"It is," said Mrs. King, planting her iron viciously on Mr. King's shirt
that she was ironing. "I used to try to stop him once. Only you get
disheartened in time, don't you, kid? The times I've started a new home
and had it sold up under me! Six homes I've had and this is the seventh.
And the times I've trusted him, only to get laughed at for being a soft.
Now all I do is to feel damn glad to get him off my hands for the day.
We've made that a hard and fast rule. I'll do for him, and give him a
meal of a Sunday when the hotels are closed and see to his washing, and
let him sleep in my bed when he's drunk enough not to get vulgar. In
return he does the scrubbing and the grates, and I find him in
liveners--"
"Oh, my goodness--do you love him?" asked Marcella, staring at her.
It was Mrs. King's turn to stare.
Then she laughed loudly, a little hysterically, until tears came into
her eyes as she stood with her iron poised.
"Love him? By cripes, no! I'd as soon think of loving one of them bugs
the Dagoes leave in your bed when they have a room for the night."
"Why did you marry him, then?"
Mrs. King put down her iron and stared out through the door into the
sun-baked courtyard where washing flapped and bleached and hens
scratched in the dust. It seemed as though she had never thought about
it before.
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