What had she gained by her rage for vengeance? She had thought to spite the landlord, but it was her own soul she had killed. These walls that stared at her in their ruin were not just walls. They were animate--they throbbed with the pulse of her own flesh. For every inch of the broken plaster there was a scar on her heart. She had destroyed that which had taken her so many years of prayer and longing to build up. But this demolished beauty like her own soul, though killed, still quivered and ached with the unstilled pain of life. “Oi weh!” she moaned, swaying to and fro. “So much lost beautifulness--” * * * * * Private Abraham Safransky, with the look in his eyes and the swing of his shoulders of all the boys who come back from overseas, edged his way through the wet Delancey Street crowds with the skill of one born to these streets and the assurance of the United States Army. Fresh from the ship, with a twenty-four-hour leave stowed safely in his pocket, he hastened to see his people after nearly two years’ separation. On Private Safransky’s left shoulder was the insignia of the Statue of Liberty. The three gold service stripes on his left arm and the two wound stripes of his right were supplemented by the Distinguished Service Medal on his left breast bestowed by the United States Government. As he pictured his mother’s joy when he would surprise her in her spotless kitchen, the soldier broke into the double-quick. All at once he stopped; on the sidewalk before their house was a heap of household things that seemed familiar and there on the curbstone a woman huddled, cowering, broken.--Good God--his mother! His own mother--and all their worldly belongings dumped there in the rain. THE FREE VACATION HOUSE How came it that I went to the free vacation house was like this: One day the visiting teacher from the school comes to find out for why don’t I get the children ready for school in time; for why are they so often late. I let out on her my whole bitter heart. I told her my head was on wheels from worrying. When I get up in the morning, I don’t know on what to turn first: should I nurse the baby, or make Sam’s breakfast, or attend on the older children. I only got two hands. “My dear woman,” she says, “you are about to have a nervous breakdown. You need to get away to the country for a rest and vacation.” “Gott im Himmel!” says I. “Don’t I know I need a rest? But how? On what money can I go to the country?” “I know of a nice country place for mothers and children that will not cost you anything. It is free.” “Free! I never heard from it.” “Some kind people have made arrangements so no one need pay,” she explains.