"He came back after I got there. I guess he thought I'd brought some money, and he came in drunk one day and tried to hit her before me. He didn't ever try it again after that. I just got up and struck him with all my might and main right in the face and he fell down and hurt his head pretty bad and Dolores began to shriek and said I'd killed her husband; but he didn't try it again. He was sort of scared of me, I guess. No: I ain't forgiven Pavelek Okraski yet and I reckon I never shall. I don't seem to want to forgive him, neither in this world nor the next--if there is a next," Mrs. Talcott commented. "Well, the time for the baby came and on the day Mercedes was born the Austrians bombarded Cracow; it was in '48. I took Dolores down to the cellar and all day long we heard the shells bursting, and the people screeching. And that was the time Mercedes came into the world. Dolores most died, but she got through. But afterwards I couldn't get proper care for her, or food either. She just pined off and died five months after the baby came. Pavelek most went off his head. He was always fond of her in his own mean way, and I guess he suffered considerable when she died. He went off, saying he'd send some money for me and the baby, but precious little of it did I ever see. I made some by sewing and giving lessons in English--I reckon some of those young Poles got queer ways of speaking from me, I was never what you'd call a polished speaker--and I scraped on. Time and time again we were near starving. My! that little garret room, and that big church--Panna Marya they called it--where I'd go and sit with the baby when the services were on to see if I could keep warm in the crowd! And the big fire in '50, when I carried the baby out in a field with lots of other people and slept out. It lasted for ten days that fire.