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Book II, Chapter VII, Sections VIII-IX Of Bread For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Wild Shimmering Path Bread by Charles G. Norris

Book II, Chapter VII, Sections VIII-IX It was then that Jeanette seriously considered having a baby. Martin was anxious for a child, and she knew how happy one would make him, how grateful and tender he was sure to be to her. She dreaded the ordeal more than most women.

She was fearful of the agony that awaited her at the end of the long, dreary, helpless nine months. Alice's hard labor and the following weakness from complications that had kept her practically bedridden for half a year had made a grave impression on Jeanette's mind. She shuddered at the idea of being torn.

at being manhandled by doctors, at being pulled and mauled and treated like an animal. It represented degradation to her, but she was prepared to go through with it. She wanted a child. She wanted one as much as Martin did. She wanted more than one. Her husband had accused her once of not loving children, but after the devotion she had lavished upon Etta and Ralph during the long months of the past winter, she felt she had convinced him

that such a reproach was wholly unjustified. Far more than the agony of childbirth, Jeanette apprehended the fetters that maternity would forge about her feet. Once a mother, she knew her liberty was over.

She would be bound then by the infant at her breast, by ties of duty and maternal instinct, and above all by love. She hated the idea of restriction. She hated the thought of giving up her independence.

She rebelled at the inhibitions which would prevent her from going her own way, living her own life, being her own mistress. Once again the question of money obtruded itself. What did the years ahead hold in store for her as Martin's wife? How would she fare at her husband's hands when she was thirty, forty, fifty? The infatuation of the bride for the man she had

married was gone now. She saw him in a cold, critical light. She loved him. She loved him truly and honestly. She loved him more than she had ever thought to love any man. Never was she so happy as when they two were alone together and in sympathy. She liked often to recall the happy day they had spent with Alice and Roy on the sand reefs off Freeport. Martin had been so sweet and splendid and dear that day. No woman could love a man more than she did then. He had been everything

that stirred her admiration. But that was a year ago, and he wasn't the same. He and she had drifted apart. Perhaps it was as much her fault as his. Perhaps their grievances against one another were no more than those of any average couple. She realized that both were strong-willed and opinionated. It was inevitable that they should sometimes clash. But if Martin differed with her, he could pursue his own way independent of his wife, while she must wait upon his pleasure.

She did not, could not trust Martin with the old confidence he had once inspired. Perhaps that was the experience of all wives. Most women put up with it, had to put up with it, made the best of conditions, lay with what equanimity they could in the bed they had chosen in the first flesh of love. But with her, and always with this thought ever since she had been a wife,

Jeanette had breathed a prayer of gratitude. There was a way out. The girls that had married blindly out of their father's and mother's house had no alternative if their marriages proved unsatisfactory but to endure them or seek divorce. But she and all other women who had achieved a livelihood of their own in the world of business,

who had won for themselves an economic value that could be measured in dollars and cents, could go back to work. They did not have to appeal to the law, the disreputable divorce courts, to free them from an intolerable alliance or compel a reluctant man to support them with alimony gouged from his unwilling pocketbook. Ever since she had become Martin's bride, Jeanette realized she had hugged this thought to herself, and always found consolation in it.

It had even been in her mind when she considered marriage. She had said to herself in those uncertain days that if the experiment did not prove satisfactory, there was a stenographer's job waiting for her somewhere in the world. Now this knowledge that she could be independent again if she chose had a vital bearing on the question of her having a child. Once a mother, the door of escape from a situation which might someday become intolerable would be forever closed.

She could not leave a baby as she could leave a husband. Should she risk it? Should she take the plunge, leave the safe return to shore behind her, and strike out into unknown waters, placing faith in her husband's devotion and his ability to take care of her? If she could only be sure, if she could only be convinced of Martin's dependability. She did not care a snap of her finger for Gerald Kenyon, Edith French, or the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club, or anything. All she

wanted was that Martin should be good to her, should protect and provide for her with as much thought and care as she had given herself when she had been a wage-earner and her own mistress. If Martin would stand back of her, she would welcome a baby. She would bear him half a dozen, all that her strength was equal to. She would banish her fear of the ordeal.

