“Your mama looks like this,” she said.
“Why, how did you know!” cried Magnolia, amazed. The three burst into sudden loud laughter. And at that Parthy Hawks appeared at the door, bristling, protective.
“Maggie Hawks, come into the house this minute!”
The laughter of the three then was redoubled. The quiet little village street rang with it as they continued their leisurely care-free ramble up the sun-dappled leafy path.
Now her father, at supper, had a tale to tell of these forbidden fascinators. The story had been told him that afternoon by Hard Harry Swager, river pilot, just in at the landing after a thrilling experience.
“Seems they were playing at China Grove, on the Chappelia. Yessir. Well, this girl—La Verne, her name was, or something—anyway, she was on the stage singing, he says. It was the concert, after the show. She comes off and the next thing you know there’s a little blaze in the flies. Next minute she was afire and no saving her.” To one less initiated it might have been difficult to differentiate in his use of the pronoun, third person, feminine. Sometimes he referred to the girl, sometimes to the boat. “Thirty years old if she’s a day and burns like greased paper. Went up in ten minutes. Hard Harry goes running to the pilot house to get his clothes. Time he reaches the boiler deck, fire has cut off the gangway. He tries to lower himself twelve feet from the boiler deck to the main, and falls and breaks his leg. By that time they were cutting the towboat away from the Sensation to save her. Did save her, too, finally. But the Sensation don’t last long’s it takes to tell it. Well, there he was, and what did they have to do but send four miles inland for a doctor, and when he comes, the skunk, guess what?”
“What!” cries Magnolia not merely to be obliging in this dramatic crisis, but because she is frantic to know. Captain Andy is on his feet by this time, fork in hand.
“When the doc comes he takes a look around, and there they all are in any kind of clothes they could grab or had on. So he says he won’t set the leg unless he’s paid in advance, twenty-five dollars. ‘Oh, you won’t, won’t you!’ says Hard Harry, laying there with his broken leg. And draws. ‘You’ll set it or I’ll shoot yours off so you won’t ever walk again, you son of a bitch!’ ”
“Captain Andy Hawks!”
He has acted it out. The fork is his gun. Magnolia is breathless. Now both gaze, stricken, at Mrs. Hawks. Their horror is not occasioned by the word spoken but by the interruption.