than the other side?”
Mrs. Butler paused, turned her head a little, and gave Maretta a shrewd reproachful glance.
“You know well enough, Maretta Hotchkiss, that I’d never’ve left the other side except for one reason, and that was so Merle and her friends could have better times. My God,” she said abruptly, “sometimes I can’t believe it yet.”
Maretta looked down at the cedar railing and began to pick off minute shreds of bark. There was a short silence, then Mrs. Butler said, almost fretfully, “Why don’t the gang come down and see me? Claudine, she hasn’t got a soul to play with, poor little thing. She misses you so.”
Maretta said, “There’s almost nobody here except Rummy and me.”
“That’s it. It’s just Rummy I’m surprised at,” said Mrs. Butler. “Down at our house every night last summer, and plenty of ice cream and cake I made for him, too. Now he won’t even come near me.”
“He’s busier this summer,” said Maretta. “Mr. Blake isn’t very well.”
“Oh, he isn’t so busy he couldn’t come down here once in a while,” said Mrs. Butler knowingly. She laughed harshly. “Well, he was here once. Came down to say he was sorry, and all that.”
“Don’t you believe he’s sorry?” asked Maretta.
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Butler, her voice relaxing. “I guess he’s sorry. I guess you’re all sorry enough. Did you see Claudine yet?”
“No,” said Maretta. “Where is she?”
“Around here somewhere. Oh, babe! Oh, Claudine! Come’n say hello to Maretta.”
Claudine came slowly out of the house and sat down in the rocker. She said, “Hello, Maretta.”
“Been primping, I guess,” said her mother. “She don’t make herself very useful, this one. But she’s all we’ve got, and we love her.”
She reached out a strong red hand and patted Claudine on the shoulder. Claudine made no gesture. She looked at Maretta with a slow languid stare, her gray eyes veiled, her figure drooping against the back of the chair. She had on a pink cotton dress and dirty white socks. Her knees were brown and bare. Maretta thought, “There’s something insulting about the kid.” She liked Mrs. Butler, but she wanted to leave.
Mrs. Butler followed her down to the gate.
“Come again. Come often, Maretta. And you can tell Rummy Blake from me he’s a cupboard guest. Yes sir, that’s what he is—a cupboard guest.” Her voice hardened again.
Maretta crossed the road where a few sheep were lying in the cedar shade. In her embarrassment she had nothing to say. She turned and waved and hurried along the grassy shore to the rowboat. The sun was almost at noon.
Nell
THE ROAD on which Cora was walking followed the river, running along on a high green bank. Below there was a sandy beach and a long stretch of shallow water reaching almost to the edge of the channel. The river had built a wide submerged sand bar, here where it turned. On each side of the road the grass was cropped close, fitting each rise and hollow of the ground as the skin of a peach the fruit. Here and there were clumps of blue iris mixed with buttercups. On the right the ground sloped gently away toward farms and woods.
The day was sunny, the water very blue. The balsams and cedars which crowded to the edge of the opposite shore stood tiny and clear. Small figures in blue or white were moving about on the narrow beaches and the docks. She caught a flash of light from the wet side of a boat.
The Catholic church was ahead of her, behind the shadow of its trees. By the wooden gate in the cool shadow she paused. About her feet the earth was brown, littered with twigs and mast. In front of the church, in the yard, the weeds had grown very high. The long grass had drooped and fallen over the path like waves of soft hair. She wondered if the door was locked. Once or twice during the summer she had heard a bell sounding over the still water in the early morning, but service was conducted very seldom. She had never yet been inside the building.
She hesitated, her hand on the gate, then lifted the rusty latch and entered the yard. A few leaves lay on the church steps. The doors were painted brown, with panels of white, from which the paint was flaking lightly. She opened the door and stepped directly into the one room of the church.
It was white and silent. Long bars of sunlight fell through the three high windows and were reflected gently from the walls. The floor was bare. At the far end upon the altar table someone had arranged fresh flowers in vases of green and white pressed glass—daisies and sweet William, but mostly daisies.
The quiet of the room shut her away from the summer noises outside, the slight sound of the water, the wind in the trees, the barking of the heavily furred collies at the farm gates. She sat down in one of the bare straight pews and folded her hands in her lap. She was a small woman. Her head was large, with a wide brow, her hair gray and pinned in flat coils close to her head. At the back of her neck it was still brown, and the loose ends curled. She wore a man’s gray sweater.
She began to think of an old woman with a white, heavy face and coarse, unhealthy skin, a hard mouth with full sensuous lips, lips pale and wet, a face fretful and complaining, broken suddenly by bursts of rowdy humor. The old woman leaned over a banister, shouting to someone in the hall below. Her disordered white hair fell in locks about her face. She held a dirty silk kimono gathered about her great shaking body. It was Nell, her half sister. The children had written:
“We give Mother all the dope she wants now. It keeps her happy and eases the pain.”
“I like it, Cory,” Nell had said once, her brown eyes bright with mockery. “It gives me a good time.”
With the image of Nell the image of the house on Sheldon Avenue came into her mind. It had not been uncomfortable, after all. Neither had it been very attractive. It was larger than they needed, but that had made it possible for Cora to ask her mother and Nell to come to them for a visit. She gave them the large downstairs sitting room, making it into a bedroom. It had a good south light, and she put some ferns in the window to make it gay.
She remembered Nell standing before the walnut étagère with its little mirrors, knobs, and gilded tassels. She was powdering her cheeks with pink, and when she had finished she rubbed a pink paste on her lips.
“I wish you wouldn’t paint yourself,” said Cora. “At your age it doesn’t look right. Makes you look bawdy.”
“Ah bah bawdy,” said Nell with good humor. “I don’t care.”
She put on her hat and knotted a scarf of pink chiffon about her throat.
“Where are you going?” asked Cora.
“Anywhere. Must get out of here. The whole house smells of babies’ didies and cabbage soup. And Mother sits by the window all day and hems dustcloths. My Gawd. I want to go and listen to the elevated trains.”
“You’d better go back to New York if you feel that way about it,” said Cora stiffly.
“Don’t
