Part 34 (1/2)
”Then he'd go off in a real fit of laughin' again. 'You ain't got no ideas of the breakers ahead, Cottie dearie,' he'd holler, 'and in this business there ain't many of us got the strength to fight 'em.'”
”Wasn't that like him--stealin' a letter!”
”Then he'd laugh some more, wag his finger at me and make me cry, and keep yellin' 'Breakers ahead! Breakers ahead!'”
”There, there, dearie; it's all over, now. He was too dumb and too mean to know that Lily was as jealous as a snake of me and you--always, even, when we was kids. Sure she don't want us in her show--we'd walk away with it. John was too dumb to see the letter was only--”
”'Sh-h-h; it's a sin to run down the dead.”
”Anyway, you never lied to John like he did to you. I can still hear him that dark night, down by the quarry, trying to scare you. Lyin' to you about what girls got to buck up against in the city, that night, when they first put the bandages on maw's eyes, and he was beggin' and beggin' you to marry him.”
”Gawd! I was ashamed to listen to some of the things he tried to scare me with that night.”
”He couldn't answer when I piped up about his cousin, Tessie Hobbs, that went to St. Louis to learn millinery and sends home four dollars a week. He couldn't answer that, could he?”
”No, he couldn't, Cottie.”
A silence--the great stone silence of a coliseum--closed in about them.
Della s.h.i.+vered and burrowed her head deeper into her sister's lap.
”Aw, Gawd, us talkin' like this, with him layin' in there!”
”If he wasn't layin' in there we wouldn't be talkin'.”
A shutter swung in on its hinges.
”There, there! It ain't nothin' but the wind, Della.”
”He was goin' to fix that shutter to-day when he was off s.h.i.+ft. Gawd, he didn't have no more idea of dyin' than I did!”
”That's just like maw. Sometimes in the night I can almost hear her stop breathin'--she's so weak, but she's always talkin' about next year--next year.”
”It'll be awful for you, little sister, with me gone and you alone with her.”
”It--it ain't a sin to say it, Delia. She--she ain't here for long, and I'll be comin' to join you soon. You'll tell 'em I'm comin'.”
”Gawd, how I wish we was going together, little sister! Leavin' you is just like leavin' my heart. There's n.o.body I love like you, Cottie.”
”Della darlin', look at Lily--she went alone.”
”I--I ain't afraid--you got the best voice of us two, but I'll make the way for you, dearie. I'll make it easier for you to come.”
”It won't be long.”
”If I could only have got his name that time on the train, Cottie!”
”You got Lily's boardin'-house, dearie. Ain't that something?”
”Oh, darlin'--him layin' in there!”