I + 

She was scrubbing furiously at a line of grease spots which led from the stove towards the door to the dining-room. That was where Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterday. And yet if she had warned him once about that, she had a thousand times! Warned him, and begged of him, and implored him to be careful. The children simply paid no attention to what she said. None. She might as well talk to the wind. Hot grease too! That soaked into the wood so. She would never get it clean. + 

She shook the surplus of water from her scrubbing-brush, sat back on her heels, sprinkled cleaning-powder on the bristles⁠—the second can of cleaning-powder this month, and the price gone up so!⁠—and setting her strong teeth hard, flew at the spots again, her whole body tense with determination. + 

A sober-faced little boy in clean gingham rompers, with a dingy Teddy-bear in his arms, appeared at the door of the dining-room behind her, looked in cautiously, surveyed his mother’s quivering, energetic back for an instant, and retreated silently without being seen. + 

She stopped, breathless, dipped her hand into the pail of hot soapy water, and brought out a hemmed, substantial floor-cloth, clean and whole. When, with a quick twist, she had wrung this out, she wiped the suds from the floor and looked sharply at the place she had been scrubbing. + 

The grease spots still showed, implacably dark against the white wood about them. + 

Her face clouded, she gave a smothered exclamation and seized the scrubbing-brush again. + 

In the next room a bell tinkled. The telephone! It always rang when it would bother her most. + 

She dropped her brush, stood up with one powerful thrust of her body, and went to wipe her hands on the roller-towel which hung, smooth and well-ironed, by the sink. + 

The bell rang again. Exasperated by its unreasonableness, she darted across the dining-room and snatched the receiver from the hook. + 

“Yes, this is Mrs. Knapp.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“Oh, it’s you, Mattie.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“Oh, all about as usual here, thank you. Helen has one of her awful colds, but not so I have to keep her at home. And Henry’s upset again, that chronic trouble with his digestion. The doctor doesn’t seem to do him any good.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“No, my eczema is no worse. On my arm now.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“How could I keep it perfectly quiet? I have to use it! You know I have everything to do. And anyhow I don’t know that’s it’s any worse to use it. I keep it bandaged of course.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“Oh, Stephen’s well enough. He’s never sick, you know. But into everything! He drives me frantic when I’m flying around and trying to get the work done up; and I don’t know what to do with him when he gets into those tantrums. It’ll be an awful relief to me when he starts to school with the others. Perhaps the teachers can do something with him. I don’t envy them.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“Mercy, no, Mattie! How can you think of such a thing? I never can take the time for outings! I was right in the midst of scrubbing the kitchen floor when you rang up. I’m way behind in everything. I always am. There’s not a room in the house that’s fit to look at. And I’ve got to make some of those special health-flour biscuits for supper. The doctor said to keep trying them for Henry.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“How can I go out more and rest more? You know what there is to do. Somebody’s got to do it.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“Yes, I know that’s what the doctor keeps telling me. I’d just like to have him spend a day in my place and see how he thinks I could manage. Nobody understands! People talk as though I worked the way I do just to amuse myself. What else can I do? It’s all got to be done, hasn’t it?” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“No, it’s nice of you to suggest it, but I couldn’t manage it. It would just waste your time to come round this way and stop. It’s simply out of the question for me to think of going.” + 

… ⁠ ⁠… + 

“Well, thank you just the same. I appreciate your thinking of me. I’m sure I hope you have a lovely time.” + 

An ominous silence in the house greeted her as she hung up the receiver and turned away. What could Stephen be up to, now? She had not heard a sound from him for some time. That was always alarming from Stephen. + 

“Stephen!” She called quickly and stood listening for an answer, her fine dark brows drawn together tensely. + 

The house waited emptily with her for the answer which did not come. + 

“Stephen!” she shouted, turning so that her voice would carry up the stairs. + 

“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick⁠—” whispered the little mantelpiece clock hurriedly in the silence. + 

She was rarely quiet enough to hear that sound, but when it did come to her ears, it always said pressingly, “So much to do! So much to do! So much to do!” + 

She looked at it and frowned. Half-past two already! And that floor only half scrubbed. What possessed people to call you up on the telephone at all hours? Didn’t anybody realize what she had to do! + 

