_The Public Square_ was staying alive under the energy amassed by the family of trowel makers, but John Higgins wasn’t standing the punishment of the days. Pidge saw him falling into the fear of small things. Among other institutions he hated was the U. S. Department of Justice, but this department was hot after him and he was bluffed at last. The climax had come upon the arrest of a famous pacifist, when John Higgins was cornered with the necessity of silence. Since there was no outlet in protest, his venom turned in on himself. His periods of “illness” were frequent, and Pidge had a great deal to do. His old reaction against her marriage was apparently forgotten, though his temper was unreliable. He was using her now as never before. Once in a while, he would look at her long and queerly, and often he said, “I wish Dicky were here.” * * * * * In April, 1918, about the same time, a book and a boy were born in 54 Harrow Street. Pidge was present at both deliveries. The enactment of the boy’s coming required a full night; and during the next day, her activities at _The Public Square_ were remote to Pidge, who had shrunk so deeply into herself from nausea and a new kind of fright, that the meaning of outer events was distorted and ungrippable. John Higgins didn’t miss the fact. In the drag of the afternoon, she was called to the telephone--Miss Claes on the wire: “You’d better come, Pidge!” An hour later, between five and six in the afternoon, she was in the Harrow Street house, looking down into Fanny’s face which squirmed from side to side. The eyes moved around the room and finally fixed on Pidge. “That you, Redhead?” “Yes----” “You was a hell of a long time comin’.” “I know----” “That dirty animal hurt me----” Evidently this referred to the doctor. “I’m sorry. He didn’t mean to----” “Know all about it, don’t yer? Know all about everythin’, don’t yer?” Pidge didn’t answer. Fanny lay a moment in pallid anger. Then her eyes slowly opened wider, stretched, filled with astonishment, part rapture, part fear. “Why, Musser,” Fanny said in an awed tone, as one listening to a far sound, “Holy Christ, I’m dying!” She was the last one in the room to know it--except the baby. A queer little dud with his black hair that stayed combed. No telling what he knew any of the time. He didn’t open his eyes so that anybody could catch him at it for several days, but the nurse never would have done raving over his black lashes. Finally Pidge heard the news--that the eyes weren’t black after all, as the hair and lashes would indicate, but a dense blue. “He’s going to be a soldier--such a soldier!” the nurse exclaimed. “I know I’ll die when I have to leave him.” Pidge’s lips worked without sound, and then a funny little twisted smile stayed there--that made Miss Claes love her as never before. XXXVI RUFE HURRIES HOME