect led him to remark that she was the limit they land had a serious quarrel one day when lie he told her that she was tho the most selfish and spoiled woman he had ever known ne he called tier her attention to the other women of the town busy eon contented tented women sending children ost off to school settling babies down doun toi fox naps in sunny dooryards door yards cooking and laughing and hurrying to and fro yes and look at them I 1 cherry said with ready tears shabby thin tired all the time I 1 the trouble with you yon Is martin said departing youve been told that youre and sweet nil all your life and youre spoiled 1 you are pretty yes lie added more mildly but by george you sulk so much and you crab so much that im darned it if I 1 see it any more I 1 all I 1 see Is trouble with this lie he left her lett left her to r a burst of angry tears at first when she he dropped her lovely little head on the blue of tier her apron sleeve and cried bitterly the kettle began to sing on the stove a bee came in and wandered a bout about tho hot kitchen the grocer knocked and cherry let the big lout of a boy stare at her red eyes uncaring then sho she went swiftly into the bedroom and began to pack and change shed show martin lloyd shed show martin lloyd I 1 she was going straight to dad shed take the take the she from frowned Ded she had missed the nine train she must wait for the train at half past two walt wait where well she could only wait here very well she would wait here she would not get martin any lunch and when he raged she ehe would explain she finished her packing and put the house in order then in unaccustomed midmorning mid morning leisure she sank into a deep rocker and began to read quiet find and shade and order reigned in the little house steps came bounding up to cherrys chernys Cher rys door her heart began to beat a knock sounded slie she got to her feet puzzled martin did not knock it was joe robinson his closest friend at the mine say listen mrs lloyd mart cant get home to dinner said joe lie he dont feel extra well he be was in the rk 15 A I 1 I 1 tit I 1 age he was in the engine room and he kinder fainted engine room and he kinder kinden he kinder fainted cherry asked sharply sharp Jy turning a little pule well kinder lawson made hira lay iny down doun joe said and lies coming home when ahen the m wagon agon comes down at three ile he says to tell you hes fine I 1 oh thank you joe cherry said she shut the door feeling weak and frightened she few dew to unpack her bag hung bung up her hat bat and coat darkened the bedroom and turned down tile the bed waited anxiously tor for marts return she was deeply concerned over the news from martin cherry met his limp form orni at the front door and whisked him into a cool bed and put chopped tee ice on the aching forehead and got him grateful and penitent off to bleep bleed for a day or two martin stayed in bed and cherry spoiled and petted him and was paral seu and thanked for every step she took after that they took a little trip into the mountains near by raid cherry sent allx alix postcards that made her sister feel almost it a pang of envy but then the routine began again and the fearful heat of midsummer came too red creek baked in it 11 smother of dusty beat the th trees arf efa ii 11 the dry orchards beside the dry road dropped circles of hot shadow on the he clod ded rough earth farms dozed under shimmering lines of dazzling air and in the vIl village ilage from ten until the afternoon began to wane there was no stir flies files buzzed and settled on screen doors the creek shrunk away beewen crumbling rocky banks the butcher closed his shop and milk soured in the bottles the turners and some other families always camped together in the mountains during this season and they were mere off when school closed in an enviable state of ecstasy aud and anticipation cherry had planned to join them but an experimental weekend week end was enough the camp was in the coot cool woods truly but it was disorderly swarming with children the tents were small and hot the whole settlement laughed and rioted and surged to and fro in a manenal utterly foreign to her site she returned to tell martin that it was horribly common and weather the rest of the summer in red creek martin sympathized he had never cared particularly for the turners was perfectly willing milling to keep the friendship within bounds ue ile sympathized as little with on other friendship she made some months later with the wife of a young engineer alio hall had recently come to the mine pauline runyon was a few years older than her husband a handsome thin intense wor woman rinn who mho did everything in an entirely individual way she took one of the new little bungalows that were being erected in red creek park and furnished it richly and inappropriately and established a tea table and a samovar beside the open fireplace cherry began to like better than anything else in the world the hours spent with pauline pauline read browning francis thompson and rater pater and introduced cherry to new worlds of thought she talked to cherry of new york which she loved and of the men find and women she had met there she sometimes sighed and pushed the bright hair back I 1 from cherrys chernys Cher rys