the loss of Robbins had stormed itself out at the funeral. Peter’s ill{42} fortune still occasioned general comment, but slight concern to the individual. There was an air of gaiety about. The scarlet of the geraniums was commencing to flicker in a run of windy flame on each window sill; and from the bay came the smell of salt air blown across young marsh-grass.
{42}
At the wharf, across the narrow street, the fishermen were discharging strings of gleaming whiting and porgy. Vegetable sloops, blowing up from the Sea Islands, with patched and tawny sails, broke the flat cobalt of the inner harbor with the cross-wash of their creamy wakes.
Through the back door of the cook-shop Maria, the huge proprietress, could be seen cutting shark-steaks from a four-foot hammerhead that one of the fishermen had given her. All in all, it was a season for the good things of life, to be had now for scarcely more than the asking.
Only Porgy sat lonely and disconsolate in his doorway and watched the sunlight creep up the eastern wall until it faded to a faint red at the top, then the blue dusk grew under the wharf, and swirled through the street and court. He had not been able to get to his stand since Peter’s departure; and the small store of coins, which he kept under a loose brick in his hearth, was nearing ex{43}haustion. Also, he missed his old friend keenly and could not enter into the light-hearted life about him.
{43}
Presently two women entered. Porgy saw that they were Robbins’ widow, and her sister, who now shared her room. He had been awaiting their coming eagerly, as they had left in the early afternoon to carry bed-clothing and food to the jail for Peter.
“How yuh fin’ um, Sister?” he hailed.
The younger woman paused, standing in the shadow, and the widow lowered herself to a seat beside Porgy. She had put her grief aside, and gone resolutely about her task of earning a living for the three children.
“I can’t puzzle dis t’ing out,” she said after a while. “De old man ain’t done nuttin’, an’ dey done gots um lock up like a chicken t’ief. Dey say dey gots tuh keep um till dat nigger Crown get ketch; an, Gawd knows when dat debble ob a t’ing goin’ tuh happen.”
“It sho pay nigger tuh go blin’ in dis world,” contributed the young woman. “Porgy ain’t gots much leg, but he sho got sense.”
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