Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

then panic-stricken back into the other, and then again to the first like a bird trying to get out of a cage. Finally at a sign from the bored motorman who had stopped the car, she passed into the right aisle and handing her transfer to him, spoke a few words to him, pointing to the man who had stopped her. The conductor nodded reassuringly and she jumped off. I craned my neck to see her as we went on, & saw her standing on the corner looking wildly about as if she didn’t know where to go. I had the peculiar feeling that someone of us on the car should have done something for her.
I have been thinking of her all day, wondering what happened to her, or was happening to her to make her like that. I got to thinking of all three of them, and imagining all kind of street they might live on – they might easily all live on the same one – and

Jun 17, 1926—

the kind of houses they might inhabit.
It seems as if the fact of these three monstrosities being thrown momentarily together ought to have some purpose, as tho some sequel were called for. I would have liked to follow each one to their destination & find out something of their lives, I could not imagine the woman with the bold-dog eyes as doing anything rational. Gouded on by her secret anguish in terror, whatever it was (for I am convinced some dire trouble blackens her life) she would eat her meals hurriedly, gruelingly, not knowing what she ate, & suffocating from indigestion; her sleep would always be fitful & full of nightmares, no doubt she would scream aloud at times. She would never stop to “pass the time of day” with anyone.