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Show "Oh, Mother, you know how much attention Ric pays to maternal admonition ad-monition I You only had one dutiful duti-ful child me." "Stand still, or I'll never get this right," . , She was so tired that her lg quivered quiv-ered and her eyes blurred. And now worry was spinning like a dentist's drill in her brain. For now she was beginning to know what before had been only a nagging fear, a motherly apprehension. Now she knew that the thing she hated had not died, had not removed itself from her life. It was going on. Richard, her son, born in loneliness and torment Richard was going on being another mad and reckless Mc-Farlane, Mc-Farlane, Irresponsible, not to be believed. be-lieved. You could have spared me this, God, she was thinking. I've had so much and I've tried to be patient, pa-tient, I've tried to do my best Aloud she said, "That gets it, I think. But it will probably sag somewhere else. That heavy stuff does." Jill pulled the dress over her head and dropped on the stool, her naked arms round and virginal and sweet. "Will you tack it up for me, Dooley? I've got to do my nails and press my suit, and there's a spot on the toe of one of my sandals san-dals where somebody stepped on me. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I asked Spang to stay here. He hasn't any family at all. I fixed the bed be- CHAPTER I The heat in town had been Intense, In-tense, and Julia McFarlane rolled the station-wagon under the ivy covered cov-ered Dorte-cjjchere gratefully. The big old house would be cool. It was always cool, the solid brick walls built over a century since shutting out the sun with aloof dignity. dig-nity. Julia jerked oft her hat before be-fore she opened the door and slid out of the coat of her smart gray suit. She dropped the hat and coat on a chair and was pushing the heavy, moist auburn hair off her forehead when a yell came down the curving staircase. A young yell. "Dooley, is that you?" Julia sighed. She was so tired. It was five o'clock, and she had had no lunch. She had spent hours in an airless office, growing more furiuus by the moment, and then she. had argued for another hour with a young government representative represent-ative who quoted regulations, almost al-most smacking his hps over them. To her desperate plea that there had to be more wiring for power and pumping on Buzzard's Hill, that there had to be more fence if they were to raise hams and bacon for the army, he had smiled a maddeningly madden-ingly superior smile. To his smug vision all this had spelled wire copper wire, steel wire and wire was not to be sur- rendered, even to a handsome woman wom-an in a stylish hat So Julia had come back to the farm, wrung out l and exasperated, and now here was Jill yelling from upstairs. "Dooley, come up here right away!" Julia went up the stairs slowly. In the bright little room at the end of the hall Jill was standing on a stool before a looking-glass, her lim legs hidden in folds, of white jersey, her face full of woe. "It's all crooked!" she wailed. "They stretched it when they cleaned it, and 'it's all in scallops. It looks like the devil. What am I going to do?" Julia dropped on the bed and looked at her child. Jill's hair was lighter than her own, taffy and sunlight sun-light and wild curling mischief, where Julia's had darkened to the , ... bue of old cherry wood and lay back 1 sleekly under a brush, Jill's eyes were darker, too, almost black un-mm-4"-' der striking, arrogant brows; direct, demanding eyes, impatient, with little compromise in them. ! "What do you want to do, Jill? Cut the hem off and even it?" "I haven't got time. It's yards around the bottom, though it does hang so straight. Would it look awful, aw-ful, Dooley, if we cut off the worst places and hemmed it? It has to be right, it simply has to." "What cooks? Something terribly terri-bly special?" "Frightfully special." Jill Jerked angrily at the stubborn' folds. "It's Spang. And the club dance. He has a three-day pass. He's coming on -the bus." "Do I know Spang? He sounds like Some kind of canned dog-ration. Julia Worries About Her Son Would Spang be outraged by an uneven un-even hemline?" "Don't make gags, Dooley, you're not the type. Handsome dignity is your line. ' No, you don't know -Spang, He's a turret instructor right now, down at Ric's Field,. I met him when I went down last week to see Ric. He's a lieutenant and a flier, but right now he's T.S. technical to you, Dooley." "But he wasn't christened Spang, surely the font would have fallen down." "Dooley, I ask you!( His name is Spencer, and he hates it because he doesn't like some uncle or other. He won't look at my dress, but all the females on the prowl will cut their eyes down, and I'll get an inferiority in-feriority complex. And this is Important!" Im-portant!" "Is it?" Julia was gentle. "All right, turn around. But I refuse j to guarantee results. Remember, I'm a .pig-woman, not a couturiere. Is Ric coming with your Spang?" Jill puckered her brow. "Mother, "Moth-er, Ric's a private. Just a plain Joe, and a casual at that. He couldn't get. a pass home unless he bought one from somebody, and he says they've hiked the price now till it isn't worth It." "But do you mean that he came home last time on some other man's pass?" Julia spoke between pins, sharply. "Of course. Unless it was an emergency he wouldn't rate a pass. They-might want to ship him out any minute." "But that was a foolish and risky thing to do when he's trying to get .. into officer's school!" "Oh, they organize" things, Ric says get some other Joe to answer for them at roll-call or something." Jill turned .slowly on her toes, "I don't like it," Julia said sternly. stern-ly. "I won't have Ric Jeopardizing bis 'chances. You should have told me before " She would have to tell her father-in-law, too, old John I. McFarlane, and he would fume angrily and lm-potently lm-potently for hours, to any one who would listen. Working op Jill's dress, she hoped this young lieutenant would not be a disappointment, but all the while she nursed