She told him so passionately, she showed him the reasonableness and righteousness of her stand, and he admitted the truth of what she said. He promised to do anything she wanted. You're dead right, Jan, he said with a gravity that went straight to her heart. I see your point, and I'll do the best I can.

And golly, won't it be great when there's a kid in the family? You know, a kid that's our own? Why, you were never so happy or so pretty, and you never were so good to me, and I never loved you more than when Etta and Ralph were toddling around here. But she would agree to nothing until he had demonstrated to her that he had changed and was as much in earnest about the matter as she proposed to be. Mart, you've got to show me. You've got to convince me you've turned over a

new leaf. I want to be satisfied that I am always going to be glad I'm your wife before I anchor myself to you for the rest of my life. Now we're in debt. While I've been out of sympathy with you, I've done some charging in town. New clothes I had to have in order to go about with Edith French. If we have a baby, it's going to cost money, and we've got to be out of debt first, don't you think so? You can re-establish my faith in you by showing me now how you can help me save. If we

cut down and put our minds to it, we can save a thousand dollars by the first of the year. Now I'll let Hilda go and do my own work, if you'll resign from the family yacht club. It was a challenge, and Martin's startled eyes found hers. And sell my A-boat, he asked blankly. And sell your A-boat, Jeanette repeated firmly. Well, my God, that's kind of tough, he said slowly, but all right. If you say so, I'll get out.

I'll sell it and quit. Do you really mean it, Mart? Yes, I'll, I'll resign. Only, Jan, can't I finish the season? Zeb and I have got a swell chance for the cup, and all the A-boats have been invited over to Larchmont for their annual regatta, and Zeb knows that course, and we're all going to be towed over the day before. He was like a little boy pleading for a toy. She could not find it in her heart to refuse him. Very well, she conceded slowly. Only as soon as the season's over,

you'll positively resign? Sure, I'll tell the fellows tomorrow that it's my last year, and I'll quit after the final race. June, July, and August passed. Labor Day came and went. The yachting season closed with gala festivities, special boat races, a big dance at each of the clubs, and one day Martin announced that Zeb had paid him sixty dollars for the albatross and that he had sent in his letter of resignation to the board of directors. It was then that Jeanette

told Hilda she would be obliged to let her go. She had grown fond of the girl and was sorry to lose her, but in the face of this evidence of her husband's good faith, she felt she must begin to carry out her part of their bargain. Apart from this, there were other considerations which made her welcome this new regime of curtailment and self-denial. She was not satisfied with the recent order of her life. Her conscience troubled her. There had been certain evenings during the past

summer, memories of which were not altogether pleasant. Hardly a week had gone by without Doc and Edith French inviting her to go with them to a dance at the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club, or on a jaunt to some roadhouse on Long Island, and Gerald Kenyon invariably had been along. He had made love to her, flattering love to her, and she had been diverted. She liked him, he danced well, he was rich and a prodigal host, he was agreeably attentive.

She would have early sent him to the right-about had it not been he proved a convenient escort. Martin was rarely on hand to accompany her. Gerald was eager to go with her anywhere she wished. She suffered his attentions, reminding herself that it was only for a few weeks, just until the end of summer, and it was her last fling at gaiety. She would rid herself of him by September, and prepare her household and her life for the time of retrenchment. Nothing of serious

significance had happened on any of these merry evenings. Martin could not have found fault with her. Gerald had never so much as kissed her cheek, but the atmosphere that had prevailed was disturbing to Jeanette. Gerald often imbibed too freely, but he was never offensive. He and the French's sometimes grew noisy, and there was a good deal of loose talk. A drink or two had a marked effect on Edith, and Jeanette wondered sometimes at the things she said and did.

