So Big by Edna Ferber (read books for money .txt) 📕

perceived her intention, whipped up his own tired team, arrived at the spot just as Selina, blocking the way, prepared to back into the vacant space.

“Heh, get out of there you⁠—” he roared; then, for the first time, perceived in the dim light of the street that his rival was a woman. He faltered, stared open-mouthed, tried other tactics. “You can’t go in there, missus.”

“Oh, yes, I can.” She backed her team dexterously.

“Yes, we can!” shouted Dirk in an attitude of fierce belligerence.

From the wagons on either side heads were lifted. “Where’s your man?” demanded the defeated driver, glaring.

“Here,” replied Selina; put her hand on Dirk’s head.

The other, preparing to drive on, received this with incredulity. He assumed the existence of a husband in the neighbourhood⁠—at Chris Spanknoebel’s probably, or talking prices with a friend at another wagon when he should be here attending to his own. In the absence of this, her natural protector, he relieved his disgruntled feelings as he gathered up the reins. “Woman ain’t got no business here in Haymarket, anyway. Better you’re home night time in your kitchen where you belong.”

This admonition, so glibly mouthed by so many people in the past few days, now was uttered once too often. Selina’s nerves snapped. A surprised German truck farmer found himself being harangued from the driver’s seat of a vegetable wagon by an irate and fluent woman in a mashed black hat.

“Don’t talk to me like that, you great stupid! What good does it do a woman to stay home in her kitchen if she’s going to starve there, and her boy with her! Staying home in my kitchen won’t earn me any money. I’m here to sell the vegetables I helped raise and I’m going to do it. Get out of my way, you. Go along about your business or I’ll report you to Mike, the street policeman.”

Now she clambered over the wagon wheel to unhitch the tired horses. It is impossible to tell what interpretation the dumbfounded north-sider put upon her movements. Certainly he had nothing to fear from this small gaunt creature with the blazing eyes. Nevertheless as he gathered up his reins terror was writ large on his rubicund face.

“Teufel! What a woman!” Was off in a clatter of wheels and hoofs on the cobblestones.

Selina unharnessed swiftly. “You stay here, Dirk, with Pom. Mother’ll be back in a minute.” She marched down the street driving the horses to the barns where, for twenty-five cents, the animals were to be housed in more comfort than their owner. She returned to find Dirk deep in conversation with two young women in red shirtwaists, plaid skirts that swept the ground, and sailor hats tipped at a saucy angle over pyramidal pompadours.

“I can’t make any sense out of it, can you, Elsie? Sounds like Dirt to me, but nobody’s going to name a kid that, are they? Stands to reason.”

“Oh, come on. Your name’ll be mud first thing you know. Here it’s after nine already and not a⁠—” she turned and saw Selina’s white face.

“There’s my mother,” said Dirk, triumphantly, pointing. The three women looked at each other. Two saw the pathetic hat and the dowdy clothes, and knew. One saw the red shirtwaists and the loose red lips, and knew.

“We was just talking to the kid,” said the girl who had been puzzled by Dirk’s name. Her tone was defensive. “Just asking him his name, and like that.”

“His name is Dirk,” said Selina, mildly. “It’s a Dutch name⁠—Holland, you know. We’re from out High Prairie way, south. Dirk DeJong. I’m Mrs. DeJong.”

“Yeh?” said the other girl. “I’m Elsie. Elsie from Chelsea, that’s me. Come on, Mabel. Stand gabbin’ all night.” She was blonde and shrill. The other was older, dark-haired. There was about her a paradoxical wholesomeness.

Mabel, the older one, looked at Selina sharply. From the next wagon came loud snores issuing from beneath the seat. From down the line where a lantern swung from the tailboard of a cart came the rattle of dice. “What you doing down here, anyway?”

“I’m here to sell my stuff tomorrow morning. Vegetables. From the farm.”

Mabel looked around. Hers was not a quick mind. “Where’s your man?”

“My husband died a week ago.” Selina was making up their bed for the night. From beneath the seat she took a sack of hay, tight-packed, shook out its contents, spread them evenly on the floor of the wagon, at the front, first having unhinged the seat and clapped it against the wagon side as a headboard. Over the hay she spread empty sacking. She shook out her shawl, which would serve as cover. The girl Mabel beheld these preparations. Her dull eyes showed a gleam of interest which deepened to horror.

“Say, you ain’t never going to sleep out here, are you? You and the kid. Like that!”

“Yes.”

“Well, for⁠—” She stared, turned to go, came back. From her belt that dipped so stylishly in the front hung an arsenal of jangling metal articles⁠—purse, pencil, mirror, comb⁠—a chatelaine, they called it. She opened the purse now and took from it a silver dollar. This she tendered Selina, almost roughly. “Here. Get the kid a decent roost for the night. You and the kid, see.”

Selina stared at the shining round dollar; at Mabel’s face. The quick sting of tears came to her eyes. She shook her head, smiled. “We don’t mind sleeping out here. Thank you just the same⁠—Mabel.”

The girl put her dollar plumply back into her purse. “Well, takes all kinds, I always say. I thought I had a bum deal but, say, alongside of what you got I ain’t got it so worse. Place to sleep in, anyways, even if it is⁠—well, good night. Listen to that Elsie, hollering for me. I’m comin’! Shut up!”

You heard the two on their way up the street, arm in arm, laughing.

“Come Dirk.”

“Are we going to sleep here!” He was delighted.

“Right here, all snug in the hay, like campers.”

The boy lay down, wriggling, laughing. “Like gypsies.