Mrs. OSWALD. It is hard to remember any such trifling occurrences, sometimes such a small thing as, for example, dinner being five minutes late, and I do mean five minutes--it is not that I am exaggerating--he would be very angry. Or if there were no butter on the table, because he hadn't brought it from the icebox, he would with great indignation ask, "Why is there no butter?" And at the same time if I had put the butter on the table he wouldn't have touched it. This is foolishness, of course. A normal person doesn't get irritated by things like that. Mr. RANKIN. Mrs. Oswald, I do not ask these questions to pry into your personal affairs, but it gives us some insight into what he did and why he might have done the things he did. I hope you understand that. Mrs. OSWALD. I understand. Mr. RANKIN. Could you tell us a little about when he did beat you because we have reports that at times neighbors saw signs of his having beat you, so that we might know the occasions and why he did such things. Mrs. OSWALD. The neighbors simply saw that because I have a very sensitive skin, and even a very light blow would show marks. Sometimes it was my own fault. Sometimes it was really necessary to just leave him alone. But I wanted more attention. He was jealous. He had no reason to be. But he was jealous of even some of my old friends, old in the sense of age. Mr. RANKIN. When he became jealous, did he discuss that with you? Mrs. OSWALD. Yes, of course. Mr. RANKIN. What did he say? Mrs. OSWALD. I don't remember. Basically, that I prefer others to him. That I want many things which he cannot give me. But that was not so. Once we had a quarrel because I had a young man who was a boyfriend--this was before we were married, a boy who was in love with me, and I liked him, too. And I had written him a letter from here. I had--I wrote him that I was very lonely here, that Lee had changed a great deal, and that I was sorry that I had not married him instead, that it would have been much easier for me. I had mailed that letter showing the post office box as a return address. But this was just the time when the postage rates went up by one cent, and the letter was returned. Lee brought that letter and asked me what it was and forced me to read it. But I refused. Then he sat down across from me and started to read it to me. I was very much ashamed of my foolishness. And, of course, he hit me, but he did not believe that this letter was sincere. He asked me if it was true or not, and I told him that it was true. But he thought that I did it only in order to tease him. And that was the end of it. It was a very ill-considered thing. Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall anything more that he said at that time about that matter? Mrs. OSWALD. Of course after he hit me, he said that I should be ashamed of myself for saying such things because he was very much in love with me. But this was after he hit me.