“Well, last night I go down to Morrison’s store and buy all these. This morning, I have a fine bath, with fine baby soap. I get good shave, dress up swell like this, and come out about one o’clock. One o’clock all fine girl be going back to work after dinner,––see!
“I open front door and get down sidewalk, then come down street. Nobody there; nobody pass me. But when I get ten yard from corner Snider Avenue, who come slap-bang pretty near head-on collision:––big Martha Schmidt.”
Phil yelled uproariously as Sol stood there the picture of seriousness.
“Ya,––you laugh. I laugh now,––ha, ha! You know Martha. She maybe thirty, maybe thirty-six. I don’t know. She got one good eye; other eye all shot to hell sometime. Just got one big tooth and he stick out good and plenty. Ugh!
“Well,––Sol Hanson every time he dam-good sport and do what he say he do. But I not meet her. I stop quick,––think for one little time,––then Martha cry, ‘Hullo, Sol!’ I never hear her. I turn quick, walk back all the same as if, maybe, I left my pipe home. I hurry into house, slam door hard and stand inside all shivers like one pound of head cheese waiting to get cold.”
“And what then, Sol?”
“Oh,––after while, I peep out and see Martha go up the road. Little while more, all clear, I come out and have one more try.
“This time, first girl for sure, I say. Well––first girl happen to be black buck-nigger Ebenezer Jones’s coon kid, Dorothea. Dorothea she dam-fine girl all right. She say, ‘Hullo, Kid,––nice day!’
“I look away down the street to corner. I make her think I not see her. I keep on going. She stand on sidewalk, one big fist on each hip and she look after me and say, ‘Wal,––I like dat!’”