LITMIR.BIZ

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roar that was halfway between rage and drunken laughter. She wheeled, and he lunged.

      He caught her in a bearlike embrace and did his best to kiss her. She felt the sandpaper of his cheek against hers, and that spurred her to get her right arm free. Her purse was in her right hand and it had a heavy natural wood frame that was all the rage that season because of the metal shortage.

      She hit Uncle Charley on the side of the head with the wooden section of the purse. And then Uncle Charley was completely at her feet without knowing about it. Julie pressed back against the door and stared down at the long, thin figure on the floor.

      “Uncle Charley,” she cried faintly.

      Uncle Charley didn’t move. She stamped her foot angrily.

      “Uncle Charley!”

      He still didn’t move. Cautiously she knelt beside him. This could be a trick intended to get her sympathy. She flipped off her glove and pressed a thumb against Uncle Charley’s throat to discover a strong, rapid pulse.

      Julie sighed with relief. He was just knocked out, and the chances were the brandy had hit him harder than she had.

      She looked away from Uncle Charley because seven pairs of slitted eyes drew her gaze. There were the cats sitting in a semi-circle, staring at her. They were very unemotional about it.

      Julie straightened. She felt that she ought to call a doctor for Uncle Charley. But in a small town like this, the very fact that she had visited Uncle Charley after dark while her husband was away would be frowned upon. The town, she was certain, already talked about her, because the town, like Uncle Charley, thought it knew models. No, she’d better leave him where he was, to sleep it off.

      Opening the door quietly, she looked up and down the dark street. She went out on the stoop and made no sound closing the door. She tiptoed to the sidewalk, turned to the south, and ran.

      Four blocks down Pinkney Street she turned east, walked to Harrison Street, to the neat, modern red brick bungalow she shared with Harvey. Their neighbors on the north were Dr. and Mrs. John Palet, and as Julie was unlocking her door, she sent an apprehensive glance toward the Palet house. The blinds were down, but Julie had a sneaking suspicion that Mrs. Palet might be peering around the edge of a shade of one of the windows.

      Mrs. Palet was always watching her neighbors. A large, unattractive and spiteful woman, Mrs. Palet. She had—or so Harvey said—a tongue that was tied in the middle and wagged at both ends.

      Julie unlocked the door carefully. When she was inside and the light was on, she double-locked herself in and drew a long breath. Harvey wouldn’t be back from Washington until tomorrow night. She wished tonight was tomorrow.

      She was in bed by eleven with a night lamp burning in the front bedroom. But it was absolutely futile to try and sleep.

      She lay there and stared at the ceiling. She worried about Uncle Charley. She worried about telling Harvey what she had done. He wouldn’t like her going to Uncle Charley in the first place. And he’d be furious with Uncle Charley for acting the way he had. It might be better to just keep the whole thing a secret.

      * * * *

      The following day, Tuesday, Julie walked to the grocery the long way, around and up Pinkney Street. She kept on the side of the street opposite Uncle Charley’s house and was very much relieved to see a plumber’s truck parked in front of the shabby house.

      A downspout from the eaves was disconnected, and the plumber was working on the drainage tile at the south end of the stoop. Uncle Charley, of course, must be all right this morning. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to call a plumber.

      That afternoon, Julie fixed icebox rolls for dinner. For Harvey, really. He wouldn’t be home until the eight o’clock train, but she was going to put off dinner that long and have steak and butterscotch pie and just about everything he liked.

      At five o’clock, the front doorbell took her out of the kitchen with flour on her hands. Dr. John Palet, the veterinarian from next door, was on the porch. Both of the doctor’s hands were occupied with a large sheet of newspaper that looked on the point of bursting beneath the weight of half a dozen or so plants and the dirt that came with their roots.

      “Heliotrope,” Dr. Palet said without preamble.

      He was a meek little man with a bald head and watery blue eyes. Knowing his wife as she did, Julie felt sorry for him. His passion for flowers and particularly heliotrope was the source of much gentle amused comment among the townspeople.

      “For me?” Julie clapped her hands.

      “Uh huh.” Dr. Palet gave her an oddly penetrating glance that surprised and bewildered Julie. “Mrs. Palet doesn’t care for heliotrope. Can’t just let them die, can I?”

      “Of course not,” Julie said. “And thanks so much.”

      She put her hands out for the plants, wondering just what she would do with them now that she had them. Cooking she had learned. but gardening—after spending most of her life in an apartment—was something of a mystery.

      Dr. Palet, however, wouldn’t hand her the plants.

      “They ought to go in right away. I see you’re busy, so I’ll plant ’em for you.”

      “Oh, I couldn’t trouble you.”

      “No trouble at all. Like to grub in the earth, just put them here and there along the front, huh?” Dr. Palet nodded his bead to indicate where he wished to plant. “They’ll look nice in front of the shrubbery.”

      She thanked him again. Dr. Palet backed from the door, bowing, his eyes clinging strangely to hers.

      “It’s a perennial,” he said in a flustered manner.

      “How nice!” Julie said.

      She hoped that was the right answer. She went back to the kitchen and whistled while she worked. She was well acquainted with that adage about whistling girls and crowing hens, but she didn’t think there was anything to it.

      * * * *

      An hour or more rolled by before the telegraph company phoned her a message from Harvey:

      WILL NOT BE BACK UNTIL END OF WEEK. HAVE FINE OPPORTUNITY FOR GOVERNMENT POSITION.

      LOVE, HARVEY.

      Julie sank down in the kitchen stool. There was just enough good news in the brief message to buoy up sinking disappointment. It was unfortunate that Harvey couldn’t have let her know earlier. The steak would keep in the freezer compartment, but there was the pie and all those rolls.

      She would take most of the rolls and the biggest part of the pie over to Dr. and Mrs. Palet, she decided.

      * * * *

      Mrs. Palet, large and too obviously permanented, stood on her back steps and peeked under the napkin at Julie’s rolls.

      “My, these look real nice,” she said.

      Dr. Palet took the pie from Julie’s hands, and smiled at his wife.

      “Harvey is a very lucky man, don’t you thing so, my dear?”

      “Why, yes,” she answered. “We all know that Julie is a model wife.”

      She got in a side glance at Dr. Palet that had a point and two edges on it. Then she smiled at Julie and asked when Harvey would be back. Harvey, Julie told them, would be away until the weekend.

      “For goodness sake, what do you do with your time, Julie?” And Mrs. Palet added with malice, “Especially at night. I’d think you’d go crazy with loneliness.”

      Julie said that she got along very well and always found small tasks about the house to occupy her attention. She was glad when she finally broke away from the Palets and hurried back to her own kitchen.

      * * * *

      She slept quite soundly that night and the

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