Stories - 'The Brand'

 

                                                                      T H E    B R A N D .

                                                                                       By Joe Cone.

 

After several unsuccessful jabs Bodley at last found the keyhole. And having once found it he had no further difficulty in reaching the room that served as a den, for the Bodley apartments luckily were on the first floor. Although it was two o’clock in the morning Mrs. Bodley had not retired. With her eyes wide open, and with her six months old baby in her arms, she lay upon the couch in the den. When her husband stumbled in the room she rose to meet him. He was too much surprised, and too imbued with the atmosphere of the club, to speak coherently. Heretofore she had been abed and apparently asleep when he had returned from a night out. Here was something new. He decided it was no place for a woman to be at the hour of the morning. A storm was brewing, and in his warped superior condition, he was going to meet it like a man.

“Shay, Mary,” he demanded, steadying himself in the doorway, “what in h- -l are you doing up at this hour of the night?”

She drew herself up. All the bitterness of the weary nights of waiting, all the pain of carelessness and neglect now rushed upon her. She had even gone without the necessities of life, and now she realized the situation. He was devoting his time and money to himself; his family was a second consideration.

“Is – this what I gave myself up to?” she cried.

“What do you mean, you ungrateful –”

“Stop!” she commanded, “you are not fit to talk. When you have sobered up I will talk to you.”

She seized the baby, and holding it tightly was about to leave the room. Her husband tried to follow her, then leaned heavily upon the table. His domineering spirit took another leap.

“Look here!” he bellowed, “if you have got something to shay to me, shay it now, see?”

“Only this, Stephen Bodley, if you ever come home again in this condition you won’t find me here!”

“Ho, ho!” he sneered, “I s’pose you’ll run away with that gypsy lover of yours, eh? Pretty story; fine!”

“What do you mean?” she fairly screamed.

She took a few steps toward him, quivering with anger and resentment.

“You know what I mean,” he leered. “Shay, if there’s going to be any gypsy business in this I’m going to have a hand in it, see? Ho, ho, gypsy camps! Lost child! Fine! Guess I’ll fix that,” and before the terrified woman could push him away he had jammed the end of his glowing cigar against the breast of the sleeping baby.

The infant screamed, and the tiger in the woman arose like a flash. Leaping toward the drunken brute she gave him a shove that sent him reeling towards the doorway. His head struck the casing and he sank into unconsciousness. When he awoke the next morning and called his wife’s name in feeble tones there was no response.

 

                                                                                    (undated)

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