“My roof!” One of the boys plucked his cap off and dashed for the doorway. “I’ll gid ’im wid my hat!”
“A-key!” Kushy tore after him. “A rewuhd!”
“A-key!” A third followed.
“A-key!” A fourth disappeared inside.
A few seconds later, the girl with the pig-tails stuck her head out of the window.
“He flew away!” voices in the crowd bawled up at her. “On de roof across the street!”
“He flew away, Mama!” she screamed.
“I saw already,” the answer shot back. “He shull drop dead!”
Mother and daughter drew their heads in. On the sidewalk necks craned awhile searching the sky. No bird appeared.
“Dey’ll never get ’im. Naaa!”
“A nechtige tug!” The small crowd drifted slowly apart.
— Mama!
He woke from his revery.
— Dumb ox, me! Hurry up!
He ran up the stoop, but at the doorway hesitated, peered in. Again the roots of his hair prickled. He could not bring himself to enter the darkness. All the old fears lurked there again. Why had they returned? Angered to the point of tears at his own cowardice, he paced restlessly back and forth across the stoop, now listening for a sound in the hallway, now peering up and down the street for some familiar face. At last he heard a door slam dully inside as though from an upper floor. He leapt into the hallway, scrambled frantically up the stairs. Between the first and second floors he neared the bulky figure of a woman, squeezed past her and up — still listening to the other’s dwindling footsteps. On the fourth floor, he threw himself breathlessly at the door— It was locked!
“Mama!” he screamed.
“You, David?” Her startled voice.
The enormous relief! “Yes, mama, open it!” The foot he had drawn back to kick at the door in his fury and terror sank again to the floor.
“Wait!” Her voice had a hurried sound. “I’ll open it in a moment.”
What was she doing? And as if in answer, he heard a loud splash of water followed by a flurry of tinkling drops. She had been taking a bath in the washtub. She was getting out now. A chair creaked as though she had stepped on it, then the pad of her bare feet on the floor. “Just one little second more,” she implored.
“Awrigh’” he called to her.
Silence. Feet moving off, returning. The door opened. And as if the light that widened with it were a wedge, the foggy, tormenting globe about his senses split open and dissolved — hue and contour, sound and scent focused.
“Mama!”
“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” She was still barefooted. Her faded yellow bathrobe, darkened by water-stains clung to breast and thigh. “But I hurried as fast as I could.” From glistening brown hair, water still streamed down on the towel across her shoulder. The wonted pallor of smooth throat and face was flushed and beaded with water. “What are you staring at?” She smiled, pulled the bathrobe tighter and shut the door behind him.
“I didn’t care if I waited.” He smiled with her. He could almost feel his jarred spirit settle softly in its grooves again.
“But you did storm the door with all the old fury,” she laughed. And pressing her dripping hair against her bosom, she stooped down and kissed him. The warm, faintly soap-scented humidity of her body, ineffably sweet. “I’m so relieved to see you again.”
Where was his father? Behind her the bedroom door was open. No one lay on the bed. Not in. Beatitude flawless.
“You’re still wet!” he giggled suddenly. “Even the floor!”
“Yes. I must mop that dry.” She caught up the wet, dripping twist of her hair in the towel. “Half the tub is on the floor. I vaulted out in such haste. I don’t know why I get so frightened about you — especially if I think you are.” As she spoke, she bent sideways, dipped an arm in the tub to pull the stoppers out. The soapy water sucked and gurgled. Against the window-light, her body showed shadowy outlines, hip and knee lending pink to the yellow. “Did you see many sights on the wagon?”
He shook his head violently.
“No?” Her smile faded. “Why such drooping lips?”
“I hate it! I hate it!” It was all he could do to keep from bursting into tears.
“Why?” She looked at him in surprise. “What happened?”
“Nothing. (—Mustn’t tell. Mustn’t!) Didn’t like it, that’s all.”
“Timid little heart! I know. But tomorrow you won’t have to go — even if that other man doesn’t return, someone else will take that route.”
“Never?”
“Never, what? Go?”
“Yes.”
“No, never.” She sat down, towel a comical turban about her head. “Come here.”
He smiled diffidently and went to her. “You look funny.”
“Do I?” she chuckled and helped him to her knee. The comfort of being against her breast outstripped the farthest-flung pain. “You don’t like being a milkman?”
“No.”
“Nor a milkman’s helper?”
“No!”
“What would you like to be?”
“I don’t know.”
She laughed. How the ear teased for that rippling, sinuous sound. “This morning in the butcher-shop I heard a woman say that her son was going to be a great doctor. Hmm! I thought, how blessed your life is! And how old is your son, the butcher asked. Seven, she answered. The butcher nearly missed the bone he was chopping. And here you’re eight and still you haven’t told me. But you won’t have to go along with the wagon any more— Want some milk? The new yeast cookies you like?” She rubbed her moist brow against his lips. “With the raisins inside?”
“Awrigh’!” he yielded. “But not now.” The closeness of her body was too rare to be relinquished so soon.
“Awhrri’,” she repeated after him, and so drolly he laughed. “But let me get up.”
“No!”
“But I’ve got to get dressed,” she begged. “This shift is clammier than a well-stone. Yes?” She rose; reluctantly he slid from her knee. “I’ll get you the milk and cookies first.”
He watched her go to the bread-box, open it, draw out several honey-colored cookies, place them on a plate and then take a half-filled quart of milk from the ice-box—
— Wagon! They! Ow!
A shudder ran through him.
— Forget!
She filled a glass, set the cookies and milk on the table.
“You eat them while I dress,” she coaxed. “There are more of both if you want them.” And uncoiling the towel about her head went into the bedroom.
He sat down, munched the raisined crispness slowly, stared eagerly at the bedroom door waiting for her to come out.
“What time is it now, David?” Her voice rose above the rustling of the garments.
He stared up at the clock on the shelf. “It’s ten — eleven minutes after two.”
“After two?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll get no sleep this afternoon either.”
— He!
“That double collection keeps him — as if he didn’t work hard enough as it is. But he ought to be home soon.”
— Soon! Home!
The mashed lump of food lay inertly in his mouth.
“Do you remember the time you couldn’t tell time?” Her voice went on after a pause. “You told it by whistles. And once you saved calendar leaves — where are they now?”
— He! See him! No! No! Go down! Quick, before he comes!
He gulped down the half-chewed cud, shoved the remainder of the cooky in his pocket and drank the milk down in noisy haste.
— Take another. She’ll ask.
He dropped another cooky into his pocket. “I’m going down stairs, mama.”
“What!” Her voice was surprised.
“Can I?”
“Have you finished so soon?” She came out of the bedroom. Her dress, hovering between round upstretched arms, “How did you—” settled like a cloud about her head, “manage so soon?” sank below throat, armpits, square scalloped, petticoat. His face was radiant. Her eyes searched the table.