It was not the sight of his money that kept her silent, but July did not understand. “Kiss me, gal. Say you glad I come home.” He stepped forward with confidence, and Mary felt she must yield, but she caught herself.
“Don’ put you hand on me again, July! Don’ touch me! Take you money an’ go. Get out o my yard. Me an’ my chillen don’ want not a brownie you got! Not one.”
“Chillen?” July asked. “You got chillen? Si May-e?”
Mary placed her hands on her hips and held her head high. “Sho I got chillen.” She laughed. “I got plenty o chillen! Plenty! Dey ain’ none o you-own, July, so it ain’ none o you business how many I got.”
In spite of her laugh she shivered as a still tree shivers under a sudden gust of cold wind. He must not stay here and break her heart again. She must send him away, even if it wrung her flesh in two. Yet the bare thought of letting him go made the life in her dwindle.
She had taught her lips to laugh and sneer whenever his name was spoken. She made herself say ugly things about him. She had hoped to God that his body had grown fat and soft and paunchy; that his white teeth had dropped out. But here he was. Tall and straight, lean and keen-eyed. Hardly a gray hair was in his head.
“Whe is Unex, Si May-e? Maybe de boy what you had fo me would like to see his Daddy. E use to love me.”
“Unex is gone, July. E went off and left me de same as you done. Gawd knows if ’e’s livin or dead.”
The children were coming, trooping up the street, laughing, playing; then they became quiet when they saw the stranger.
July looked at them, then he looked at Mary.
“Goodbye, Si May-e.”
“Goodbye, July.”
He picked up his suitcase and walked away.
“Who dat, Si May-e? Who dat?” the children asked curiously as soon as he was out of hearing.
Mary sucked her teeth and grunted.
“Yunnuh ever hear de people talk ’bout July Pinesett? Well, dat’s him.” And she went on with her cooking.
“Whe e come f’om, Si May-e?” another asked.
Mary turned one of the smoking hot cakes over before she answered. “I don’ know whe e come f’om, an’ I don’ know whe ’e’s gwine; what’s mo, I don’ care.” She sounded brave but her heart was beating wildly in her breast and hot tears were stinging her eyes.
As soon as supper was over Mary banked the fire and went to bed. It was early, but her head ached and her heart was fluttering like a bird.
She lay still in the dark, nursing her new grief with burning tears while the street rang with merriment. Everybody was welcoming July, everybody was rejoicing to see him back home again. And she, his lawful wife, was lying alone soaking her pillow with salty tears because she had sent him away.
When the cock crowed for midnight she got up. The house was hot and steamy, the bed was sweltering and the quilt cover stung her like nettles. She must have some fresh air to breathe. Easing the window-blind open she leaned out in the cool black night. Every tree was filled with the talk of crickets and locusts and katydids. Frogs were croaking in the rice-fields. The guineas roused and cackled. A whippoorwill called with every breath. Far down the street a guitar was strumming out chords, keeping time to a man’s clear singing. July was picking his box and his song was the old one, “I’m gwine to live on till I die.”
Would she see him tomorrow? Would she ever see him again? The stars were high and cold. The night was full of ghosts. She closed the window and drew the blind in tight.
The next morning dawned bright and hot, promising the kind of day Mary liked best, but her head was too heavy to lift off her pillow and her knees were too shaky to hold up her weight. Seraphine and Keepsie had to cook and milk, feed the beasts and fowls and children, and fetch water from the spring. She tried to speak cheerfully and encourage them, but the tears she strove to hold back rose and choked her words.
The tide was going out. The river wind smelled of the mud-flats, steaming and baking in the fire poured down by the sun. The water had gone and left them naked. The poor things were fastened down so they could not move. Like herself. Fastened down tight. She must bear her misery without complaining.
XXVII
Mary spent most of the day lying on the bed except when she heard footsteps on the path in front of the door, then she got up quickly and pretended to be patching clothes.
When she heard Maum Hannah’s limping steps across the yard, she went to help her up the steps, for the misery in the old woman’s knee seemed worse than usual.
“How-come you duh hop so bad today, Auntie, de sun is a-shinin fair.”
“Worry-ation, honey. Worry-ation makes a misery worse dan east rain an’ wind. But how-come you eyes is red as red flannel?”
Mary hesitated. She had to think quickly or tell the truth. “I been a-thrashin peas an’ peas-dust got in my eyes. It like to blinded me.”
“Poor creeter,” Maum Hannah pitied her. “I didn’ know peas-dust was pizen.”
They lighted their pipes and sat down to talk, yet the silence stayed on, hard to break. Presently Maum Hannah cleared her throat.
“July told me you wouldn’ much as let him darken you door.”
A heavy sigh fell from her bosom, and she shook her head mournfully from side to side. Mary was
