stepped over the tall, sweet grass. She told Hubert that the tree had scared her. It had stood there as dignified as God. They had started back to town then and Lillian had talked of Louise all the way and laughed at her for getting married in a church and fussing about it as though nobody had ever gotten married before. Hubert was surprised. He had always thought that Lillian was too fond of Louise to jeer at her. Women were funny, even Lillian.
Sometimes they did not drive but sat at home playing checkers. Hubert had taught Lillian to play and she said that she liked it. Often she even suggested the game herself and then Hubert was pleased with her.
Sometimes Lillian read books from the circulating library while Hubert sat thumbing the pages of Popular Mechanics. She bought a dictionary and looked up unfamiliar words which she encountered along the way. It was a good book whose author knew many uncommon words.
Sometimes Hubert went home for dinner and stayed with his family till the next day. Lillian would feel lost and unhappy. She would take Louise with her to Keith's Fordham or shopping along Dyckman Street. There was always a little door in her brain that swung open at his departure and showed her a small furnished room and a bakery where one could get dinner for forty-five cents. She would drink too much on the nights when he was away and be violently ill all the next day. She came upon magazine stories frequently wherein the "other woman" lost out in the competition with the man's lawful wife. She went to a fortune teller once who told
