Catholics -- Fiction; Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Divorce -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
Georgia Connor, nicely disguised, would be a good character for his
book. Change the color of her hair, for instance, put a couple of
inches on her height, make her something else but a stenographer, say a
cashier--and neither she nor anybody else would suspect. So he had
many little talks with his model, getting material. Besides, he liked
her. She was intelligent, she never bored him and she always had her
own point of view, and half the time an unexpected one. She had been
twice educated--first by the convent and next by the loop. One could
never tell which side of her was going to speak next.
Eventually one side would prevail. Which it would be depended on the
baby question. If she had enough of them tugging at her skirts she'd
revert to type. He knew. He'd seen 'em come and go for thirty years.
Persistent mothers don't aviate.
When little Al was a month old, shortly after midnight on the
thirteenth of November--she will never forget the day--Georgia awoke
suddenly as if a pistol had been shot off by her ear. The baby was
wailing in a feeble little singsong. She looked at the clock. It
wanted half an hour to his feeding time.
She walked slowly up and down the room, whispering to her son.
Sometimes she stopped at the open window to look out into the cool
pleasant night, but nothing she knew how to do made any difference. He
kept steadily on with his heart-breaking little singsong wail.
At one precisely, before the single stroke of the small clock had
stopped ringing through the room, she gave him breast. He took a
little, then gasped and choked and "spit it up" again. She waited ten
minutes as she had been instructed, then gave him a very little--not
more than three or four swallows. He rejected it. After twenty
minutes she tried again. The warm, white life-giving fluid ran over
his lips and chin, and trickled down his neck, wetting the neckband and
sleeve of his thin woolen garment. But he kept a little down she
thought. And then after awhile a little more. She did not wish him to
be as far from her as his crib, so he dozed off in the crook of her
elbow, while she took short naps a few minutes at a time until dawn.
At five she took in Mr. Kane's coffee. This duty now accrued to her,
because the doctor had warned Mrs. Talbot not to overdo.
When Georgia returned with her empty tray she dropped into a chair for
just a moment's rest. An hour later when she awoke she found little Al
lying rigid on the bed, his small fists clenched, his eyes rolled up
until only the whites could be seen through his half-closed lids, his
under lip sucked in between his gums. She was not sure that he
breathed.
Hastily she ran to the bathroom and turned the hot water tap on full.
Hastily she ran back, and took the child in her arms. She knocked at
the door of big Al's room.
"Al," she cried, "Al, Al, Al--wake up."
"What--eh, oh, what?" came a sleepy voice.
"Telephone the doctor, quick, quick, quick, the baby is--Oh, hurry, Al."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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