Grit

After supper he would ask what she had been doing all day. A weary, almost voiceless, man, he had told her nothing. But Great Taylor while washing the dishes would rattle off everything that had happened since that morning. She seldom omitted any important detail, for she knew by experience that Grit would sit there, silent, wrists crossed and palms turned up, waiting. He had always seemed to know when she had left anything out, and she always ended by telling him. Then he would take a long breath, eyes closed, and, after fumbling back of the molasses jug, would soon be seated again beneath the streaming gas-jet spelling to himself the words of his coverless book.

So vivid was the picture, the personality and routine of Grit, that Great Taylor felt the awe with which he, at times, had inspired her. She had been afraid of Grit--afraid to do anything she could not tell him about; afraid not to tell him about everything she had done. But now she determined: "I'll do what I please." And the first thing it pleased Great Taylor to do was to get rid of the odious molasses jug.

She plucked it from the shelf, holding the sticky handle between two fingers, and dropped it into the peach crate that served as a waste-basket. The noise when the jug struck the bottom of the crate startled her. Great Taylor stood there--listening. Someone was slowly ascending the circular staircase. The woman could hear a footfall on the iron steps.

"Grit's gone," she reassured herself. "I'll do what I please."

She reached for the grimy book, "Grit's Bible," the most offensive article in the room, and with sudden determination tore the book in two, and was about to throw the defaced volume into the basket along with the earthen jug when fear arrested the motion of her hands. Her lips parted. She was afraid to turn her head. The door back of her had opened.

Great Taylor was only ordinarily superstitious. She had buried Grit that morning. It was still broad daylight--early afternoon. And yet when she turned, clutching the torn book, she fully expected to see a pair of baggy breeches preceding a collarless, long-necked man with a broken nose, and smudges in the hollows of his cheeks.

Instead, she wheeled to see a pair of fastidiously pressed blue serge trousers, an immaculate white collar, a straight nose and ruddy complexion. In fact, the man seemed the exact opposite of Grit. Nell glanced at the open door, back at the man, exhaled tremulously with relief, and breathed: "Why didn't you knock?"

"Sorry if I startled you," puffed the man, entirely winded by the six flights. "Must have pushed the wrong button in the vestibule. No great harm done."

"Who are you? What you want?"

"Junk. That's one of the things I came to see about--the junk in back of my place. I suppose it's for sale." He thrust his white hands into the side pockets of his coat, pulling the coat snugly around his waist and hips, and smiled amiably at Great Taylor's patent surprise.

"You!.... Buy Grit's junk business!" What did he want with junk? He was clean! From head to foot he was clean! His hair was parted. It was not only parted, it was brushed into a wave, with ends pointing stiffly up over his temples (a coiffure affected by bartenders of that day); and Nell even detected the pleasant fragrance of pomade. "You ain't a junkman."

The man laughed. "I don't know about that."

He studied her a moment in silence. Nell was leaning back against the washtubs, her sleeves rolled up, her head tilted quizzically, lips parted, while tints of colour ebbed and flowed in her throat and cheeks. She had attained the ripeness of womanhood and very nearly animal perfection. The man's attitude might have told her this. One of his eyes, beneath a permanently cocked eyebrow, blinked like the shutter of a camera and seemed to take intimate photographs of all parts of her person. The other eye looked at her steadily from under a drooping lid. "No," he said, after the pause of a moment, "I'm not going into the junk business." But he wanted to get the rubbish away from the back of his place. "I'll buy it and have it carted away. It's too near the 'Garden.'" He rocked up on his toes and clicked his heels gently. "I own the house just around the corner."

"I knew it," Nell murmured fatuously. The man was vaguely familiar, even though she could not remember having seen him before.

"Set your price." He turned away, and Nell imagined that his camera-like eye was taking instantaneous photographs of all the broken and mended things in the immaculate room. A wave of hot blood made her back prickle and dyed her throat crimson.

"I don't like rubbish," said the man. "I don't like junk."

"Who does?" stammered Great Taylor.

"You dislike junk, and yet there was your husband, a junkman." He watched her narrowly from beneath his drooping eyelid.

Great Taylor was not of the noblesse, nor did she know the meaning of noblesse oblige; and had she been a man, perhaps she would have denied her former lord and master--once, twice, or even thrice--it has been done; but being a woman, she said: "Leave Grit out of it."

This seemed to please the man from around the corner. "I think we are going to get on," he said significantly. "But you must remember that Grit can't take care of you any longer."

"Grit's gone," assented Nell; "gone for good."

"Uhm." The man allowed his singular eyes to move over her. "I think we can arrange something. I've seen you pass my place, looking in; and I had something in mind when I started up here--something aside from junk. I could make a place over there--matron or cashier. How would you like that--cashier at the Garden?" He rocked up on his toes and clicked his heels quite audibly.

"I don't know anything about it."

"You'll soon learn," he was confident. He mentioned the salary, and that a former cashier was now half owner of an uptown place. And for half an hour Great Taylor's saturnine mind followed in the wake of his smoothly flowing words.

Why couldn't Grit have talked like that? she kept asking herself. Grit never said anything. Why couldn't he been clean like that, with hair brushed into a curl that sat up like that? ... The man's words gradually slipped far beyond her, and only his pleasant voice accompanied her own thoughts. No reason why she shouldn't be cashier at the Garden. Only one reason, anyway, and that wasn't any reason at all....

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