“Make believe is right. Look at my landlady. My landlady lives in church—all day Sunday and mos’ every night in the week. Yea. But jes’ let me miss a week’s room rent—jes’ one, that’s all.”
“Is she the girl you were talking about?”
“Girl! Shuh—that woman’s got a grandson in the old men’s home.”
“Do you mean you don’t believe in church?”
“Ain’t talkin’ ’bout church. Talkin’ ’bout folks. ’Tain’t the church that makes the folks, it’s the folks that makes the church. Only trouble with church is, folks ain’t no ’count. All time kiddin’ themselves, jes’ like the man said this mornin’. He’s right. Take my girl. My girl kids herself sump’m terrible. She thinks she’s the hardheartedest Hannah that ever poured water on a drownin’ man. But she ain’t. Naw. Say, she’s soft as a baby.”
“Is that so?”
“Yea. She ain’t foolin’ nobody but herself. Say—that’s what that guy meant, huh?”
Linda sniffed and changed the subject. “I’m going to change my job.”
“No!”
“Uh-huh. Got a new job starting next week—pays twenty dollars a week.”
“Pretty good for a girl. Y’know I always wonder how come you ain’t in some show. Make lots mo’ money.”
“Never tried—haven’t had a chance. I was in the Home till I was sixteen and I’ve been in service these other two years.”
“Well you’re lucky. Where you go’n’ work now?”
“Right on the same street. For a man named Merrit.”
“Merrit!”
“He’s a jig.”
“Don’ do it.”
“What?”
“I said don’ do it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I know that bird. I done—I did a job for him once. He’s funny.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“First thing is, he’s a jig. Jigs is bad to work for.”
“He isn’t. He’s a—”
“Nex’ thing he’s too doggone yaller. Yaller men ain’ no good.”
“No good! Huh—he’s got money enough to—”
“Nex’ thing is, he’s a big-time dickty. Dickties is evil—don’ never trust no dickty.”
“Well—is that all?”
“No. Worst thing is, he drinks too much licker.”
“Really?”
“Patmore was crazy to get his trade a while back—claimed it was enough by itself to support him. I don’ think you ought t’ have no licker-head for a boss.”
“Huh! I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe. But where you’re at now, you don’t have to take care o’ yourself. Th’ extra money ain’ worth th’ extra worry.”
They had turned west, leaving Seventh Avenue, and were now entering progressively quieter neighborhoods.
“But I’ve got to take it. I talked with his housekeeper, and she said I could probably go to night school ’n everything. In a little while I could get a job in an office.”
“And turn dickty.”
“Well, you don’t think I want to be a K.M. all my life?”
“I don’t mean you to be. I’m go’n’ have my own business one these days. Long distance movin’. Good money.”
“Really?”
The sarcasm was ignored. “You won’t have to be nobody’s K.M. then.”
“You mean nobody else’s.”
“Well, jes’ since you get what I mean.”
“Well, I don’t. And even if I did I’d take that job.”
“Why?”
“Because if I do I’ll learn to typewrite.”
“You sure are the hard-headest woman—”
“Hush—and if I learn to typewrite you can give me a job in your office—when you get one.”
In astonishment he stopped to stare at her. The expression of mingled amusement, decision, and tenderness with which she returned his look gave him a sudden overwhelming happiness. It almost upset him.
“Gee!” he said, his face shining. “Gee—Lindy—”
He had an impulse to catch her up and kiss her right there, on the street corner oblivious to broad daylight and possible observation. Had he done so, spontaneously, on the crest of that emotional wave, the result would doubtless have been different. But the old habit of hardness, which for the instant he had almost escaped, promptly clamped itself down on his exuberance and distorted his natural impulse into a presumably safer substitute. Every act must be sentimentally airtight. The device he adopted to make this one so, lost for them both that surging moment to which the girl would have responded.
“Ain’t it somewhere in the Bible sump’m ’bout turnin’ th’ other cheek?”
Puzzled, her own spell broken, she answered, “You mean—if a man smite you on one cheek, turn him the other also?”
Before she sensed his intention, he had pinioned her arms and kissed her on one cheek. “Well, turn me th’ other one, then,” he grinned.
But Linda could play as safe as he. For answer she snatched herself away, and the sounding smack that met his face must have made the girl’s palm burn.
Shocked, strangely hurt within, gigantically helpless without, Shine stood rubbing his cheek and watching her stride indignantly away.
What he eventually said was:
“Now ain’t she a hell of a Christian?”
Walls
XVIII
On the night when Shine told Jinx and Bubber the story of the battle of Jericho, he had no sooner left Pat’s than another argument was on. Hitherto, Jinx and Bubber’s nocturnal enmity had always ended at least without catastrophe; tonight catastrophe descended upon them, and the thing which each sought to divert by the very extravagance of his quarrel was by the same extravagance rendered inevitable. Tonight they came to blows.
Jinx started it.
“There now, you dumb Oscar,” he said to Bubber with great relish, in a voice that carried throughout Pat’s barroom.
“There now whut, jackass?”
“Didn’ I tell y’?”
“You ain’t tole me nuthin’—and if you did, it ’twasn’t nuthin’ nohow.”
“I tole you—” Jinx spaced his words for emphasis, “that nex’ thing we knowed she’d have ’im goin’ in d’ main door of d’ church—and whut ’d you say? ‘Aw no. Ain’ no gal go’n’ do nuthin’ like that to that boogy. Hard boogy, he is.’ Thass whut you said. Yea. And look. He comes in and tells us ev’ything d’ damn preacher said. Don’ leave out nuthin’.”
“That don’ prove he went in d’ main door,” argued Bubber with overacted patience. “He could ’a’ come down through d’ skylight f’ all I know.”
“Like a big black angel, I s’pose?” said Jinx and grinned with surrounding laughter.
“Yea—or
