me back and began snarlin' like--"

"Would you know him if you seen him again, Della? Think, darlin', would
you?"

"Would I? In my sleep I'd know him. He was a short fellow with eyes so
little they didn't show when he laughed, and a mouth full of gold teeth
that stuck out like a buck's. And say, Cottie, for diamonds! A diamond
horseshoe scarf-pin as big as a dollar!"

"There's money in it, Della. Look at Lily. Tessie says she's diamond
rings to her knuckles."

"John knew what took the life out of me, from that day on. He used to
say if he ever laid eyes on that little bullet-headed, rat-eyed sport,
as he called him, he'd shake the life out of him. Just like that!"

"Faugh! he wouldn't 'a' had the nerve!"

"Don't you forget he knew what was eatin' us, Cottie."

"Well, wasn't it our right--a beauty like you in this dump?"

"And you?"

Their faces, startlingly alike, were upturned, and in their eyes was the
golden fluid of dawn.

"He knew. You remember that letter Lily wrote when you asked her to get
you in her show?"

"Do I?"

"He found it in my pocket one night and read it, and laughed and
laughed. He used to know it by heart, and he'd cackle it to me whenever
he caught me red-eyed from cryin'."

"That letter she wrote out of jealousy? He seen that?"

"Yeh! 'Stay home, dearie,' he used to sing to me, laughin' to split his
sides; 'stay home, like Della did, and make happiness and a home for
yourself.'"

"Gawd!"

"Then he'd go off in a real fit of laughin' again. 'You ain't got no
ideas of the breakers ahead, Cottie dearie,' he'd holler, 'and in this
business there ain't many of us got the strength to fight 'em.'"

"Wasn't that like him--stealin' a letter!"

"Then he'd laugh some more, wag his finger at me and make me cry, and
keep yellin' 'Breakers ahead! Breakers ahead!'"

"There, there, dearie; it's all over, now. He was too dumb and too mean
to know that Lily was as jealous as a snake of me and you--always, even,
when we was kids. Sure she don't want us in her show--we'd walk away
with it. John was too dumb to see the letter was only--"

"'Sh-h-h; it's a sin to run down the dead."

"Anyway, you never lied to John like he did to you. I can still hear him
that dark night, down by the quarry, trying to scare you. Lyin' to you
about what girls got to buck up against in the city, that night, when
they first put the bandages on maw's eyes, and he was beggin' and
beggin' you to marry him."

"Gawd