American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
And if Henry had of been really dead she couldn't of took it no harder
than she begun to take it now when she saw he was alive, but just wasn't
no good. But I seen she was taking on fur herself now more'n fur Henry.
Women is made unlike most other animals in many ways. When they is
foolish about a man they can stand to have that man killed a good 'eal
better than to have him showed up ridiculous right in front of them.
They will still be crazy about the man that's killed, but they don't
never forgive the lobster. I seen that work out before this. You can be
most any thing else and get away with it, but if you're a lobster it's
all off even if you can't help being a lobster. And when the perfessor
kicks Henry in the ribs and he comes to and sneaks out, Jane she never
even looks at him.
“Jane,” says the perfessor, when she quiets down some, “you got a lot to
forgive me. But do you s'pose I learned enough sense so we can make a go
of it if we start over again?”
But Jane never said nothing.
“Jane,” he says, “Estelle is going back to New England to stay there for
good.”
She begins to take a little interest then. “Did Estelle tell you so?”
she says.
“No,” says the perfessor, “Estelle don't know it yet. But she is. I'm
going to tell her in the mornin'.”
But she still hates him. She's making herself. She wouldn't of been a
female woman if she'd of been coaxed that easy. Pretty soon she says,
“I'm going upstairs and go to bed. I'm tired.” And she went out looking
like the perfessor was a perfect stranger.
After she left the perfessor set there quite a while and he was looking
tired out, too; and there wasn't no mistake about me. I was asleep all
through my legs, and I kept a wondering to myself, suppose them pills
had one of them been loaded sure enough, which one would of got it? And
when the perfessor leaves I says to myself, I reckon I better light a
rag. So I goes to the front window and opens it easy; but I thinks
about Henry's watch on the table, every one else having forgot it, and I
thinks I better hunt him up and give it to him.
And then I thinks why should I give him pain, for that watch will always
remind him of an unpleasant time he once had.
And if it hadn't been for me sitting in that window looking at that
watch I wouldn't a-been writing this, for I wouldn't of been in jail
now.
I tried to explain my intentions was all right, but the police says
it ain't natural to be seen coming out of a front window at two in the
morning in a striped sweater and a dinky dinner suit with a gold watch
in your hand; if you are hunting the owner you are doing it peculiar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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