Free Five Smooth Stones by Ann Fairbairn Page B

Thermos, and Geneva always denied it, then contradicted herself by saying: "They away over the water. You think they going to miss it when they come back? You needs a hot drink or some soup, working on them docks in the cold and rain. They'da give it to me anyway." She would laugh her quick, abrupt laugh. "After one of them kids broke it and it didn't work good no more, they'da give it to me then."
    ***
    "How you like it, Neva? Suits you, I'm satisfied."
    Geneva had not spoken since they had walked up the path to the front door and stepped inside. "Everything's fine," she said. "Everything's just fine."
    There were no more words to say; she had said all she could from a full heart. As she walked through the empty house, the long narrow front room, the small dining room behind it and the big kitchen beyond, turned and walked back into the little hall off the dining room with its small bedrooms at each end and what would be the bathroom in its center, she was remembering the first time she had lain all night with the man who was now her husband, remembering waking in the night and reaching for him, not seeking passion but just his presence. I was happy that night, she thought. First time I'd been real happy since I'd growed up. And I'm happy now like I was then.
    ***
    "You got the privy built?"
    "Shucks, we done that first thing."
    Li'l Joe had never been demonstrative, but now he put his arm around his wife's waist and, holding her body close to his, led her to the back porch.
    "See?" he said, pointing to the far end of the backyard. "Can't no wind blow that down. And you just looka there. Bob John, he scrounged some used brick and I laid us a path so's we won't have to walk through no mud and wet to get to it like we does now. But you wait. We keep saving and I gets some used tile. I know where I can get it real cheap. Mebbe I can even get it free if I does some work for the man. Then I lays it in the bathroom. Later we can get us a tub and a basin and a toilet. I can get them secondhanded real cheap too from the same guy."
    He looked down at the wide-eyed child who had followed them and who stood now holding his hand.
    "That day come and we has a tub, you'n' me going to have a time, li'l man; we going to have a time."
    Geneva was looking at the new privy and at the clean brick path that led to it, and her throat was tight.
    "Everything's fine," she whispered again. "Everything's just fine. Just the way it is—"
    ***
    Now grass and brown earth were under David Champlin's bare feet every day; there were flowers to pick and bring to his grandmother, and she showed him what peppergrass looked like and where it grew, and he brought it to her to cook. The fat brown dog came almost every day, and they rolled and played together in the grass and undergrowth. There were so many children in the old frame house across the road that David thought it must be a school, like the big building near where they had lived in the French Quarter. After a few days they straggled over, one by one, and did what Gram called "made themselves acquainted." Their name was Timmins, and there were as many different complexions as there were children, from the jet-black, skinny boy who had come over the first day Gramp brought them to the house, to the youngest girl, whose skin was creamy and whose brown hair curled loosely, softly, not in tight kinks. Miz Timmins, their mother, who had brought a pot of coffee over the first day they moved in, was tall and as skinny for a woman as Gramp was for a man, with black skin and big teeth that stuck out in front, and a way with her with a child that soon placed her next to Pop and Miz Emma Jefferson in David's affections. David puzzled for a while about a conversation he overheard one night, between his grandparents, after he'd said his prayers and was supposed to be asleep.
    "Sure an ugly woman," said Gramp.
    "She's real friendly," said Gram defensively.
    "That's a fact," said Gramp. "That's sure a fact. Wonder