“You didn’? Great Gawd, gal, I been knowin dat ever since I was knee high. It’s de worst sign ever was when a lamp chimney breaks in you house.”
Mary looked straight and hard into Cinder’s eyes, but they turned away and gazed out of the window where a dark cloud was banked in the west. What was the use to dispute?
“Fire makes a house awful hot in de summertime, enty? Look like you’d a heap rather be out in de field in de coolness. But it’s gwine to rain, enty?”
“I like de hotness,” Mary answered quickly, “I like to sweat a plenty. I can work in de field any time I get ready.”
Cinder smiled steadily, but she looked older. Her eyes were deeper set and her skin had lost its shiny blackness. She had a string of red beads around her neck, gold earrings in her ears, and a gold ring on one finger. In spite of the scent of cooking food, the whole room smelled sweet from something about her; not Hoyt’s German Cologne or essence of lemon or any of the perfumes Mary knew, but a strange new scent, that was delicate as the breath of crab apple blossoms. Just as likely as not it came from some new charm Cinder got yonder in town to put a spell on the men here. She always knew some way to make the men take to her, although she was skinny and dry, and had a fox chin and squirrel teeth and a sly stepping walk like a cat.
A sudden flash of lightning made Cinder jump, and Mary looked straight at her mouth. “I’d be ’fraid so much gold an’ silver would draw lightnin,” she remarked.
But Cinder grinned and one thin shoulder lifted with her old scornful shrug. She wore gold all the time. She was not afraid it would draw lightning. People in town always wore plenty of rings and bracelets and necklaces, and lightning never struck them. She had many more things in her trunk besides these bracelets and beads and rings. At one store yonder in town, you could buy a fine diamond ring for a quarter. Town stores were not like Grab-All.
“Whyn’t you stay in town if fine tings is so cheap dere? Why you come back here?”
Cinder looked up at her quickly.
“You talk like you ain’ so glad I come. Dat’s a pity. But July’ll be glad to see me.”
Cinder’s pan was empty and she got up to go. But she paused at the door. “I hear-say you got a baby, Si May-e.”
“I sho is, de finest lil boy-chile ever was. De pure spit o July too. ’E’s a-sleepin right yonder on de bed in de shed room.”
“I hear-say you had em too soon, an’ de deacons turned you out de church. Is dat so?”
“No, it ain’ so. You know good as me it ain’ so. I ain’ been a church member, not since I danced at Foolishness on de night o my weddin.”
A flash of lightning made Cinder’s eyes glitter, but a smile fluttered over her thin lips as she moistened them with the tip of her pointed red tongue.
“I ain’ meant a bit o harm by axin. You is my own second cousin, an’ I was a waiter at you weddin. I ever did think a lot o July. I come mighty nigh marryin him mysef one time. E use to beg me so, but I’m glad now I didn’ done it.”
Thunder was rolling and the clothes were on the line in the yard, but Mary had forgotten them.
“You say July begged you to marry em? July? Great Gawd! Dat’s de biggest lie ever was! Gal, you ain’ shame to talk such a talk? You like to a popped you gizzard-string a-tryin to get July. Evybody in dis Quarter knows dat. You’d jump up an’ crack you heels wid joy evy day Gawd sends, if you could a caught him. You know dat too, good as me.”
The words were hardly off Mary’s lips when a shadow darkened the doorway and July walked in. His eyes blinked when they fell on Cinder, as if he were trying to make her out.
“De Great I Am! Whe’d you come from, Cinder?” he asked in glad astonishment. “I didn’ know you was home. How you do, gal.”
His big rough shoes were covered with dust from the road and caked with river mud that made ugly tracks on the clean floor, but he was too taken up with Cinder to notice.
“Do scrape off you feets, July,” Mary bade him, but he didn’t hear, for Cinder was holding his hand, laughing up into his face, gazing at him with shining eager eyes, answering his questions with trembling lips. A flame of hot jealousy flared up in Mary’s heart. Cinder had forgotten that July’s lawful wedded wife was looking straight at her, watching every move she made, seeing how she held July’s eyes, and how her sweet-mouthed talk pleased him. Mary’s ears tingled as they heard Cinder’s words, but Unex woke with a loud wail and she had to go get the child, who had slept a long time and needed food. A bad dream must have scared him to make him cry so hard.
The shed room was stifling hot although the sun was under a heavy cloud and in spite of the lightning Mary sat close to the open window.
“You look better’n I ever seed you in my life,” July declared, as free and easy as if he were a single man.
“You look good, yousef,” Cinder answered him in a voice that was husky with pleasure. Lightning lit their faces and a long mutter of thunder rumbled, but Cinder, heeding none of it, stood sweet-talking July, pretending that she was the only person in the world who knew how fine and handsome and smart he was; and July, with all the sense he had, stood looking down at her, his ears drinking up
