you.'
'Why didn't the bell ring, then?' She glared at me. She just needed a bunch of switches, a blackboard behind her 2 x 2 e 5. 'She'll hide it under her dress and a body'd never know it. You, child. How'd you get in here?'
The little girl said nothing. She looked at the woman, then she gave me a flying black glance and looked at the woman again. 'Them foreigners,' the woman said. 'How'd she get in without the bell ringing?'
'She came in when I opened the door,' I said. 'It rang once for both of us. She couldn't reach anything from here, anyway. Besides, I dont think she would. Would you, sister?' The little girl looked at me, secretive, contemplative. 'What do you want? bread?'
She extended her fist. It uncurled upon a nickel, moist and dirty, moist dirt ridged into her flesh. The coin was damp and warm. I could smell it, faintly metallic.
'Have you got a five cent loaf, please, ma'am?'
From beneath the counter she produced a square cut from a newspaper sheet and laid it on the counter and wrapped a loaf into it. I laid the coin and another one on the counter. 'And another one of those buns, please, ma'am.'
She took another bun from the case. 'Give me that parcel,' she said. I gave it to her and she unwrapped it and put the third bun in and wrapped it and took up the coins and found two coppers in her apron and gave them to me. I handed them to the little girl. Her fingers closed about them, damp and hot, like worms.
'You going to give her that bun?' the woman said.
'Yessum,' I said. 'I expect your cooking smells as good to her as it does to me.'
I took up the two packages and gave the bread to the little girl, the woman all iron-gray behind the counter, watching us with cold certitude. 'You wait a minute,' she said. She went to the rear. The door opened again and closed. The little girl watched me, holding the bread against her dirty dress.
'What's your name?' I said. She quit looking at me, bu she was still motionless. She didn't even seem to breathe. The woman returned. She had a funny looking thing in her hand. She carried it sort of like it might have been a dead pet rat.
'Here,' she said. The child looked at her. 'Take it,' the woman said, jabbing it at the little girl. 'It just looks peculiar. I calculate you wont know the difference when you eat it. Here. I cant stand here all day.' The child took it, still watching her. The woman rubbed her hands on her apron. 'I got to have that bell fixed,' she said. She went to the door and jerked it open. The little bell tinkled once, faint and clear and invisible. We moved toward the door and the woman's peering back.
'Thank you for the cake,' I said.
'Them foreigners,' she said, staring up into the obscurity where the bell tinkled. 'Take my advice and stay clear of them, young man.'
'Yessum,' I said. 'Come on, sister.' We went out. 'Thank you, ma'am.'
She swung the door to, then jerked it open again, making the bell give forth its single small note. 'Foreigners,' she said, peering up at the bell.
We went on. 'Well,' I said. 'How about some ice cream?' She was eating the gnarled cake. 'Do you like ice cream?' She gave me a black still look, chewing. 'Come on.'
We came to the drugstore and had some ice cream. She wouldn't put the loaf down. 'Why not put it down so you can eat better?' I said, offering to take it. But she held to it, chewing the ice cream like it was taffy. The bitten cake lay on the table. She ate the ice cream steadily, then she fell to on the cake again, looking about at the showcases. I finished mine and we went out.
'Which way do you live?' I said.
A buggy, the one with the white horse it was. Only Doc Peabody is fat. Three hundred pounds. You ride with him on the uphill side, holding on. Children. Walking easier than holding uphill.
Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odor of honeysuckle all mixed up.
'You'd better take your bread on home, hadn't you?'
She looked at me. She chewed quietly and steadily; at regular intervals a small distension passed smoothly down her throat. I opened my package and gave her one of the buns. 'Goodbye,' I said.
I went on. Then I looked back. She was behind me. 'Do you live down this way?' She said nothing. She walked beside me, under my elbow sort of, eating. We went on. It was quiet, hardly anyone about
'Well, I've got to go down this way,' I said. 'Goodbye.' She stopped too. She swallowed the last of the cake, then she began on the bun, watching me across it. 'Goodbye,' I said. I turned into the street and went on, but I went to the next corner before I stopped.
'Which way do you live?' I said. 'This way?' I pointed down the street. She just looked at me. 'Do you live over that way? I bet you live close to the station, where the trains are. Dont you?' She just looked at me, serene and secret and chewing. The street was empty both ways, with quiet lawns and houses neat among the trees, but no one at all except back there. We turned and went back. Two men sat in chairs in front of a store.
'Do you all know this little girl? She sort of took up with me and I cant find where she lives.'
They quit looking at me and looked at her.
'Must be one of them new Italian families,' one said. He wore a rusty frock coat. 'I've seen her before. What's your name, little girl?' looked at them blackly for a while, her jaws moving steadily. She swallowed without ceasing to chew.
'Maybe she cant speak English,' the other said.
'They sent her after bread,' I said. 'She must be able to speak something.'
'What's your pa's name?' the first said. 'Pete? Joe? name John huh?' She took another bite from the bun.
'What must I do with her?' I said. 'She just follows me. I've got to get back to Boston.'
'You from the college?'
'Yes, sir. And I've got to get on back.'
'You might go up the street and turn her over to Anse. He'll be up at the livery stable. The marshal.'
'I reckon that's what I'll have to do,' I said. 'I've got to do something with her. Much obliged. Come on, sister.'
We went up the street, on the shady side, where the shadow of the broken facade blotted slowly across the road. We came to the livery stable. The marshal wasn't there. A man sitting in a chair tilted in the broad low door, where a dark cool breeze smelling of ammonia blew among the ranked stalls, said to look at the postoffice. He didn't know her either.
'Them furriners. I cant tell one from another. You might take her across the tracks where they live, and maybe somebody'll claim her.'
We went to the postoflice. It was back down the street. The man in the frock coat was opening a newspaper.
'Anse just drove out of town,' he said. 'I guess you'd better go down past the station and walk past them houses by the river. Somebody there'll know her.'
'I guess I'll have to,' I said. 'Come on, sister.' She pushed the last piece of the bun into her mouth and swallowed it. 'Want another?' I said. She looked at me, chewing, her eyes black and unwinking and friendly. I took the other two buns out and gave her one and bit into the other. I asked a man where the station was and he showed me. 'Come on, sister.'
We reached the station and crossed the tracks, where the river was. A bridge crossed it, and a street of jumbled frame houses followed the river, backed onto it. A shabby street, but with an air heterogeneous and vivid too. In the center of an untrimmed plot enclosed by a fence of gaping and broken pickets stood an ancient lopsided
