I'm a man born to
having money in his pocket. I'm none of your mollycoddles."
"Sure you ain't! Haven't you got over ninety dollars under your pillow
this minute? 'Ain't the boy got all the spending-money he wants and
nowheres to spend it? Ain't that a good one, Jas? All the spending-money
he wants and nowheres to spend it. Next thing the boy knows, he's going
to be working the farm and sticky with money. Ain't it wonderful, Jas,
never no showing for us again? God! ain't that just wonderful?"
He reached up then to stroke her hand, a short pincushion of a hand,
white enough, but amazingly inundated with dimples.
"Nice old Big Tent!"
"That's the way, honey! Honest, when you get one of your nice spells,
your poor old Teenie would do just anything for you."
"I get crazy with pain. It makes me ugly."
"I know, Jas--I know--anyway, you fix it, honey. I 'ain't got a kick
coming--a--tub like me to have--you."
She loomed behind his cot, carefully out of his range of vision, her own
gaze out across the drowsing countryside. A veil of haze was beginning
to thicken, whole schools of crickets whirring into it,
"If--if not for one thing, Jas, you know--you know what? I think if a
person was any happier than me, she--she'd die.
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