"He'll kill you," Ma says to Pa, "on your way to the constable. I wouldn't go past that house for anything, to-night."
I remember how anxious she looked at him. She was anxious, like Mis' Bingy'd been when she said not to arrest Keddie.
Pa muttered, but he didn't go out. In a little while, Ma said best get some rest, so we went up to the room again, and took Mis' Bingy. Her and Ma laid down on the bed, and I got the canvas cot that was folded up in there. My feet stuck out, and I couldn't go to sleep. But the funny thing to me was that both Ma and Mis' Bingy went to sleep in a little while.
I laid there, waiting for it to get light. The window was a little bit gray, and off in the wood-lot I could hear a bird wake up and go to sleep again. I liked it. Early in the morning always seemed to me like some other time. Things acted as if they was something else. Even the bureau looked different.... Pretty soon the sky changed, and the dark was thin enough so I could see Ma and Mis' Bingy. Ma's light-colored hair had got all around her face. I thought how young she looked asleep. She looked so little and soft. She looked as if she'd be nice. I guess she would have been if she hadn't had so much to do. I never remembered her when she didn't have too much to do, except once when she broke her arm; and her arm hurt her so that she was cross anyway. Once, when the boys bought her a plaid silk, she was nice for two days; but then wash-day come and spoiled it again, and she couldn't get back.
Ma never had much. I don't believe any of us know her like she'd be if she had things to do with, and didn't have to work so hard, and Pa and the boys wasn't all the time picking on her. They all say mean things. I do, too, of course. I always dread our meals. We don't scrap over anything particular, but everything that comes up, somebody's always got some lip to answer back. And Ma's easy teased and always looking for slaps. That's me, too; I'm easy teased, though I don't look for it. Laying there asleep, Ma seemed like somebody I didn't know, and I felt sorry for her. She was having a rotten life.
And Mis' Bingy. The bandage was off her head, and I saw the big red mark. She was awful thin and blue-looking, with cords in her neck. She was young, not more than thirty. Ma was old; Ma was forty, and, awake, she looked it. I could see Mis' Bingy's bare arm, and it was strong as an ox. It laid around the baby, that was sleeping on her chest. I liked to look at it. But I thought about her life, too, and I wondered how either Ma or her kept going at all. And what made them willing to. Neither of 'em was having a real life. Look what love had brought them to....
And there was me, starting in the same way, with Luke.
It was broad daylight by then, so I could see around the room. There wasn't a carpet, and the plaster was cracked. So was the pitcher, that was just for show, anyhow, because we washed in the kitchen. I'd tried to fill it for a while, but Ma said it was putting on. In a little bit we would all be sprucing up in the kitchen, with Ma trying to get breakfast and everybody yipping out at everybody else.
And I'd just fixed it so's that all my life would be the same thing as their lives.