disfigured face to the wall and felt no par-
ticular gratitude. My one concern was that
grandmother should keep every one away
from me. If the story once got abroad, I
would never hear the last of it. I could well
imagine what the old men down at the drug-
store would do with such a theme.

While grandmother was trying to make me
comfortable, grandfather went to the depot
and learned that Wick Cutter had come home
on the night express from the east, and had
left again on the six o'clock train for Denver
that morning. The agent said his face was
striped with court-plaster, and he carried his
left hand in a sling. He looked so used up, that
the agent asked him what had happened to
him since ten o'clock the night before; whereat
Cutter began to swear at him and said he
would have him discharged for incivility.

That afternoon, while I was asleep, Antonia
took grandmother with her, and went over to
the Cutters' to pack her trunk. They found
the place locked up, and they had to break the
window to get into Antonia's bedroom. There
everything was in shocking disorder. Her
clothes had been taken out of her closet,
thrown into the middle of the room, and

[[285]]

p284 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p285w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p286

v?