Part 45 (2/2)
”We can sit out on the porch a while yet, Julius. Not like midsummer it is for your rheumatism.”
”Ya, ya. My slippers, Becky.”
”Here.”
”Ya, ya.”
”Look across the yard, will you, Julius. The Schlossmans are still at the supper-table. Fruit gelatin they got. I seen it cooling on the fence. We got new apples on the side-yard tree, you wouldn't believe, Julius. To-morrow I make pies.”
”Ya, ya.”
The light tulle of early evening hung like a veil, and through it the sad fragrance of burning leaves, which is autumn's incense, drifted from an adjoining lawn.
”'Sh-h-h-h, chickey--sh-h-h-h! Back in the yard I can't keep that rooster, Julius. And to-day for thirty cents I had that paling in the garden fence fixed, too. Honest, to keep a yard like ours going is an expense all the time. People in the city without yards is lucky.”
”In all Newton there ain't one like ours. Look, Becky, at that white-rose bush flowering so late just like she was a bride.”
”When Izzy was home always, we didn't have the expense of weeding.”
”Now when he comes home all he does is change neckties and make trouble.”
”_Ach_, my moon vines! Don't get your chair so close, Julius. Look how those white flowers open right in your face. One by one like big stars coming out.”
”M-m-m-m and smell, Becky, how good!”
”Here, lemme pull them heavy shoes off for you, papa. Listen, there goes that oriole up in the cherry-tree again. Listen to the thrills he's got in him. Pull, Julius; I ain't no derrick!”
”Ah-h-h, how good it feels to get 'em off! Now light my pipe, Becky.
Always when you light it, better it tastes. Hold--there--make out of your hand a cup--there--pu-pu-pu--there! Now sit down by me, Becky!”
”Move over.”
”_Ach_, Becky, when we got our little home like this, with a yard so smooth as my hand, where we don't need shoes or collars, and with our own fruit right under our noses, for why ain't you satisfied?”
”For myself, Julius, believe me it's too good, but for Poil we--”
”Look all what you can see right here from our porch! Look there through the trees at the river; right in front of our eyes it bends for us.
Look what a street we live on. We should worry it ain't in the booming part. Quiet like a temple, with trees on it older as you and me together.”
”The caterpillars is bad this year, Julius; trees ain't so cheap, neither. In the city such worries they ain't got.”
”For what with a place like this, Becky, with running water and--”
”It's Poil, Julius. Not a thing a beau-ti-fool girl like Poil has out here.”
”Nonsense. It's a sin she should want a better place as this. Ain't she got a plush parlor and a piano and--”
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