Zona Gale

“ At the top o' the stairs I sets him down on the floor an' promises him an orange, an' then I opens the door, with the kid on my arm. It had stopped yellin' by then, an' it was settin' up straight, with its eyes all round an' its cheeks all pinked up with havin' just woke up, an' it looked awful cute, in spite of its mother. Mis' Loneway was leanin' back, laughin', an' tellin' him what they was goin' to do the minute she got well; but when she see the baby she drops her husband's hand and sorter screams out, weak, an' holds out her arms. ”

“ Bemus,' she says, 'I feel like a queen,' she says, 'an' you must stay for dinner.'
"I never seen Mr. Loneway gayer. He was full o' fun an' funny savin's, an' his face had even lost its chalky look an' he'd got some color, an' he laughed with her an' he made love to her—durned if it wasn't enough to keep a woman out o' the grave to be worshipped the way that man worshipped her. An' when she ask for the guitar I carried out the platter, an' I stayed an' straightened things some in the kitchen. An' all the while I could hear 'em singin' soft an' laughin' together ... ”

“ Well, don't you stay here, bringin' diseases. A hospital's the true place fer the sick," she says.
"I went back to Mis' Loneway, an' I guess I lied some. I said the kid was sick—had the croup, I thought, an' she'd hev to wait. Her face fell, but she said 'all right an' please not to say nothin',' an' then I went out an' done my best to borrow a kid for her. I ask all over the neighborhood, an' not a woman but looked on me as a cradle-snatcher—thought I wanted to abduct her child away from her. ”

“ An' to-morrow,' I says, 'when you want anything, just you pull the string a time or two, an' I'll be somewheres around.'
"She clapped her hands, her eyes shinin'.
" 'Oh, goodey!' she says. 'Now I won't be alone. Ain't it nice,' she says, 'that there ain't no glass in the transom? If we lived in the model tenement, we couldn't do that,' she says, laughin' some. ”

“ He didn't half touch a thing. 'Eat all you want,' he says, 'an', Peleg, poke up the fire. There's half a ton o' coal comin' to-morrow. An' we're goin' to have this every day," he told her.
"Land o' love! how happy she was! She made me eat some grapes, an' she sent a bunch to the woman on the same floor, because she had brought her an orange; an' then she begs Mr. Loneway to get an extry candle out of the top dresser draw'. ”

“ An' since I've been sick,' she says, 'it's made me wretched, wretched to think I didn't hev nothin' to put on but this black waist—this homely old black waist. You never liked me to wear black,' I rec'lect she says to him, 'an' it killed me to think—if anything should happen—you'd be rememberin' me like this. You think you'd remember me the way I was when I was well—but you wouldn't,' she says, earnest; 'people never, never do. ”

“ I see she'd took to heart some o' the model-tenement social-evenin' lectures on bugs an' worms in diseases. I carried the orange out and give it to a kid in the ar'y, so's Mis' Loneway'd be makin' somebody some pleasure, anyhow. An' then I went back up-stairs an' told her the kid was worse. Seems the croup had turned into cholery infantum.
" 'Why,' she says, 'I mus' send it down somethin' nice an' hot to-night,' an' so she did, and I slips it back in the Loneway kitchen unbeknownst. She wa'n't so very medicinal, either, bless her heart! ”

“ An' the nex' night an' the nex' he come home bringin' her truck just the same. Once he even hed her a bunch o' pinks. Seems though he was doin' the worst he could.
"The pinks come at the end of the second day of the three days the assistant cashier had give him to pay the money back in. An' two things happened that night. I was in the kitchen helpin' him wash up the dishes while the doctor was in the room with Mis' Loneway. An' when the doctor come out o' there into the kitchen he shuts the door. ”

“ I started up the stairs, feelin' like lead. Little more'n half way up I heard a little noise. I looked up, an' I see the boy brother a-comin', leakin' orange peel, with the kid slung over his shoulder, sleepin'. I looked on past him, an' the door o' Mr. Loneway's sittin'-room was open, an' I see Mr. Loneway standin' in the middle o' the floor. I must 'a' stopped still, because somethin' stumbled up against me from the back, an' the two constables was there, comin' close behind me. ”

“ He laid a eternal lot o' stuff on the kitchen table, without one word, an' went in where she was. I heard paper rustlin', an' then I heard her voice—an' it wasn't no cryin', lemme say. An' so I says to myself, 'Well,' I says, 'she might as well hev a four-egg omelet, because it 'll be the last.' I knew if they's to arrest him she wouldn't never live the day out. So I goes on with the omelet, an' when he come out where I was I just told him if he'd cut open the grapefruit I hed ever'thing else ready. An' then he quit lookin' defiant, an' he calmed down some ”