in't like the kid and Harry was layin' awake for me--last
Tuesday they was both asleep when I got home. They don't let each other
get lonesome, and Harry--he--There ain't nothing much for me to do round
home."

"Now you're talkin' the English language, Doll."

"I'll go, Jimmie."

He extended his cane at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself,
threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ankle across the other.

"Sure, you're going! A poor little filly like you, sound-kneed,
sound-winded, and full of speed, and no thin' but trouble for your
Christmas stockin'. A poor little blue-eyed doll like you!"

"A girl's gotta have something! You knew me before I was married,
Jimmie, and there never was a girl more full of life."

"Sure I knew you. But you was a little cold-storage queen and turned me
down."

"He--Harry, he never asks me nothing when I come in, and the kid's
asleep, anyways."

"Color up there a little, Doll. Where I'm going to take you there ain't
nothing but live ones. I'm going to take you to a place where the color
scheme of your greenbacks has got to be yellow. Color up there, Doll.
You ain't going dead, are you?"

She stretched open her eyes to wide, laughing pools, plowed through the
rear-counter debris of pasteboard boxes and tissue-paper, reached for
her jacket and tan, boyish hat. A blowy, corn-colored curl caught like a
tendril and curled round the brim.

"Going dead! Say, my middle name is Speed! It's like Harry used to
tell me when we wasn't no farther along in the marriage game than his
sneaking over here from the gents' furnishing three times a day to price
bill-folders--he used to say that I was a live wire before Franklin flew
his kite."

"Doll!"

"I ain't tired, Jimmie. Not countin' the year and a half I was home
before Harry took sick, I been through the Christmas hell just six
times. The seventh don't mean nothing in my life. I've seen 'em behind
these very counters cursing Christmas with tears in their eyes and
spending their merry holiday in bed trying to get some of the soreness
out. It takes more than one Christmas to put me out of business."

"Here, lemme tuck that curl in for you, Doll."

"Quit!"

"Doll!"

"Quit, I say!"

"Color up there, girlie. Look live!"

She rubbed her palms briskly across her cheeks to generate a glow, and
they warmed to color as peaches blush to the kiss of the sun.

"See!"

"Pink as cherries!"

"That's right, kid me along."