Of one thing the boy was grimly resolved. At exactly the moment the law allowed him his freedom, he would find a girl somewhere and have a home that should exhibit some claim toward beauty, cheerfulness and peace. Who the girl might be was immaterial. To flee the horrible, fear-driven, Scripture-surfeited place he had known from earliest boyhood was becoming the greatest objective in existence. But meanwhile, what should he do? The question answered itself. The front door of his father’s house opened and Johnathan himself emerged. He wore hat and coat. Down the steps he started and in the opposite direction from where Nathan waited. Before the boy could solve the mystery, his sister appeared. She ran frantically for the place where she had left her brother. “Natie!” she cried hysterically. “Natie—come quick! Something’s happened to Ma!” Across the street Nathan leaped and into the dark hallway. He bumped into a door, stumbled over a chair, reached the kitchen. His mother was seated on the floor, hammering her gnarled fists crazily upon the linoleum. One of her legs stuck out, uncovered, from beneath her body. Her spectacles were off, her face was swollen—as it usually was swollen—with weeping. “She’s having one of her spells!” cried the awe-struck sister. “You’ll have to put her to bed—or do something!” The girl spoke as though they were gazing down on a strange biological exhibit. Mrs. Forge was only letting her nerves go in an enjoyable fit of hysterics. But it was an epochal fit of hysterics. She pounded the floor and she kicked her heels. She tore down her hair and ripped her washed-out blue wrapper from her thin shoulders, leaving soiled underclothes and rusty, broken corsets exposed. “I’ll kill myself!” she shrieked. “I will! I will! I’ll not stand it another day! I’ll kill myself!” She emphasized each “will” with a thump of her tightly clenched fist upon the floor. “Doctor Johnson told Pa once the quickest way to bring folks out of a ‘spell’ was to throw cold water on ’em!” suggested Edith. “You better get the bucket, Nat. Give her a sloppin’—a good one!” But Nat could not “give her a sloppin’.” He was suddenly overwhelmed with pity. “Come, mother,” he said. “Let me help you to bed!” “I don’t want to go to bed! I want to kill myself! And I will! I will! I will! Get me the butcher knife! Edith!—Nathan! Get the butcher knife! Watch your mother kill herself.” Edith started to cry. Nathan saw something should be done and he did it. He stooped and picked up his mother. Though she fought and clawed his face, he managed it. Bidding Edith go ahead with the lamp, he carried his struggling mother up the stairs and into her chamber. There he laid her on the bed. “Undress her, Edie,” he ordered. “Get her into bed before Pa comes back.” “I dassent, Nat. I’m afraid.”