Mistress of the tenement, and using a row of six of its one-rooms, Madame's love of jewels rose to a fetish. Her suite was full of jewelry. Her opulent person was ablaze with them. Her bright, thick black hair was prickly with hairpins of silver, hairpins of gold. She wallowed in colors, too. Some of the pins were blue, some red, others green. Her fat, squat arms were loaded with bangles. Her gaping stomach shimmered in a sea of rich white silk. Walking, it rolled, and dazzled, and shimmered.
Waltzing by Madame and the Cholo girl, there sallied out of the kitchen a woman. She was a mulatto. She was carrying a smoking dish of stewed peas and her head was held high in the clouds. Squat as Madame, she, too, was mad about jewelry. Her arms were creased with bracelets. And no jewel-ankled Hindu maiden had finer nuggets of gold flung about her neck. Her clogged feet sent buxom out at you a belly bursting with a fat, mellow tumor.
She came clogging straight at Gerald, and smiled. One of the one-room flats on that side of the porch belonged to her, but on spying him she swept past it.
"Run down to the John Chinaman's like a good little boy and bring me a loaf of French bread and a tin of sardine—"
"Come, wash yo' face and drink yo' tea, Gerald, befo' it get cold," cried a voice.
"Orright, mama, ah comin'," and he ran away, uncertain of the escape, leaving the St. Thomas virgin with the peso in her hand, stumped.
Fired by the beauty of the marbles and the speed of the tops—gigs—he'd go on secret escapades to the alley below and spin gigs and pitch taws with the boys who'd gather there. He had to be careful of the pacos. He had to be careful of the boys he played with. Some of them used bad words; some had fly-dotted sores on their legs. A city of sores. Some of them had boils around their mouths. Some were pirates—they made bloody raids on the marbles.
One day he was alone spinning his gig. It was a particularly rhythmical one. It was pretty, too—for he had dabbed a bit of wash-blue on top of it so that it looked beautiful when it was spinning.
Suddenly a gang of boys came up, Spanish boys. One of them, seeing his top, circling and spinning, measured it; then winding his up, drew back and hauled away. The velocity released made a singing sound. Gerald stood back, awed. The top descended on the head of his with astounding accuracy and smashed it into a thousand pieces. The boys laughed, and wandered on.