Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 2 — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

268 “That’s awfully decent of you!” he added warmly, even while his eyes had gone back to the page. She smiled and again gently. Once that detachment had hurt; now she rather loved it, for it was intensely his. “Tf I’d ’a’ seen myself doing this five _ years ago,” she thought, “setting in the park on Sunday fer a treat and working like a dog the rest of the week. Two holes right in the same spot as those of the last pair. Must be a nail in his shoes.” In the adjoining room Charlie moved about, octasionally pounded lightly on thin metal, muttering all the while. From the stove came the sizzle of something boiling and the gas meter ticked discouragingly. Mae let her mending drop and looked at Hargraves. Something in her mind pushed away the present and held up to view many incidents in years gone by. ‘“T shoulda took that there consumptive cure more regular,” she heard Elsie say. She saw Charlie gripping the arms of the chair in which he sat, gripping them until his roughened, reddened knuckles grew white. Then she saw Elsie turn over, whis- per: ‘ Elizabeth,’ and go to sleep. Mae leaned over her and touched her forehead. Then she turned to a widely staring in- ventor and whispered: “ Charlie, I guess this time she’s went.” She remembered the cruel weeks after the funeral, a funeral to whjch the family had walked. She remembered Charlie’s weeping at every meal and his utter humiliation be- cause he could buy “no nice headstone.” She remembered one warm spring Sunday when they had journeyed to the cheap, crowded cemetery and the way Charlie had stood speechless before the headstone Har- graves’s money had bought. She remem- bered their riding home, with Charlie sob- bing loosely and happily all the way— greatly to the amusement of two small girls who insufficiently covered their giggles with a pretended amusement over a soap ad- vertisement. She recalled WHargraves’s urgings of Charlie to work and of her saying: ‘Gravy, yuh don’t believe in that rubbish he talks about them pictures, do you?” And of his replying: ‘“ At first I didn’t. I just thought work would help him to ' water was poured on the bread. THE ARGOSY. feel better. But now Mae, honest, I’m beginning to believe there’s something in it!” She remembered Charlie’s being laid off and after that of Hargraves once giving way to open despair. He had been garden- ing a good deal in the outside section of Chicago, working hard; but even at that they had been cruelly pinched for money. Mae knew he was hungry and after it had happened, he acknowledged it. He had come in looking very white, with shadowed eyes and a damp, unhealthy-look- ing forehead. “They said I could have a meal if I worked for it, and I did. I weeded a geranium bed; but I got dizzy while I was doing it, and fell over, and they said I was drunk and told me to move on. I told ’em I was damned near starved, and the she-devil that owned the place told me to move on or she’d ‘ call an officer.’ Call an officer! I—” He had stopped speaking suddenly and stared straight ahead. Mae had not spoken but moved about the stove. After a few moments she gave him a cup of coffee and some butterless bread. She looked hopefully in the molasses can, but it was empty. She stood looking and then poured in a little hot water and shook it over the sides. \ The slightly colored Har- graves looked at the food, then at Mae, and then fell to gloriously. After he’d finished he got up and put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. “ That wasn’t fair,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. There’s nothing left, and you’ll be hungry.” Then he had got a job in an art gallery and she had gone on a free after- noon and inspected him in all his regalia. He had liked that so much, she remem- bered, for he had liked the sort of people who looked at pictures and their talk; but it had not paid well. | Then one night—her clothes had seemed incredibly shabby and he had not seemed to know that she was even alive—for days. And she was tired of doing the washing for two men and tired of cooking with nothing to cook. And she had seen a beau- tiful bangle bracelet on a woman while (eO) AMUELOOOL KS | (E@)