VII
Little Jacky Dale was six years old when Eleanor first learned of his existence. She happened not to be lying on the bed at the time, so she fainted first—then went to bed.
There were dumb days when she went about like an automaton. Days when she sat at the window and looked at the bare branches of the trees, the dead stalks of the lilies—the river! Sometimes she was almost able to think. Then a return to normality—blank listlessness. Sometimes she seemed to hear a whisper in her mind—but it was only an echo in the void.
So the days passed and each day she dredged the silences of her cranium for thoughts—none! But at last, after two years of listening to echoes and dredging silences—an idea came to her! It was the first she’d ever had! The shock of it took her breath away, stunned her! But there it was, her first-born idea! A little idiotic, perhaps, but her own!
She went to the house on Maple Street, where Lily lived.
“Sell me Jacky! I’ll give you six hundred dollars.”
“Sell Jacky for six hundred dollars! I ain’t no cheap trader!”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
“Then you needn’t come around. If that’s all you’ve got, you’d better get.”
She got.