“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.