“That’s terrible,” Jim said quickly as she paused for breath. “And I must say that your dress is very becoming.” He tried to keep his dismay from showing as he gazed at the heavy folds of black silk which enshrouded her gaunt frame. Long sleeves and high collar with a ruffle of black lace. A black hat with faded artificial cherries and a wide bow of clashing yellow completed the striking ensemble.
Jim thought desperately of fleeing, but he set his teeth grimly. He had promised Robert. And, after all, he would see no one he knew among the merrymakers.
Cousin Hattie patted the hat firmly atop her head, and inserted two gleaming hatpins. Jim waited grimly while she found black mittens to cover her roughened hands. She turned toward him with a severe smile. Her attitude said that she was determined to throw all sense of decorum to the winds.
“I declare, I feel skittish,” she said. “I wonder what the ladies of the Aid Society would say now?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Jim told her gravely as they passed out of her room into the corridor. “No doubt they’d all envy you tremendously.”
“I’ll never dare breathe a word of this at home,” Hattie said mournfully. “They’d never believe me if I did.”
Jim took her arm carefully and looked straight ahead as they marched through the lobby and into the throng outside. Hattie’s voice continued its ceaseless monotone, but Jim paid her no heed. The words seemed to flow about him without impinging upon his consciousness. This was a job which he had taken upon himself, and he manfully proceeded to discharge his duties as guide to Robert’s cousin.
They walked slowly toward Canal, and Hattie’s flow of personal reminiscences slowly faded away to sniffs of horror and gasps of astonishment. Her eyes jerked about madly as she sought to see everything of the fantastic spectacle. What a story she would have to tell at home!
Jim was more and more painfully conscious of curious glances following them as they made their way along the sidewalk. There were titters behind their backs, and amused side-glances as the carnivalists studied the grotesque appearance Hattie presented.
She was serenely unconscious of the stir her costume created. If she noticed that at all, it was with the satisfied belief that she was giving them an “eyeful.”
Jim plodded doggedly ahead. Dragging impatiently at Hattie when she would have stopped to stare erotically at the amorous gestures of a group of men and maids who had imbibed of something stronger than the festival spirit.
Her conversation had been reduced to a series of “ohs” and “ahs” when they were finally flung into the maelstrom of Canal. The time was nearing midnight, and the atmosphere of untrammeled carousal was replacing the lighter aspect of earlier evening.
Jim drew Hattie back to a store front where the fringe of the crowd surged past and gave them some respite from the breathless give and take encountered in moving through the surging mélange of participants.
Her eyes were glittering and she breathed heavily. Jim stole a guarded glance at Hattie’s face as they stood together, and surprised an expression of strained expectancy. It was as though, disbelieving, she sought frantically for belief. As though her mind told her this was but a mirage, while her warped soul found something splendid in the unreality of the moment. As though she realized the entire world had gone insane... and an inner consciousness welcomed and embraced the insanity.
“Oooh! Look, Buddie! See th’ lady in th’ costume! Ain’t she grand?”
Jim looked down to see a chubby lass in a sadly bedraggled fairy costume tugging at the arm of a smaller, and fatter, and dirtier edition of herself who wore what Jim supposed to be a cowboy costume. The little girl was not more than six... and she was pointing excitedly at Cousin Hattie.
Jim stole another quick glance at Hattie, and was relieved to see her thin nose was pointing in the opposite direction as she watched a couple who had cleared a space for a gyrating execution of the rhumba.
“She looks sorta like mammy,” the little boy responded sturdily.
“Oooh,” the little girl said. “But mammy wouldn’ come to Mwada Gwa an’ be costumed an’ all like her. You know she wouldn’,” she ended severely.
“Wheah’s daddy, Boots?” the little fellow asked impatiently.
“He’s comin’ fas’ as he kin. We left him when we runned back yonder. He wuz talkin’ to that lady an’ she wouldn’ lissen.”
“Oh yeh. I ’member. Th’ lady looked cross. I’m glad she didn’ talk tuh daddy. I wuz ’fraid he might pick her out fer our new mammy... an’ I didn’ like her. I like this’n better.” Buddie motioned toward Hattie, who remained unconscious of the fact that she was being discussed.
Jim listened with amusement. His mind was working at top speed as he revolved the question of what to do with Hattie. She seemed to have entirely forgotten the lateness of the hour. He shuddered as he looked forward to weary hours of following her about the streets. Half his conscious mind listened to the conversation of the children, while the other half toyed with the desperate thought of disappearing while Hattie was looking the other way.
“Shhh. She’ll hear you,” Boots warned her brother. “Daddy wouldn’ like you to say that.”
“But she is lots nicer,” Buddie insisted. “I betcha daddy’ll think so too. I betcha maybe he’ll ast her tuh be our new mammy.”
“Oooh! There comes daddy now!” Boots exclaimed. “Don’t he look funny? He’s huntin’ fer us. He looks turrible worrit.” She laughed merrily and pointed with a dirty forefinger.
Jim looked in the direction she pointed and saw a tall figure hurriedly approaching them through the throngs which buffeted and shoved him about. It was the Widower Simpson, his angular frame fantastically rigged out in an ill-fitting Gaucho costume.
A beaded vest hung loosely from his thin shoulders, over a flowing blouse of vivid yellow. A wide crimson sash was about his waist, and his thin shanks were encased in tight pants which clung to his flesh and made him walk stiff-legged. A wide sombrero with leather chin strap completed the costume and added a final touch of grotesquerie to his appearance.
Yet, there was something pathetic about the man which held back the laugh his fantastic garb merited. A haunting hopefulness in his eyes, a suggestion of wistful eagerness in his mien, an air of nervous expectancy which, somehow, changed one’s mirth to a choked dismay. It was evident that he was proud of his regalia, and totally unaware of the ludicrous figure he presented.
He was searching for Boots and Buddie when Jim first saw him; frowning anxiously and peering about uncertainly. He was close to them before he saw they were safe, and Jim saw him straighten and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Jim was still staring at the man, uncertain whether he should laugh or weep, when he heard Hattie’s sharp tone addressing the children:
“My goodness sake’s alive! What are your parents thinking of? You two babies out at this time of night?”
“We ain’t babies,” Boots responded sturdily. “I’m fi’-goin’-on-six, an’ Buddie’s four.”
“’Sides, daddy’s lookin’ after us,” Buddie chimed in. “He’s comin’ now. He stopped to talk to the lady not as purty as you, an’ we jes’ come on wivout him.”
“But you should have been in bed hours ago,” Hattie said hastily. But her severity relaxed and she almost hazarded a smile. “Your daddy needs a good talking to... that’s what he needs,” she ended.
It was at that moment that Jim was inspired. Ever afterward he looked back upon that instant and marveled at the strength and certainty he had shown in handling the situation. He saw the Widower Simpson gazing upon Hattie beseechingly. From the children’s conversation it had been a simple matter to gather that their father was searching for a new mother for them.