and still he wouldn’t have had enough.
Jimmy Faxon had little Emmy Hardin helping him through the hours when the pressure was greatest and the customers came fastest. She kept close to him, with little nestling motions, and yet there was something protecting in her attitude, as though she would stand between him and any danger, or any criticism. The looks she darted at him were fairly caressing. Through the jam appeared Ranee Fleming, elbowing his way roughly. His face above his straggly whiskers was red with temper and with liquor. His cotton shirt was open at the throat so that his hairy chest showed. His shapeless gray jeans trousers – gray originally but now faded and stained to a mud color – were both beltless and suspenderless, and were girthed tightly about his middle by the strap at the back. From much ramming of his hands into the pockets, they were now crowded down far upon his hips, showing an unwontedly long expanse of shirt; and this gave to him an abnormally short-legged, long-waisted look.
A lot of those little fuzzy parasitic pods called beggar-lice were stuck thick upon his bagged knees – so thick they formed irregular patterns in grayish green. He wore no coat nor waistcoat, but an old mud-stiffened overcoat was swung over his shoulders with the arms tied loosely around his neck and the skirts dangling in folds behind him; and cuckleburrs clung to a tear in the lining. He was a fit model of unclean and unwholesome ferocity.
Before young Jim or little Emmy Hardin saw him, he was right up on them; only the width of the bench separated him from them. He leaned across it and called Jim that name again and slapped him in the face with a wide-armed sweeping stroke of his open hand. The boy flinched back from the coming blow so that only the ends of old Ranee’s flailing fingers touched his cheek, but the intent was there. Before the eyes of his sweetheart, he had been slapped in the face. The girl gave a startled choking gasp and tried to put her arms about young Jim. He shook her off.
Well content with his work, old Ranee fell back, all the time watching young Jim. People gave way for him involuntarily. When he was clear of the shed he turned and made for one of the saloons that lined the square on its western side. He had a choice of several such places; the whole row was given over to saloons, barring only a couple of cheap john clothing stores and a harness store, and two or three small dingy pawn shops. Pistol stores these last were, in the vernacular of the darkies, being so called because the owners always kept revolvers and spring-back knives on display in the show windows, along with battered musical instruments and cheap watches.
The spectators followed old Ranee’s figure with their eyes until the swinging doors of the nearest bar room closed behind him. When they looked back again toward Stall No. 3 young Jim was gone too. He had vanished silently; and Emmy Hardin was alone, with her face buried in her arms and her arms stretched across the counter, weeping as though she would never leave off.
From the next stall there came to her, comfortingly, a middle aged market woman, a motherly figure in a gray shawl with puckered and broad red hands. She lifted Emmy up and led her away, calling out to her nearest neighbor to watch her stall and the Faxon stall until she got back.
“There’s liable to be trouble,” she added, speaking in a side whisper so the sobbing girl wouldn’t hear what she said.
“I reckin not,” said the man. “It looks to me like Jimmy Faxon is plumb cowed down and ‘feared of that there old bush whacker – it looks like he ain’t got the spirit of a rabbit left in him. But you take her on away somewheres, Mizz Futrell – me and my boys will ‘tend stand for both of you, and you needn’t worry.”
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