The room in which she stood was neat as its keeper. The
walls were whitewashed, and covered with prints, pictures, and
some small tanned skins. Dried grasses and flowers filled the
vases on the mantle. The floor was neatly carpeted with a striped
rag carpet, and in the big open fireplace a wood fire roared. In
an opposite corner stood a modern cooking stove, the pipe passing
through a hole in the wall, and a door led into a sleeping room
beyond.
As her eyes swept the room they rested finally on a framed
lithograph of the Virgin, with the Infant in her arms. Slowly
Mary advanced, her gaze fast on the serene pictured face of the
mother clasping her child. Before it she stood staring. Suddenly
her breast began to heave, and the big tears brimmed from her
eyes and slid down her cheeks.
"Since you look so wise, why don't you tell me why?" she
demanded. "Oh, if you have any mercy, tell me why!"
Then before the steady look in the calm eyes, she hastily made
the sign of the cross, and slipping to the floor, she laid her
head on a chair, and sobbed aloud.
Chapter II
RUBEN O'KHAYAM AND THE MILK PAIL
Jimmy Malone, carrying a shinning tin milk pail, stepped into
Casey's saloon and closed the door behind him.
"E' much as wine has played the Infidel,
And robbed me of my robe of Honor--well,
I wonder what the Vinters buy
One-half so precious as the stuff they sell.
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