And so that afternoon found her and Mrs. Fuller conversing in the Merrit kitchen with all the ease and confidence of a much more extended friendship.
Without conscious effort Mrs. Arabella Fuller would have arrested any cartoonist’s attention. Her profile was a series of adjoining semicircles—a large one for the bulbous forehead, then a succession of smaller, approximately equal ones, forming from above downward nose, upper lip, lower lip, first chin, and second chin. From above downward, moreover, this series slanted unanimously rearward, so that the forehead bulged and the chins receded, and the general attitude was that of one caught in the act of swallowing half a banana.
This profile only stated the motif on which Mrs. Fuller as a whole was composed. Every outline of every part was a perfect semicircle, and so on integration she naturally became a cluster of hemispheres. There were, to be sure, unanticipatedly sudden constrictions about her at points: between chins, for example, at wrists, at waist, and at ankles. But these repressions were futile, for on either side of each constriction the flesh triumphantly bulged. They simply heightened the lady’s agglomerate bulbosity.
Out of the midst of this there escaped on occasion, an asthmatic wheeze. This confab was such an occasion, and it revealed at once that the asthma in no wise discouraged Mrs. Fuller’s flow of language.
“Yes, indeed, chile. Any time you want anything like that jes’ come right on over and get it—we always has plenty ev’ything on hand. Thass one thing about Mr. Merrit—he sho believes in eatin’. Reckon thass why he so thin. And it makes him mad as a wet hen to run out’n anything and thass why I always has plenty ev’ything on hand. So anytime you run out, jes’ come on over and I’ll trust you to keep ’count o’ ev’ything you get.” She fanned her shining round brown face with a limp dishcloth and smiled as she paused for breath. The smile revealed a shining row of white teeth, each of them just half a circle.
“It’s nice here,” Linda observed, looking about.
“ ’Deed it is. And Mr. Merrit’s such a nice man to work fo’. ’Cose he have his big times and so on, and he like his toddy now’n then a little too good, and ev’y once in a while he gets tied up with some woman ’nother, but ’cose thass natural, him bein’ a bachelor and havin’ so much money. I jes’ shets my eyes and says nothin’, ’cause ’tain’t none my business, and he ain’ never said nothin’ out the way to me, y’ understand, so I jes’ do my work and go on. You know how ’tis—you mus’ see and don’ see.” There was another reluctant pause.
“Indeed so,” agreed Linda, already somewhat apprehensive at the conflict in Mrs. Fuller’s speech. It appeared that while Mrs. Fuller’s labored respiration sought to shorten her sentences, her sentences had a will of their own and simply refused to be shortened. Linda already found herself drawing deep sympathetic, but wholly useless breaths.
“ ’Cose there’s a lot o’ folks what don’ like to work fo’ colored, I understand that, and I don’ know as I would myse’f if it had to be some these uppity colored women what ain’ never been used to nothin’ and jes’ now got sump’n and think they so much mo’ n’ eve’ybody else. Take fo’ ’n instant that Sarah Bell Long, what’s always ridin’ ’round in Cornelia Bond’s auto. I knowed her when she was a baby—knowed her father and mother before ’er. Neither one of ’em wasn’t nothin’. Ole man Bell run a saloon in Augusta till he made enough to buy up half the black belt; then he retired, got religious, gave d’ church a lot o’ money and got hisse’f preached into d’ kingdom and his wife along with ’im. Then this Sarah gal married this young doctor—least, he was then—and set him up in business, and when they got tired livin’ down there ’cause some them women liked his treatment too well, why they up and comes to New York. And havin’ plenty money natchelly they starts right out at the top. But I always say the top ain’ but a little way from the bottom—can’t be—’tain’ been risin’ long enough. And ain’ none of us so much better’n the rest of us that we can afford to get uppity ’bout it—And thass why I jes’ couldn’ stand workin’ ’round nobody that act that way. Ain’ no sense in it. But Mr. Fred ain’ like that. Ain’ nobody in Harlem got no better things ’n Mr. Fred is, and some them things up in the country he brought back with ’im all the way from Europe and France and them places ’way yonder ’cross the water. You’ll see ’em when they get hyeh—he always have ’em sent in town fo’ the winter. An ain’ nobody in New York got nothin’ no better, but it don’t turn his head none. Look like he jes’ buy things to spend his money on and when he get ’em that ends it. All ’ceptin’ one thing—a picture of his mother. Least, I think it mus’ be his mother, though he ain’ never tole me so, but he stands and looks at that picture fo’ hours at a time, seems like. I b’lieve ’twould near ’bout kill ’im to lose it. But he sho’ is a nice man to work fo’—don’ never bother you ’bout nothin’.”
Linda decided it would be less exhausting to do some of the talking herself. She hastened to inject at this pause, “I should think it would be nice, working for a man, anyhow. Bet he isn’t fussy ’n’ everything like an old woman—specially an old maid. Gee!”
“Yo’ madam ain’ never had a husband of her own?”
“Uh-uh.”
“How come she ain’t?”
“Guess she never knew whether a man wanted her or her money.”
“What diff’runce that make?”
“Well, I guess she figured if he did want it, she didn’t want him, and if he didn’t