“Stephen!” she called irritably, running upstairs. Was there anything more exasperating than to have a child not answer when you called? Helen and Henry had never dreamed of that when they had been his age. It was another one of his naughty tricks, a new one! He had a new one every day. And he always knew just when was the worst possible time to try one on. The water in her scrubbing pail was cooling off all the time and she had just filled up the reservoir of the kitchen stove with cold, so that she couldn’t have another pailful of hot for an hour. + 

“Stephen!” The thought of the cooling water raised the heat of her resentment against the child. + 

She looked hastily into the spotless bathroom, the bedroom where Stephen’s smooth white cot stood by his parents’ bed, into Henry’s little dormer-windowed cubbyhole⁠—there! Henry had left his shoes in the middle of the floor again!⁠—into Helen’s room where a great bias fold in the badly made bed deepened the line between her eyes. + 

Still no Stephen. It was too much. With all she had to do, slaving day and night to keep the house nice for them all who never thought of appreciating it, never any rest or change, her hair getting thinner all the time, simply coming out by handfuls, and she had had such beautiful hair, so many things to do this afternoon while Mattie was out, enjoying herself, riding in a new car, and now everything stopped because of this naughty trick of Stephen’s of not answering. + 

“Stephen!” she screamed, her face darkly flushed. “Tell me where you are this minute!” + 

In that tiny house he must be quite within earshot. + 

But the tiny house sent back not the faintest murmur of response. The echo of her screaming voice died away to a dead silence that closed in on her menacingly and laid on her feverish, angry heart the cold touch of terror. + 

Suppose that Stephen were not hiding from her! Suppose he had stepped out into the yard a moment and had been carried away. There had been those rough-looking men loitering in the streets yesterday⁠—tramps from the railroad yards.⁠ ⁠… Oh, and the railroad yards so close! Mrs. Elmore’s little Harry killed there by a freight-train. Or the river! Standing there in the dark upper hall, she saw Stephen’s little hands clutching wildly at nothing and going down under that dreadful, cold, brown water. Stephen, her baby, her darling, the strongest and brightest of them all, her favorite.⁠ ⁠… + 

She flew down the stairs and out the front door into the icy February air, calling wildly: “Stephen! Stevie! Stevie, darling!” + 

But the dingy street was quite empty save for a grocer’s wagon standing in front of one of the little clapboarded houses. She ran down to this and asked the boy driving it: “Have you seen Stephen since you turned into the street? You know, little Stephen Knapp?” + 

“No, I ain’t seen him,” said the boy, looking up and down the street with her. + 

A thin old woman came out on the front porch of the house next to the Knapp’s. + 

“You haven’t seen Stephen, have you, Mrs. Anderson?” called Stephen’s mother. + 

“No, I haven’t see him, Mrs. Knapp. I don’t believe he’d go out this cold day. He’s just hiding on you somewhere. Children will do that, if you let them. If he were my child, Mrs. Knapp, I’d cure him of that trick before he so much as started it⁠—by the shingle method too! I never used to let my children get ahead of me. Once you let them get the start on you with some.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Mrs. Knapp’s anxious face reddened with resentment. She went back to her own house and shut the door behind her hard. + 

Inside she began a systematic search of every possible hiding place, racing from one to another, now hot with anger, now cold with fear, sick, sick with uncertainty. She did not call the child now. She hunted him out silently and swiftly. + 

But there was no Stephen in the house. He must have gone out! Even if he were safe, he would be chilled to the bone by this time! And suppose he were not safe! If only they didn’t live in such an abominable part of the town, so near the railroad yards and the slums! Her anger dropped away. She forgot the barb planted in her vanity by old Mrs. Anderson. As she flung on her wraps, she was shivering from head to foot; she was nothing but loving, suffering, fearing motherhood. If she had seen her Stephen struggling in the arms of a dozen big hoodlums, she would have flown at them like a tigress, armed only with teeth and claws and her passionate heart. + 

Her hand on the doorknob, she thought of one last place she had not searched. The dark hole under the stairs. She turned to that and flung back the curtain. + 

Stephen was there, his Teddy-bear clutched in his arms, silent, his round face grim and hard, scowling defiantly at her. + 