THE SIGNAL TOWER[6]
By WADSWORTH CAMP
From The Metropolitan
"I get afraid when you leave me alone this way at night."
The big man, Tolliver, patted his wife's head. His coarse laughter was meant to reassure, but, as he glanced about the living-room of his remote and cheerless house, his eyes were uneasy. The little boy, just six years old, crouched by the cook-stove, whimpering over the remains of his supper.
"What are you afraid of?" Tolliver scoffed.
The stagnant loneliness, the perpetual drudgery, had not yet conquered his wife's beauty, dark and desirable. She motioned towards the boy.
"He's afraid, too, when the sun goes down."
For a time Tolliver listened to the wind, which assaulted the frame house with the furious voices of witches demanding admittance.