The Ballad of the Sad Café-2

百度搜索 The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories 天涯 或 The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.

    "Evening," said the hunchback, and he was out of breath.

    Miss Amelia and the men on the poreither answered his greeting nor spoke. They only looked at him.

    "I am hunting for Miss Amelia Evans."

    Miss Amelia pushed back her hair from her forehead and raised her . "How e?"

    "Because I am kin to her," the hunchback said.

    The twins and Stumpy MacPhail looked up at Miss Amelia.

    &quot;Thats me,&quot; she sa<samp></samp>id. &quot;How do you mean kin?&quot;

    &quot;Because --&quot..he hunchback began. He looked uneasy, almost as though he was about to cry. He rested the suitcase otom step, but did not take his hand from the handle. &quot;My mother was Fanny Jesup and she e from Cheehaw. She left Cheehaw some thirty years ago when she married her first husband. I remember heariell how she had a half-sister named Martha. And ba Cheehaw today they tell me that was your mother.&quot;

    Miss Amelia listened with her head turned slightly aside. She ate her Sunday dinners by herself; her place was never crowded with a flock of relatives, and she claimed kin with no one. She had had a great-aunt who owhe livery stable in Cheehaw, but that aunt was now dead. Aside from her there was only one double first cousin who lived in a towy miles away, but this cousin and Miss Amelia did not get on so well, and when they ced to pass each other they spat on the side of the road. Other people had tried very hard, from time to time, to work out some kind of far-fetched e with Miss Amelia, but with absolutely no success.

    The hunchback went into a lmarole, mentioning names and places that were unknown to the listeners on the pord seemed to have nothing to do with the subject. &quot;So Fanny and Martha Jesup were half-sisters. And I am the son of Fannys third husband. So that would make you and I --&quot; He bent down and began to unfasten his suitcase. His hands were like dirty sparrow daws and they were trembling. The bag was full of all manner of junk -- ragged clothes and odd rubbish that looked like parts out of a sewing mae, or something just as worthless. The hunchback scrambled among these belongings and brought out an old photograph. &quot;This is a picture of my mother and her half-sister.&quot;

    Miss Amelia did not speak. She was moving her jaw slowly from side to side, and you could tell from her face what she was thinking about. Stumpy MacPhail took the photograph and held it out toward the light. It icture of two pale, withered-up little children of about two and three years of age. The faces were tiny white blurs, and it might have been an old picture in anyones album.

    Stumpy Ma<tt></tt>cPhail ha back with no ent. &quot;Where you e from?&quot; he asked.

    The hunchbacks voice was uain. &quot;I was traveling.&quot;

    Still Miss Amelia did not speak. She just stood leaning against the side of the door, and looked down at the hunchback. Henry Macy winked nervously and rubbed his hands together. Then quietly he left the bottom step and disappeared. He is a good soul, and the hunchbacks situation had touched his heart. Therefore he did not want to wait and watch Miss Amelia chase this newer off her property and run him out of town. The hunchback stood with his bag open otom step; he sniffled his nose, and his mouth quivered. Perhaps he began to feel his dismal predit. Maybe he realized what a miserable thing it was to be a stranger iown with a suitcase full of junk, and claiming kin with Miss Amelia. At any rate he sat down oeps and suddenly began to cry.

    It was not a on thing to have an unknown hunchback walk to the store at midnight and then sit down and cry. Miss Amelia rubbed back her hair from her forehead and the men looked at each other unfortably. All around the town was very quiet.

    At last one of the twins said: &quot;Ill be damned if he aint a regular Morris Fiein.&quot;

    Everyone nodded and agreed, for that is an expression having a certain special meaning. But the hunchback cried louder because he could not know what they were talking about. Morris Fiein erson who had lived iown years before. He was only a quick, skipping little Jew who cried if you called him Christ-killer, and ate light bread and ed salmon every day. A calamity had e over him and he had moved away to Society City. But sihen if a man were prissy in any way, or if a man ever wept, he was known as a Morris Fiein.

    &quot;Well, he is afflicted,&quot; said Stumpy MacPhail. &quot;There is some cause.&quot;

    Miss Amelia crossed the porch with two slow, gangling strides. She went doweps and stood looking thoughtfully at the stranger. Gingerly, with one long brown forefinger, she touched the hump on his back. The hunchback still wept, but he was quieter now. The night was silent and the moon still shoh a soft, dear light -- it was getting colder. Then Miss Amelia did a rare thing; she pulled out a bottle from her hip pocket and after polishing off the top with the palm of her hand she ha to the hunch<q></q>back to drink. Miss Amelia could seldom be persuaded to sell her liquor o, and for her to give so much as a drop away free was almost unknown.

    &quot;Drink,&quot; she said. &quot;It will liven yizzard.&quot;

    The hunchback stopped g, ly licked the tears from around his mouth, and did as he was told. When he was finished, Miss Amelia took a slow swallow, warmed and washed her mouth with it, and spat. Then she also drank. The twins and the foreman had their own bottle they had paid for.

    &quot;It is smooth liquor,&quot; Stumpy MacPhail said. &quot;Miss Amelia, I have never known you to fail.&quot;

    The whisky they drank that evening (two big bottles of it) is important. Otherwise, it would be hard to at for what followed. Perhaps without it there would never have been a café. For the liquor of Miss Amelia has a special quality of its own. It is  and sharp oongue, but once down a man it glows inside him for a long time afterward. And that is not all. It is known that if a message is written with lemon jui a  sheet of paper there will be no sign of it. But if the paper is held for a moment to the fire theters turn brown and the meaning bees clear. Imagihat the whisky is the fire and that the message is that which is known only in the soul of a man -- then the worth of Miss Amelias liquor  be uood. Things that have gone unnoticed, thoughts that have been harbored far ba the dark mind, are suddenly reized and <dfn></dfn>prehended. A spinner who has thought only of the loom, the dinner pail, the bed, and then the loom again -- this spinner might drink some on a Sunday and e across a marsh lily. And in his palm he might hold this flower, examining the golden dainty cup, and in him suddenly might e a sweetness keen as pain. A weaver might look up suddenly and see for the first time the cold, weird radianidnight January sky, and a deep fright at his own smallness stop his heart. Such things as these, then, happen when a man has drunk Miss Amelias liquor. He may suffer, or he may be spent with joy -- but the experience has showruth; he has warmed his soul ahe message hidden there.

百度搜索 The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories 天涯 或 The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.