Part 67 (1/2)

”I'll be home early to-night, Angie. You sleep on the davenport. I don't mind the lumps in the cot.”

She frizzed her front hair with a curling-iron she heated in the fan of the gas-flame, and combed out the little spring-tight curls until they framed her face like a fuzzy halo. Her pink lawn waist came high up about her neck in a trig, tight-fitting collar; and when she finally pressed on her sailor hat, and slid into her warm-looking tan jacket the small magenta bow on her left coat-lapel heaved up and down with her bosom.

”Say,” she called through the open doorway, ”I wish you'd see those seventy-nine-cent gloves, Angie--already split! How'd yours wear, huh?”

Silence.

”You care if I wear yours to-night, Angie?”

Silence.

”Aw, Angie, if you're sick why don't you say so and not go spoilin' my evening? Gee! If a girl would listen to you she'd have a swell time of it--she would! A girl's gotta have life.”

She fastened a slender gold chain with a dangling blue-enamel heart round her neck.

”Aw, I guess I'll stay home. There ain't no fun in anything, with you poutin' round like this.”

Tillie appeared in the doorway, gloves in hand. Angie was still at the uncleared table; her cheek lay on the red-and-white table-cloth, and her face was turned away.

”Angie!”

The room was quiet with the ear-pressing silence of vacuum. Tillie crossed and, with hands that trembled a bit, shook the figure at the table. The limp arms slumped deeper, and the waist-line collapsed like a meal-sack tied in the middle.

”Angie, honey!” Tillie's hand touched a cheek that was cold, but not with the chill of autumn.

Then Tillie cried out--the love-of-life cry of to-day and to-morrow, and all the echoing and re-echoing yesterdays--and along the dim-lit hall the rows of doors opened as if she had touched their secret springs.

Hurrying feet--whispers--far-away faces--strange hands--a professional voice and cold, s.h.i.+ning instruments--the silence of the tomb--a sheet-covered form on the red-velvet davenport! The fear of the Alone--the fear of the Alone!

Miss Angie's funeral-day dawned ashen as dusk--a sodden day, with the same autumn rain beating its one-tone tap against the windows and ricochetting down the panes, like tears down a woman's cheeks.

At seven three alarm-clocks behind the various closed doors down the narrow aisle of hallway sounded a simultaneous call to arms; and a fourth reveille, promptly m.u.f.fled beneath a pillow, thridded in the tiny room with the rumpled cot and the wavy mirror.

Miss Mamie woke reluctantly, crammed the clock beneath the pillow of her strange bed, and burrowed a precious moment longer in the tangled bedclothes. Sleep tugged at her tired lids and oppressed her limbs. She drifted for the merest second, floating off on the silken weft of a half-conscious dream. Then memory thudded within her, and the alarm-clock again thudded beneath the pillow.

She sprang out of bed, brushed the yellow mat of hair out of her eyes, and wriggled into her clothes in tiptoe haste.

”Til!” she cried, peering into the darkened room beyond and pitching her voice to a raspy little whisper. ”Why didn't you wake me?”

She veered carefully round the gloom-shrouded furniture and dim-shaped, black-covered object that occupied the center of the room, into the kitchenette.

”I didn't mean to fall asleep, Til; honest, I didn't. Gee! Ain't I a swell friend to have, comin' to stay with you all night and goin' dead on you? But, honest, Til--may I die if it ain't so--with you away from the counter all day yesterday, and the odds-and-ends sale on, I was so tired last night I could 'a' dropped.”

Tillie raised the gas-flame and pushed the coffee-pot forward. Through the wreath of hot steam her little face was far away and oyster-colored.

”Come on, Mame; I got your breakfast. Ain't it a day, though? Poor Angie--how she did hate the rain, and her havin' to be buried in it!”

”Ain't it a shame?--and her such a good soul! Honest, Til, ain't it funny her being dead? Think of it--us home from the store and Angie dead! Who'd 'a' thought one of them heart spells would take her off?”

”I ain't goin' to let you stay here only up to noon, Mame. There's no use your gettin' docked a whole day. It's enough for me to go out to the cemetery. You report at noon for half a day.”