Mae said resignedly, “You can have this for ten cents.”
“That’d be robbin’ you, ma’am.”
“Go ahead—Al says to take it.” She pushed the waxpapered loaf across the counter. The man took a deep leather pouch from his rear pocket, untied the strings, and spread it open. It was heavy with silver and with greasy bills.
“May soun’ funny to be so tight,” he apologized. “We got a thousan’ miles to go, an’ we don’t know if we’ll make it.” He dug in the pouch with a forefinger, located a dime, and pinched in for it. When he put it down on the counter he had a penny with it. He was about to drop the penny back into the pouch when his eye fell on the boys frozen before the candy counter. He moved slowly down to them. He pointed in the case at big long sticks of striped peppermint. “Is them penny candy, ma’am?”
Mae moved down and looked in. “Which ones?”
“There, them stripy ones.”
The little boys raised their eyes to her face and they stopped breathing; their mouths were partly opened, their half-naked bodies were rigid.
“Oh—them. Well, no—them’s two for a penny.”
“Well, gimme two then, ma’am.” He placed the copper cent carefully on the counter. The boys expelled their held breath softly. Mae held the big sticks out.
“Take ’em,” said the man.