the secret wish that he would prove to be only another passing pass-ing fancy, moving on as so many other lads had moved on, out of Jill's life. ' To be an army wife she did not want that for Jill. She wanted to save her child from that heartburning, heartburn-ing, that dreary waiting, the endless nights, the torturing . silences that she herself remembered. And for her the wretchedness had never ended. There had been no finale, no period, no yellow telegram, no shock of grief there had been nothing. Now, after twenty-five years, there was still nothing. But in these days, with all the young men in service, a girl, even as pretty and desirable a girl as Jill, had little choice. The world was swiftly turning into a confused and dismal place. She had told herself so many times, when Jill and young Richard were small and everything was very grim for her, that no child of hers should ever live through what she herself was living through. She had worked so hard: she had even done rough work with her own hands to build up this old farm. She had fought drouth and animal epidemics epidem-ics and insects and discouragement, to make a richer, kinder life for Ric and Jill. And she had succeeded. succeed-ed. She looked through the window at the white fences marching over the lush green of the fields of Buzzard's Buz-zard's Hill, and she knew that she had succeeded. Her father-in-law had helped. She gave him his due in all loyalty. He had been a rock to lean upon, he had been a pillar a fiery pillar, but steadfast. Through all the strange years when no word had come from Richard, her husband, when there had been only silence as baffling as the hollow sky, as deep as the sea, old John I. had stood by her through the grim times and good times. She had lived through it, but she would fight to save Jill from a life like that. She heard the clump of John I.'s boots presently, heard him yelling something into the telephone. All the McFarlanes yelled, even Jill. There was so much in them that was alive and in ' a ferment. Patience Pa-tience had been left out of them. It was as if they had a yeasty brew instead of blood in their veins. Richard, whom she had married, had yelled, too. Up three flights in that little walk-up flat in Washing- ton why must she think of that just now? Why couldn't she make herself her-self forget, finally and forever? Last year she had determined to forget, and the year before. It irritated ir-ritated her that she, a strong woman, wom-an, was not strong enough to conquer con-quer this thing that haunted her. The dress finished, she laid it carefully across Jill's bed and got into the faded shirt, the rough clothes that went with being a pig-woman. She tied her hair up in a bandana and went downstairs. A Sow Shows Its Teeth John I. McFarlane thin, mus-tached, mus-tached, with small hands and feet, and bright, hbt, black eyes was sitting- on the side porch cutting tobacco to-bacco into a newspaper spread across his knees. He looked up as alertly as a robin, and said, "Hello, you back?" "An hour ago." Julia sat down. The old man snapped his knife shut, slid the tobacco into a red tin and put the tin in his hip pocket. "Bet you forgot my bottle of bitters?" bit-ters?" "I did not. It's in the kitchen with the groceries." "I'd better rescue it, then, before Mamie rubs It on her rheumatism. Last time you brought me some she used it to kill mites on a duck. Well, I marked about two hundred hun-dred posts." x "No use, John l.JKbej won't give us- priori tyforay more fence." He drew his white brows together angrily. "What do they expect us to do? Teach hogs not to cross chalk line?" "No more wire, no more copper, no more steei It's war, John I. But it makes it tough for the pig business. Would you be interested in growing cucumbers or peanuts or something?" "I would not! Pickles give me the hives, and what good are peanuts pea-nuts when there aren't any more county f a ir s-or circuses "They use the oil for something. I forget what. Did you tell Foster to shut up your prize sow? She ought to bring good litter. ' "I shut her up myself. ' She's a cagy female. She bit me, and I hit her with the pitchfork before 1 thought, but the wasn't hurt any. What's wrong with you, Dooley? You look shot, and you've got circles cir-cles under your eyes." (TO BE CONTDfUID) "It's all crooked!" she wailed. cause Mamie was pouty. I could only find one hemstitched sheet, so I put a plain one under." "Will Spang be here to dinner? If he will, you'll have to set the table. I'll fix your dress, but then I have to talk over some things with Foster and your grandfather." "John I. rode up to mark posts in the woodlot," Jill said. "Foster had to help him on the horse, and that made hrm furious, He's .bound to break a hip some day, and then you and I will have a lovely life." "But he'll die if he stops wanting to do things for himself. He really doesn't believe that he's eighty. He thinks that's something somebody made up." "You're a pet to fix the dress, Dooley my love. But Spang is worth it, he is definitely. Maybe he's the one. About time! Here I am, crowding twenty-seven and already getting a maiden look around the chin." "Doa't . be ridiculous. You look about eighteen. Don't forget about the table. Mamie's been busy all day." Jill Mustn't Be An Army Wife "Oh, Spang's bus won't be here till eight. I'll give him sandwiches and beer. Anyway, 'Mamie likes soldiers, sol-diers, and all the boys want is a soft, chair tc sprawl in and a hot tub. They stand up all day, of sit on a hot curb, and they can't even lie down on their cots till night, Ric told me." In her own room, dim and cool and serene, with the branches of the huge old trees rustling close to the windows, Julia shed the regimentals regi-mentals of a career woman, relaxed re-laxed in the tub, and put on soft cotton slacks. Later she'd have to get into the denim and boots that were her farm uniform; she'd have to tell Foster, who ran the place, that there would be no more copper cop-per wire and no more fence till the government gave her a priority, and heaven only knew when that would b |