young and innocent and discontented little face and said tenderly on the stage my dear anywhere anywhere you would be a fur furore orel 1 and thinking la in the quiet evenings for martins work kept him later and later at the amne cherry came to see that her marriage had been a great mistake she had not been ready for marriage she would sit on the back steps as the evenings grew cooler and watch the exquisite twilight fade and the sorrow and beauty of life would wring her heart A dream of ease and adoration and beauty came to her she did not visualize any special place any special gown or hour or person but she saw her beauty fittingly environed she saw cool rooms darkened against this blazing midsummer glare heard ice fee clinking against glass the footsteps of attentive maids the sound of cultivated voices of music and laughter she had had these dreams before but they were becoming habitual now she was so tired thred so sack ick so bored with her real life it was becoming increasingly harder mid and harder for her to live with martin she was always in a suppressed state of wa wanting inting to br break eak out to shout at him brazenly 1 I dont care if your coffee Is weak I 1 I 1 like it weak I 1 dont care it if you dont like my hat I 1 dot dol stop about yourself fl various little mannerisms of his began seriously to annoy tier her a rather grove grave symptom had haa cherry but known it lie he danced his big fingers on the lin handle nalle of the sugar spoon at breakfast sifting the sugar over its ills cereal she she bad had to turn her eyes resolutely away from the sight ile he blew his nobe gosp folded his handkerchief and then brits brushed bed his nose u with ith it firmly left and right slie site hated the little performance that was never altered ue he had bad a certain mental slowness would blink at her politely and patiently when she flashed plans or hopes at him 1 I 1 dont follow you my mv dearl dear this an made title her frantic she was twenty undisciplined and exacting she had no reserves within herself to which Iii cli she could turn bad things were mere hopelessly bad with cherry tier her despairs were the dark find and tearful despairs of girlhood prematurely transferred to graver matters martin was quite right in some of his contentions girl like site she was spasmodic and unsystematic in her housekeeping site sh had times dinies of benz discontented and selfish she hotel hated economy end ano the need for managing in october all chanced to write her a long and unusually gossipy jotter allx had a new gown of black grenadine anti and she had sung sting tit at an afternoon tea and hall had evidently succeeded in her first venture also they had had a mountain climb and enclosed were vere snapshots peter had taken on the trip cherry picked up the little kodak prints r there were four or fie of them she studied them with a 11 pang hi all hir heart allx alix ina in a loose rough coat with her hair blowing in the wind ind and the peaked crest of if Tamal pals behind her allx alix busy with mith lunch boxes allx standing on uie the old bid bridge by the mul mill A wave of homesick nesia swept over the younger sister bister liff tasted bitter she hated AUX hated peter above all she hated herself she wanted to he be there in mill valley free to play and to dream again A day or two later she told martin martha kindly and steadily that she thought it had all been a mistake slie she told him that she thought the only dignified thing to do was to part she liked him she would woud always wish mish him well but since tl ti e love tall had gone out of their relationship surely it was only honest hone S t to end it the matter martin demanded nothing special cherry assured him her eyes suddenly watering only im tired of it all ran im tired of pretending I 1 cant argue about it but I 1 know its the m vise ise thing to do go back to your father I 1 suppose martin said yawning until I 1 could get into something cherry replied with divinity A vague thought of the stage flitted flirted through her mind oh martin said politely and I 1 suppose you think your father would agree to this delightful arrangement he asked 1 I know he would 1 cherry answered eagerly all right you write and ask ill him an 1 martin agreed good cherry was surprised at his attitude but grateful more than surprised not cross mart she asked not the least in the world 1 hi ha answered lightly because I 1 truly believe that wed both be happier the woman said hesitatingly martin did not answer the next day she sat down to write her father she meditated with a troubled brow her letter was unexpectedly hard bard to compose she could not take a bright and simple tone asking her father to rejoice in tier her homecoming conil ng somehow the matter persisted in growing heavy and the words twisted themselves about into ugly and selfish sounds cherry was young but even to her youth the phrases the misunderstood and the uncongenial wi ll 11 the friendly parting before any bitterness creeps in and the free to decide our lives in some happier and wiser way may rang false pauline had been divorced a few years ago and the only tiling thing cherry disliked in her friend was her cold and resentful references to her first huband no she te a divorced woma woman |