gentle, tired woman, with a face always radiant with joy. Mrs.
Turner had seven children, and had once told Cherry that she had
never slept a night through since the first year of her marriage.
She never changed a baby's gown or rolled a batch of cookies
without a deep and genuine love for the task; she could not
unbutton the twisted collar from a son's small neck without
drawing his freckled cheek to her hungry lips for a kiss, or ask
one of her black-headed, bright-eyed daughters to hang up a dish
towel without adding: "You're a darling help to your mother!"

The Turners lived next door to the Lloyds, in a shabby two-story
house, and though Cherry and her neighbour spoke a different
language, they had grown fond of each other. Cherry had sometimes
timidly touched upon the matter that was always troubling her,
with the older woman. But Mrs. Turner had little to say regarding
her feeling for the lean, silent, somewhat unsuccessful man who
was the head of her crowded household. She seemed to take it for
granted that he would sometimes be unreasonable.

"Papa gets so mad if anything gets burned!" she would say, with
her gentle laugh. And once she added the information that her
husband's mother had been a wonderful manager. "Men are that way!"
was her comment upon the difficulties of other wives. But once,
when there was a wedding near by, Cherry, with others in the
church, saw the tears in Mrs. Turner's eyes as she watched the
bride. "Poor little innocent thing!" she had whispered with a
tremulous smile.

She was deeply concerned over the news from Martin, and when
Cherry had met his limp form at the front door, and had whisked