Firefly by Linda Hilton Page A

held her new son in her arms.  There had been no such euphoria when Katharine Hollstrom was delivered of Willy nine years ago, and the memory of that night with all its horrors came back to haunt Julie. She thanked Providence there was no tree in the silvered back yard under her window, especially no oak tree with wide-spreading branches that made such a convenient gallows.  Death and new life.  How strangely they had come together that night.
    Now there had been death and new life again.  Horace Opper had died and Morgan Julian Baxter had been born.  Julie wondered if those events would change her life as much as when a drifter named Ted Sheen had lost his life at the end of a rope and a fragile seven-month infant named William Shakespeare Hollstrom had come squalling into the world.
    And then there was Del Morgan.  He stole into Julie's thoughts no matter what other subject had momentarily claimed her attention.  What right did she have to speak to him as she had, to demand he return to whatever his former life had been? She knew too little about his wife's death.  Winnie Upshaw had said something about Amy Morgan being killed, and Julie resolved to seek out the ebullient Miss Upshaw to learn the rest of the details.  Knowing the cause of the man's grief might help her in her crusade.
    She tried to make herself believe Morgan's rehabilitation was her only interest in the man.  She used Katharine and Willy as excuses to urge him to take up his profession again, but such tactics didn't fool her and she knew they would never fool her father.  He had no more forgotten Ted Sheen than she had.
    Which brought her back to why hadn't Wilhelm waited for her until she and Morgan returned?  It must have been long past midnight, and yet the house was dark and everyone had seemed asleep.  Julie was so certain that Wilhelm had heard her come in that she waited a long time before she ventured to remove her sweaty, dusty clothes and don a cool nightgown.  As the hours passed and still nothing happened, she became more and more afraid of what would happen come morning.
    But nothing happened then either.  Wilhelm said nothing to her, nor did Katharine, except to complain rather more than usual about her headache.  Willy went off after breakfast to find Clancy without even asking Julie the details of her adventure.
    Which was exactly the way she saw it as she busied herself with the dishes and then baked a batch of sugar cookies.
    Katharine sat in the parlor with the latest Saturday Evening Post .  Her occasional moans floated through the house, and twice she came into the kitchen to look for something to settle her stomach.  Julie sympathized all she could, but she had no remedy for either that complaint or the headache.
    The last sheet of cookies had just come from the oven when Katharine made a third foray.
    "I don't know how much longer I can bear this," she groaned.  "After your father comes home for lunch, I'm afraid I shall have to--"
    "Papa's coming home for lunch?" Julie interrupted.
    He never did that.  Never.
    "Yes, didn't he tell you?"  Katharine looked and sounded surprised, but then with a little shrug of her shoulders she sighed, "Oh, no, I don't think he did. I think he wanted me to tell you." She sat down at the table and helped herself to a cookie from the barrel-shaped jar.  "I'm afraid he's not very happy about what you did yesterday."
    Julie slipped the spatula under a row of cookies on the sheet and lifted them to the wire rack to cool.
    "I didn't think he would be.  But, Mama, it isn't what he thinks.  Dr. Morgan did need me, and there wasn't anyone else," she insisted.
    "The chicken burned a little," Katharine told her.  "I had to lie down on the sofa for a while, and the chicken burned. And I put too much honey on the carrots."
    The accusation was clear.  Wilhelm had complained of the poorly prepared meal.  Had Julie been home, his supper would have been perfect the way it always was.  She