On a rope stretched between a young cottonwood tree in full
leaf and a scaly, red-barked cedar, clothes that had been washed
were flapping lazily in the little breeze. Marie stopped and
looked at them. A man's shirt and drawers, two towels gray for
want of bluing, a little shirt and a nightgown and pair of
stockings--and, directly in front of Marie, a small pair of
blue overalls trimmed with red bands, the blue showing white
fiber where the color had been scrubbed out of the cloth, the two
knees flaunting patches sewed with long irregular stitches such
as a man would take.
Bud and Lovin Child. As in the cabin, so here she felt the
individuality in their belongings. Last night she had been
tormented with the fear that there might be a wife as well as a
baby boy in Bud's household. Even the evidence of the mail order,
that held nothing for a woman and that was written by Bud's hand,
could scarcely reassure her. Now she knew beyond all doubt that
she had no woman to reckon with, and the knowledge brought relief
of a sort.
She went up and touched the little overalls wistfully, laid her
cheek against one little patch, ducked under the line, and
followed a crooked little path that led up the creek.
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