The Cure Complete

She went closer and inspected the belt indignantly. Just as she
expected--it was Bud's belt; his old belt that she bought for him just
after they were married. She supposed that box beside the queer high
chair was where he would sit at table and stuff her baby with all kinds
of things he shouldn't eat. Where was her baby? A fresh spasm of longing
for Lovin Child drove her from the cabin. Find him she would, and that
no matter how cunningly Bud had hidden him away.

On a rope stretched between a young cottonwood tree in full leaf and
a scaly, red-barked cedar, clothes that had been washed were flapping
lazily in the little breeze. Marie stopped and looked at them. A man's
shirt and drawers, two towels gray for want of bluing, a little shirt
and a nightgown and pair of stockings--and, directly in front of Marie,
a small pair of blue overalls trimmed with red bands, the blue showing
white fiber where the color had been scrubbed out of the cloth, the two
knees flaunting patches sewed with long irregular stitches such as a man
would take.

Bud and Lovin Child. As in the cabin, so here she felt the individuality
in their belongings. Last night she had been tormented with the fear
that there might be a wife as well as a baby boy in Bud's household.
Even the evidence of the mail order, that held nothing for a woman and
that was written by Bud's hand, could scarcely reassure her. Now she
knew beyond all doubt that she had no woman to reckon with, and the
knowledge brought relief of a sort.