For a long time he shuddered and sobbed, giving way at last with a certain relief to the disappointment that had been eating his heart out through the thirty mile drive home. She stroked his hair and his cheeks, murmuring over him words of consolation.
"Never mind, Jerry, dear. Lots worse things might of happened. We kin manage along all right; an' mebbe nex' year we'll be lucky."
After the first shock, she did not feel any great bitterness of disappointment. She had never been able to take money losses very seriously. In spite of the daily object lesson offered her, she failed somehow to realize their significance.
"Oh, Judy," he quavered, when at last his storm of sobbing had spent itself. "I wanted you to have money so's you could buy things you wanted, an' the young uns could have plenty warm clothes an' new shoes. An' I hoped I'd be able to put some in the bank this year toward buyin' us a place. Naow we'll jes have to skimp along same's las' year."
He buried his face in her lap and burst into another storm of weeping.
She soothed him and at last he was quiet.
"Anyway, things can't be so terrible bad so long as we have each other, can they, Judy?" he said, slipping his arm around her waist and looking up at her with doglike eyes, pleading and questioning.
She met his look and tried not to flinch.
"No, things'll come out all right, so long as we have each other."