All the fellas I go with do that, of course. But they know when to stop. You can’t ever think Larry would ever come home drunk, would ya? Nor I. I drink a little evenings when I go out. They all do, but they don’t drink enough to run over a woman and half kill a baby.”

“Oh, Fannie!” wailed Wilanna. “You oughtn’t ta drink. You know you oughtn’t. You know what we learned in school. You know what it does to the—the—the—nerves, and the—the—the—brain!”

“Aw, that’s all rot! Larry says that’s an exploded theory. He says young people today know a lot more’n their fathers and mothers did when they was our age, and they know how to control theirselves.”

“But, Fannie! Suppose you couldn’t! Suppose you got drunk yourself! Some folks can’t. Papa can’t stop!”

“Aw! Cut that out, Willie! I hope you don’t think I’m like Papa! Papa could stop if he liked. He don’t like! He wantsta get drunk! He does it on purpose!”

There were two great tears in Wilanna’s big blue eyes, and her bottom lip was trembling.

“But Frannie, don’t you think there’s something about drinking that makes people wantta?”

“Aw, shut up, Willie! You’re only a baby. You don’t know anything about such things. I’m grown up. I gotta do as the rest of the young folks do. How’d I look saying ‘No thank ya!’ when everybody else was drinking? They’d all think I was afraid. They’d all know my father couldn’t control hisself.”

Frances was penciling in a supercilious eyebrow now, and it required all her attention. The room was very still for a minute or two while the slow sorrowful tears flowed silently down the younger sister’s cheeks. Then Wilanna roused to the attack once more.

“Frannie, I wish you wouldn’t go out tonight. I wish you wouldn’t! Mamma may not come home till a long time yet, and I’m afraid here alone tonight. I keep thinking maybe that woman might die and her spirit come here. I keep thinking it all the time. She would know our father had killed her—and her little baby—and—I wish you wouldn’t go, Frannie!”

“Aw, shut up!” cried out Frances impatiently, rubbing away at a very rosy cheek. “Now you made me put too much rouge on! You make me tired! As if a woman that was dead could come back. You wouldn’t see her if she did. Think about your nice Sunday school teacher and the book she brought you. Didn’t she have a swell dress on, though! Her hat was some class, too, only I’d have liked a little more color on it. She’s a real pretty girl.”

“Frannie, why do you put that old rouge on your cheeks? I think you look a lot better without it. She didn’t have any on. She just had her skin.