“Oh, she’ll get over it,” said Miss Forsythe easily, “just wait a few days. Good-by, Ardelia, eat a good supper.”
But this Ardelia did not do. She gazed fascinated at Mr. Slater, who loaded his fork with cold green peas, shot them into his mouth, and before disposing of them ultimately added to them half a slice of rye bread and a great gulp of tea in one breath, repeating this operation at regular intervals in voracious silence. She regarded William, who consumed eight large molasses cookies and three glasses of frothy milk, as a mere afterthought to the meal, gulping furiously. He never spoke. Henry she dared not look at, for he burst into laughter whenever she did, and cried out, “You put it in! You put it in!” which irritated her exceedingly. But she knew that he was biting great round bites out of countless slices of buttered bread, and in utter silence. Now Ardelia had never in her life eaten in silence. Mrs. Fahey, when eating, gossiped and fought alternately with Mr. Fahey’s old, half-blind mother; her son Danny, in a state of chronic dismissal from his various “jobs,” sang, whistled and performed clog dances under the table during the meal; their neighbor across the narrow hall shrieked her comments, friendly or otherwise; and all around and above and below resounded the busy noise of the crowded, clattering city street. It was the breath in her nostrils, the excitement of her nervous little life, and this cold-blooded stoking took away her appetite, never large.
Through the open door the buzz of the katydids was beginning tentatively. In the intervals of William’s gulps a faint bass note warned them from the swamp:
“Better go rrround! Better go round!”
Mrs. Slater filled their plates in silence. Henry slapped a mosquito and chuckled interiorly at some reminiscence. A cow-bell jangled sadly out of the gathering dusk.
Ardelia’s nerves strained and snapped. Her eyes grew wild.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, talk!” she cried sharply. “Are youse dumbies?”
The morning dawned fresh and fair; the trees and the brown turf smelled sweet, the homely barnyard noises brought a smile to Miss Forsythe’s sympathetic face, as she waited for Ardelia to join her in a drive to the station. But Ardelia did not smile. Her eyes ached with the great green glare, the strange scattered objects, the long unaccustomed vistas. Her cramped feet wearied for the smooth pavements, her ears hungered for the dear familiar din. She scowled at the winding, empty road; she shrieked at the passing oxen.
At the station Miss Forsythe shook her limp little hand.