of nineteen sordid years behind protruding teeth surged through her
untidy soul. She wanted love. But it was not her husband that she loved
so fiercely. It was old Grandfather Twilly. And he was too dead.


PART 3

In the dining-room of the Twillys' house everything was very quiet. Even
the vinegar-cruet which was covered with fly-specks. Grandma Twilly lay
with her head in the baked potatoes, poisoned by Mabel, who, in her turn
had been poisoned by her husband and sprawled in an odd posture over the
china-closet. Wilbur and his sister Bernice had just finished choking
each other to death and between them completely covered the carpet in
that corner of the room where the worn spot showed the bare boards
beneath, like ribs on a chicken carcass. Only the baby survived. She had
a mean face and had great spillings of Imperial Granum down her bib. As
she looked about her at her family, a great hate surged through her tiny
body and her eyes snapped viciously. She wanted to get down from her
high-chair and show them all how much she hated them.

Bernice's husband, the man who came after the waste paper, staggered
into the room. The tips were off both his shoe-lacings. The baby
experienced a voluptuous sense of futility at the sight of the
tipless-lacings and leered suggestively at her uncle-in-law.

"We must get the roof fixed," said the man, very quietly. "It lets the
sun in."