Augustus: A Right to Live

Gus was a hard drinking, mean, fighting Irishman, on his mother's side of the family. A master carpenter, Gus goes to Iowa to build a house for his brother. But his brother looses his wife, Mary Dan, in childbirth, before the place is hardly started and looses interest, sending Gus and his wife home on a bad note.

The Irish believe that if it rains on a fresh grave there will be another death, within the year. It rained on Mary Dan's grave and the superstition comes true: Gus' wife and his sister die a year apart.

Gus drinks harder and fights harder; until the local madam gets involved and tries to save him. They see each other on a regular basis and she pulls him from his doldrums back to sanity. The whole thing gets involved when she and all the women in town begin trying to marry him off.

Gus meets his Annie, who is being badly beaten by her husband, one night as he goes to have a drink. To get away, he goes to Nebraska for the winter and the story concludes from there.