I gave one of them to a woman in an alley by a saloon.
Clothes?
God.”
She turned suddenly.
“I’ll get a car.
You get away from here and dont you ever come back.
Do you hear?”
“Yes,” Temple whispered.
Motionless, pale, like a sleepwalker she watched the woman transfer the meat to the platter and pour the gravy over it.
From the oven she took a pan of biscuits and put them on a plate.
“Can I help you?” Temple whispered.
The woman said nothing.
She took up the two plates and went out.
Temple went to the table and took a cigarette from the pack and stood staring stupidly at the lamp.
One side of the chimney was blackened.
Across it a crack ran in a thin silver curve. The lamp was of tin, coated about the neck with dirty grease.
She lit hers at the lamp, someway, Temple thought, holding the cigarette in her hand, staring at the uneven flame.
The woman returned.
She caught up the corner of her skirt and lifted the smutty coffee-pot from the stove.
“Can I take that?” Temple said.
“No.
Come on and get your supper.”
She went out.
Temple stood at the table, the cigarette in her hand.
The shadow of the stove fell upon the box where the child lay.
Upon the lumpy wad of bedding it could be distinguished only by a series of pale shadows in soft small curves, and she went and stood over the box and looked down at its putty-colored face and bluish eyelids.
A thin whisper of shadow cupped its head and lay moist upon its brow; one thin arm, upflung, lay curl-palmed beside its cheek. Temple stooped above the box.
“He’s going to die,” Temple whispered.
Bending, her shadow loomed high upon the wall, her coat shapeless, her hat tilted monstrously above a monstrous escaping of hair.
“Poor little baby,” she whispered, “poor little baby.”
The men’s voices grew louder.
She heard a trampling of feet in the hall, a rasping of chairs, the voice of the man who had laughed above them, laughing again.
She turned, motionless again, watching the door.
The woman entered.
“Go and eat your supper,” she said.
“The car,” Temple said.
“I could go now, while they’re eating.”
“What car?” the woman said.
“Go on and eat.
Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“I’m not hungry.
I haven’t eaten today.
I’m not hungry at all.”
“Go and eat your supper,” she said.
“I’ll wait and eat when you do.”
“Go on and eat your supper.
I’ve got to get done here some time tonight.”
8
Temple entered the dining-room from the kitchen, her face fixed in a cringing, placative expression; she was quite blind when she entered, holding her coat about her, her hat thrust upward and back at that dissolute angle.
After a moment she saw Tommy.