Part 53 (1/2)
”Yeh; and a dame in Seventieth Street gimme a quarter and hugged the daylights out of me till my bra.s.s b.u.t.tons made holes in me and cried brineys all over the telegram, and made me read it out loud twice, once for each ear: 'Unhurt, Sweetheart, and homeward bound--Bill.' Can you beat it? Five cents a word!”
”Jimmie, wasn't you glad to carry her a message like that?”
”It's a paying business, ma, if you're lucky enough to deal only in good news.”
A chair squealed on its castors, a patch of light sprang through the transom, and the chocolate-ocher bedroom and its chocolate-ocher furniture emerged into a chocolate-ocher half-light.
”Jimmie?”
”Huh?”
”I'm--I wish--Oh, nothin'!”
”Ain't you feelin' right, in there, ma?”
”Yes, Jimmie; but--but come in and talk to your old mother awhile, my boy.”
”Surest thing you know! Say, these are some sandwiches! You must 'a'
struck pay-dirt in your sardine-mine, ma.”
”They're for her gen'l'man friend, Jimmie.”
The door flung open and threw an island of light pat on the bed. In the gauzy stream the face on the pillow, with the skin drawn over the cheeks tight as a vellum on a snare-drum, was vague as a head by Carriere after he had begun to paint through the sad film of his growing blindness.
”Jimmie, my boy!”
”h.e.l.lo, ma!”
”Ain't your cheeks cold, though, Jimmie? It's right sharp out, ain't it?
And Essie in her thin coat! You--you're a little late to-night, ain't you, Jimmie?”
He drew his loose-jointed figure up from over the bedside; and his features, half-formed as a sculptor's head just emerging from the marble, took on the easy petulance of youth, and he wiped the moist lips' print off his downy cheek with the back of his hand.
”Ah, there you go again! You been layin' here frettin' and countin' the minutes again, ain't you? Gee, it makes a fellow sore when he just can't get home no sooner!”
”No, no, Jimmie; I been layin' here sleepin' sound ever since I went to bed. I woke up for the first time just now. I'm all right, Jimmie, only--only--”
”Honest, ma, you ought to ask the company to put me in short-pants uniform, day duty, carrying telegrams of the day's catechism to Sunday-school cla.s.ses.”
”I--Don't fuss at me, Jimmie! I--I guess I must 'a' had one of them smothering spells, and I didn't wait up for Essie and Joe to-night. I'm all right now, Jimmie--all right.”
He placed his heavy hand on her brow in half-understanding sympathy.
”Geewhillikins, why don't you tell a fellow? You want some of that black medicine, ma. You--gee!--you ain't lookin' kinda blue-like round the gills, are you? Old man Gibbs said we should send for him right away if--”
”No, no, Jimmie; I'm all right now.”
”Look! I brought you a carnation one of the operators gimme--one swell little queen, too. You want some of that black medicine, ma?”
”I'm all right now, Jimmie. It was just earlier in the evening I kinda had a spell. Ain't that pink pretty, though! Here, put it in the gla.s.s, and gimme a French kiss. Always ashamed like a big baby when it comes to kissin', ain't you? Ashamed to even kiss your old ma!”