II
In the door and the clang again of the bell, a boy with them. A boy they knew—son of their neighbours—big for his years and heavy, with fat lips, eyes clouded, hair black and low over his clouded eyes. Esther alone saw, as he lurched in, one foot dragging always slightly.
He went for little Flora with no greeting for them: familiarly as he knew he would find her, had come so, often.—He loves her. The man who squats on the table and sews smiles on the boy who loves and plays with his child.
"Hello, kid," voice of a thick throat, "look—what I got for you here."
Flora lets the chair of her late love lurch against her back, strike her forward. She does not care. She watches two hands—grey-caked over red—unwrap from paper a dazzle of colours, place it to her eyes on the floor, pull with a string: it has little wheels, it moves!
"Quackle-duck," he announces.
Flora spreads out her hands, sinks on her rump, feels its green head that bobs with purple bill, feels its yellow tail.
"Quackle-duck—yours," says the boy.
She takes the string from his hand. With shoulder and stomach she swings her arm backward and pulls. The duck spurts, bobbing its green long head against her leg.
She plays. The boy on his knees with soiled thick drawers showing between his stockings and his pants plays with her.—