“Well, where’n the dang-dinged town is she?” growled Odell. “If she’s staying som’mers to supper, why can’t she send word?” Willis said: “Buddy went down street to look for her. Mommy sent him.” The boys passed on into the extension where the comely cattle on test stood impatient. Odell remarked to Lister: “Ever since Eris drove over to Summit to see them pitcher people makin’ movies she’s acted sulky and contrary like. Now look at her stayin’ away all day--’n’ out to supper, too, som’mers.” “She acts like she’s sot on sunthin’,” suggested Lister, adjusting his milking stool and clasping the pail between his knees. “She’s sot on j’ining some danged moving pitcher comp’ny,” grunted Odell. “That’s what’s in her head all the time these days.” Lister’s pail hummed with alternate streams of milk drumming on the tin. For a while he milked in silence save for a low-voiced remonstrance to the young and temperamental Guernsey whose near hind leg threatened trouble. As he rose with the brimming pail he said: “I guess Eris is a good girl. I guess she wouldn’t go so far as to do nothin’ rash, Elmer.” “I dunno. You couldn’t never tell what Fanny had in her head. Fanny allus had her secret thoughts. I never knowed what she was figurin’ out. Eris acts that way; she does what she’s told but she thinks as she’s a mind to. Too much brain ain’t healthy for no woman.” Lister weighed his pail, scratched down the record opposite the cow’s name, turned and looked back at Odell. “Women oughta think the way their men-folks tell ’em,” he said. “That’s my idee. But the way they vote and carry on these days is a-sp’ilin’ on ’em, accordin’ to my way of figurin’.” Odell said nothing. As he stood weighing his pail of milk, Buddy came into the barn, eating a stick of shop candy. “Say, pa,” he called out, “mommy wants you up to the house!” “When? Now?” demanded his father in dull surprise. “I guess so. She said you was to come right up.” Odell placed the empty milk pail on the floor: “Eris home yet?” “I dunno. I guess not. Will you let me milk Snow-bird, pa?” “No. Look at your hands! You go up and shake down some hay.... Where’s your ma?” “She’s up in Eris’ room. She says for you to come. Can’t I wash my hands and----” “No. G’wan up to the loft. And don’t step on the pitchfork, neither.” He turned uncertainly toward Lister and found his father-in-law looking at him. “Kinda queer,” he muttered, “Mazie sending for me when she knows I’m milking....” Lister made no comment. Odell went out heavily, crossed the farm yard in the pleasant sunset glow, walked on toward the house with lagging stride. As he set foot on the porch he became conscious of his irritation, felt the heat of it in his cheeks--the same old familiar resentment which had smouldered through the dingy, discordant years of his first marriage.