Not that her words and actions were in themselves particularly shocking, but coming from a woman of her graciousness and refinement, they sounded rough. Jeanette was ready, now, to be quit of these intimates. Their society was not healthy, and in her soul she was conscious she did not belong in it. Her innate sense of rectitude took offense at such behavior. Thus it was that she turned to the period of self-denial with willingness, even zeal.

She threw herself wholeheartedly into the program of her new existence. She wanted to clean her soul as well as her life. She was happy in the changed order of her days. She liked doing her own work since it meant penance for her as well as saving. She liked to think she was preparing herself for her child. She figured out how long it would take them to be out of debt. Less than a year if they saved only fifty dollars a month. Now, Martin, she reminded

her husband, I'm not going through with this unless you stand back of me. You've got to save penny for penny with me, and you've got to show me you're deadly in earnest. She said this because he did not seem as enthusiastic, now as he had been when the plan was first discussed. The eagerness was missing, and he was rather sour about it. She knew he grieved over the sail of his boat, and it was bitter hard for him to give up his club. But this time she was

determined. She had renounced her frivolous, expensive friends. He must renounce his. She proposed to get along without the luxury of a servant. He must deny himself, too. Well, damn it! he growled at her implied reproach. Ain't I doing everything you want? The boat's gone, and I've sent my letter into the club. What more do you want me to do? Martin, that's no way to speak to your wife. You're not doing it for me.

She sighed in discouragement. He had a long way to go. His efforts to divert himself about the house on Saturday afternoons and Sundays were pathetic. He started vigorously to spade up a bit of ground which he declared would make an admirable vegetable bed in the spring. The spading lasted half a day and all winter Jeanette saw the snow-covered shovel sticking upright in the ground where he had left it. He was bored by inactivity. Books did not interest him.

He scorned the solitaire she suggested and in which she herself could find amusement. Likewise, he grew impatient at walks in the woods now full of autumn tints. Jeanette tried her best to entertain him. Several times she asked the Drigos over for auction bridge, but Mrs. Drigo and her husband quarreled so much when the cards ran against them

that Martin declared he did not care to play with them. Jeanette tried rum, but that too bored him. There was no pleasure in the game, he told her, without stakes, and one couldn't gamble with one's wife. At the end of her resources, she shrugged her shoulders and let him seek out his own amusements as best he could. His attitude nettled her. He ought to

face the new life, she felt, with the same fortitude, conscientiousness, and willingness that she displayed. She told him so with a good deal of rancor one day. He was acting like a spoiled boy. He wasn't being a good sport about it. He only glowered at her in reply and stalked out of the house. She had her own suspicions where he went, but she did not reproach him. In her heart she was sorry for him. His empty evenings and his weekends hung heavy on his hands.

She hoped he would get used to the idea and by and by be moved to follow her example. But as the weeks and then the months began to go by, and she saw that it was only she who was making the sacrifices—cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, denying herself clothes, and even trips to the city to see her mother. A dull anger kindled within her. This burst into flame when she learned by chance that Martin was still a member of the Yacht Club.

Stel Teschenmacher telephoned her one day to remind her to be sure and come to a bridge tournament the ladies of the club had arranged for the following Wednesday afternoon. Jeanette explained with some relish that she feared she was not eligible to participate since her husband was no longer a member of the club. But Stel Teschenmacher assured her that such was not the case.

Oh, no, you're mistaken, Mrs. Devlin. He's still a member and a very valued one. The directors refused absolutely to accept your husband's resignation. They just positively made him reconsider it. Why, we wouldn't get along without Mr. Devlin. He's just the life of the club. Jeanette said nothing to Martin. She was bitter, feeling he had tricked her,

was not playing fair. She decided she would go to New York and pour out her grievance in a stormy recital to her mother. It would relieve her mind. On the train she met Edith French, and when the city was reached, her friend triumphantly carried her off to lunch at the Waldorf.