“Come in, come in,” she said, her hand to her breast. Once inside the house the woman with the handkerchief began to weep aloud.
“Didn’t he look sweet?” she wailed. “Didn’t he look sweet!”
“Now, now,” Miss Reba said, leading the way to her room, “come in and have some beer. You’ll feel better. Minnie!” They entered the room with the decorated dresser, the safe, the screen, the draped portrait. “Sit down, sit down,” she panted, shoving the chairs forward. She lowered herself into one and stooped terrifically toward her feet.
“Uncle Bud, honey,” the weeping woman said, dabbing at her eyes, “come and unlace Miss Reba’s shoes.”
The boy knelt and removed Miss Reba’s shoes. “And if you’ll just reach me them house slippers under the bed there, honey,” Miss Reba said. The boy fetched the slippers. Minnie entered, followed by the dogs. They rushed at Miss Reba and began to worry the shoes she had just removed.
“Scat!” the boy said, striking at one of them with his hand. The dog’s head snapped around, its teeth clicking, its half-hidden eyes bright and malevolent. The boy recoiled. “You bite me, you thon bitch,” he said.
“Uncle Bud!” the fat woman said, her round face, ridged in fatty folds and streaked with tears, turned upon the boy in shocked surprise, the plumes nodding precariously above it. Uncle Bud’s head was quite round, his nose bridged with freckles like splotches of huge summer rain on a sidewalk. The other woman sat primly erect, in gold nose-glasses on a gold chain and neat iron-gray hair. She looked like a school-teacher. “The very idea!” the fat woman said. “How in the world he can learn such words on a Arkansaw farm, I dont know.”
“They’ll learn meanness anywhere,” Miss Reba said. Minnie leaned down a tray bearing three frosted tankards. Uncle Bud watched with round cornflower eyes as they took one each. The fat woman began to cry again.
“He looked so sweet!” she wailed.
“We all got to suffer it,” Miss Reba said. “Well, may it be a long day,” lifting her tankard. They drank, bowing formally to one another. The fat woman dried her eyes; the two guests wiped their lips with prim decorum. The thin one coughed delicately aside, behind her hand.
“Such good beer,” she said.
“Aint it?” the fat one said. “I always say it’s the greatest pleasure I have to call on Miss Reba.”
They began to talk politely, in decorous half-completed sentences, with little gasps of agreement. The boy had moved aimlessly to the window, peering beneath the lifted shade.
“How long’s he going to be with you, Miss Myrtle?” Miss Reba said.
“Just till Sat’dy,” the fat woman said. “Then he’ll go back home. It makes a right nice little change for him, with me for a week or two. And I enjoy having him.”
“Children are such a comfort to a body,” the thin one said.
“Yes,” Miss Myrtle said. “Is them two nice young fellows still with you, Miss Reba?”
“Yes,” Miss Reba said. “I think I got to get shut of them, though. I aint specially tender-hearted, but after all it aint no use in helping young folks to learn this world’s meanness until they have to. I already had to stop the girls running around the house without no clothes on, and they dont like it.”
They drank again, decorously, handling the tankards delicately, save Miss Reba who grasped hers as though it were a weapon, her other hand lost in her breast. She set her tankard down empty. “I get so dry, seems like,” she said. “Wont you ladies have another?” They murmured, ceremoniously. “Minnie!” Miss Reba shouted.
Minnie came and filled the tankards again. “Reely, I’m right ashamed,” Miss Myrtle said. “But Miss Reba has such good beer. And then we’ve all had a kind of upsetting afternoon.”
“I’m just surprised it wasn’t upset no more,” Miss Reba said. “Giving away all that free liquor like Gene done.”
“It must have cost a good piece of jack,” the thin woman said.
“I believe you,” Miss Reba said. “And who got anything out of it? Tell me that. Except the privilege of having his place hell-full of folks not spending a cent.” She had set her tankard on the table beside her chair. Suddenly she turned her head sharply and looked at it. Uncle Bud was now behind her chair, leaning against the table. “You aint been into my beer, have you, boy?” she said.
“You, Uncle Bud,” Miss Myrtle said. “Aint you ashamed? I declare, it’s getting so I dont dare take him nowhere. I never see such a boy for snitching beer in my life. You come out here and play, now. Come on.”
“Yessum,” Uncle Bud said. He moved, in no particular direction. Miss Reba drank and set the tankard back on the table and rose.
“Since we all been kind of tore up,” she said, “maybe I can prevail on you ladies to have a little sup of gin?”
“No; reely,” Miss Myrtle said.
“Miss Reba’s the perfect hostess,” the thin one said. “How many times you heard me say that, Miss Myrtle?”
“I wouldn’t undertake to say, dearie,” Miss Myrtle said.
Miss Reba vanished behind the screen.
“Did you ever see it so warm for June, Miss Lorraine?” Miss Myrtle said.
“I never did,” the thin woman said. Miss Myrtle’s face began to crinkle again. Setting her tankard down she began to fumble for her handkerchief.
“It just comes over me like this,” she said, “and them singing that Sonny Boy and all. He looked so sweet,” she wailed.
“Now, now,” Miss Lorraine said. “Drink a little beer. You’ll feel better. Miss Myrtle’s took again,” she said, raising her voice.
“I got too tender a heart,” Miss Myrtle said. She snuffled behind the handkerchief, groping for her tankard. She groped for a moment, then it touched her hand. She looked quickly up. “You, Uncle Bud!” she said. “Didn’t I tell you to come out from behind there and play? Would you believe it? The other afternoon when we left here I was so mortified I didn’t know what to do. I was ashamed to be seen on the street with a drunk boy like you.”
Miss Reba emerged from behind the screen with three glasses of gin. “This’ll put some heart into us,” she said. “We’re setting here like three old sick cats.” They bowed formally and drank, patting their lips. Then they began to talk. They were all talking at once, again in half-completed sentences, but without pauses for agreement or affirmation.
“It’s us girls,” Miss Myrtle said. “Men just cant seem to take us and leave us for what we are. They make us what we are, then they expect us to be different. Expect us not to never look at another man, while they come and go as they please.”
“A woman that wants to fool with more than one man at a time is a fool,” Miss Reba said. “They’re all trouble, and why do you want to double your trouble? And the woman that cant stay true to a good man when she gets him, a free-hearted spender that never give her a hour’s uneasiness or a hard word.……” looking at them, her eyes began to fill with a sad, unutterable expression, of baffled and patient despair.
“Now, now,” Miss Myrtle said. She leaned forward and patted Miss Reba’s huge hand. Miss Lorraine made a faint clucking sound with her tongue. “You’ll get yourself started.”
“He was such a good man,” Miss Reba said. “We was like two doves. For eleven years we was like two doves.”
“Now, dearie; now, dearie,” Miss Myrtle said.
“It’s when it comes over me like this,” Miss Reba said. “Seeing that boy laying there under them flowers.”
“He never had no more than Mr Binford had,” Miss Myrtle said. “Now, now. Drink a little beer.”
Miss Reba brushed her sleeve across her eyes. She drank some beer.
“He ought to known better than to take a chance with Popeye’s girl,” Miss Lorraine said.
“Men dont never learn better than that, dearie,” Miss Myrtle said. “Where you reckon they went, Miss Reba?”