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THE H A N D M A I D E N Robert Bryant, 1878-1958 Rose Peters Bryant, 1877-1914 Sara Boiling Bryant, 1890Five births in eight years, the last with its terrible flux and no help for it, their mother was dead, his real wife was dead. The children parcelled out to relatives, he fed on his sorrow, that hard red berryfour years, until duty recalled them and drove his famous temper underground. After careful interview, she was installed; gave little, was given little; prepared the biscuit; instructed the children by his strict example; watched them flutter from the house like kites; stood by as he reeled them back in on memory's long string. At his death, his will supplanted all imagination. What did it matter, to have survived him? Daily she ties on her bonnet, walks the half mile to rake, mow or mulch his family plot. There the two bodies nestle together under the common stone: Robert on the left, her own lot to the right, and at the center his grief-perfected Rose. 33 ...

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