The way to Mis' Bingy's was longer to go by the road, or short through the wood-lot. I went by the road, because I thought maybe I might meet somebody. The worst of the farm wasn't only the work. It was never seein' anybody. I only met a few wagons, and none of 'em stopped to say anything. Lena Curtsy went by, dressed up in black-and-white, with a long veil. She looks like a circus rider, not only Sundays but every day. But Luke likes the look of her, he said so. "You're goin' the wrong way, Cossy!" she calls out. "No, I ain't, either," I says, short enough. I can't bear the sight of her. And yet, if I have anything to brag about, it's always her I want to brag it to. Just when I turned off to Bingy's, I met the boys. We never waited supper for 'em, because sometimes they get home and sometimes they don't. They were coming from the end of the street-car line, black from the blast furnace. "Where you goin', kid?" says Bert. I nodded to the house. "Well, then, tell her she'd better watch out for Bingy," says Henny. "He's crazy drunk down to the Dew Drop. I wouldn't stay there if I was her." I ran the rest of the way to the Bingy house. I went round to the back door. Mis' Bingy was in the kitchen, sitting on the edge of the bed. She had the bed put up in the kitchen when the baby was born, and she'd kept it there all the year. When I stepped on to the boards, she jumped and screamed. "Here's some steam brown bread," I says. She set down again, trembling all over. The baby was laying over back in the bed, and it woke up and whimpered. Mis' Bingy kind of poored it with one hand, and with the other she pushed up the bandage around her head. She was big and wild-looking, and her hair was always coming down in a long, coiled-up mess on her shoulders. Her hands looked worse than Ma's. "I guess I look funny, don't I?" she says, trying to smile. "I cut my head open some--by accident." I hate a lie. Not because it's wicked so much as because it never fools anybody. "Mis' Bingy," I says, "I know that Mr. Bingy threw a dish at you last night and cut your head open, because he was drunk. Well, I just met Henny, and he says he's down to the Inn, crazy drunk. Henny don't want you should stay here." She kind of give out, as though her spine wouldn't hold up. I guess she had the idea none of the neighbors knew. "Where can I go?" she says. There was only one place that I could think of. "Come on over with me," I says. "Pa and the boys are there. They won't let him hurt you." She shook her head. "I'd have to come back some time," she says. "Why would you?" I asked her. She looked at me kind of funny. "He's my husband," she says--and she kind of straightened up and looked dignified, without meaning to. I just stood and looked at her. Think of it making her look like that to own that drunken coward for a husband! "What if he is?" I says. "He's a brute, and we all know it."