American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
“But, my God!” he says, “suppose you catch it yourself, Jane!”
I set up straight then, and I would of give a good deal to see through
that door, because Jane was the perfessor's wife's first name.
“You mean suppose _you_ get it,” she says. I like to of seen the look
she must of give him to fit in with the way she says that _you_. He
didn't say nothing, the man didn't; and then her voice softens down
some, and she says, low and slow: “Henry, wouldn't you love me if I
_did_ get it? Suppose it marked and pitted me all up?”
“Oh, of course,” he says, “of course I would. Nothing can change the way
I feel. _You_ know that.” He said it quick enough, all right, just the
way they do in a show, but it sounded _too much_ like it does on the
stage to of suited me if _I'd_ been her. I seen folks overdo them little
talks before this.
I listens some more, and then I see how it is. This is that musician
feller Biddy Malone's been talking about. Jane's going to run off with
him all right, but she's got to kiss the kids first. Women is like that.
They may hate the kids' pa all right, but they's dad-burned few of 'em
don't like the kids. I thinks to myself: “It must be late. I bet they
was already started, or ready to start, and she made him bring her here
first so's she could sneak in and see the kids. She just simply couldn't
get by. But she's taking a fool risk, too. Fur how's she going to see
Margery with that nurse coming and going and hanging around all night?
And even if she tries just to see William Dear it's a ten to one shot
he'll wake up and she'll be ketched at it.”
And then I thinks, suppose she _is_ ketched at it? What of it? Ain't a
woman got a right to come into her own house with her own door key,
even if they is a quarantine on to it, and see her kids? And if she is
ketched seeing them, how would anyone know she was going to run off? And
ain't she got a right to have a friend of hern and her husband's bring
her over from her mother's house, even if it is a little late?
Then I seen she wasn't taking no great risks neither, and I thinks mebby
I better go and tell that perfessor what is going on, fur he has treated
me purty white. And then I thinks: “I'll be gosh-derned if I meddle.
So fur as I can see that there perfessor ain't getting fur from what's
coming to him, nohow. And as fur _her_, you got to let some people find
out what they want fur theirselves. Anyhow, where do _I_ come in at?”
But I want to get a look at her and Henry, anyhow. So I eases off my
shoes, careful-like, and I eases acrost the floor to them sliding doors,
and I puts my eye down to the little crack. The talk is going backward
and forward between them two, him wanting her to come away quick, and
her undecided whether to risk seeing the kids. And all the time she's
kind o' hoping mebby she will be ketched if she tries to see the kids,
and she's begging off fur more time ginerally.
Well, sir, I didn't blame that musician feller none when I seen her. She
was a peach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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