Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/44

32 "What 's that?" she asked.

He answered: "Open it and see."

She was not only mystified; she was alarmed. And his casual explanations, as she untied the string, did not reassure her—that he had seen it on the street; that a push-cart peddler had had it. He had thought she might like it.

It was a white crocheted "umbrella" shawl.

She spread it out, half flattered, uneasy, touched by his thought for her, but uncertain how to take it. "There now," she reproached him, "why 'd yuh waste yer money?"

He laughed shamefacedly and went back toward his bedroom.

He knew that she would fold the shawl away in a bureau drawer, and show it to her visitors as a "prisent from Larry," and perhaps on some special occasion wear it with all the pride in the world. He did not know that after he left her, she returned to her tea-making so puzzled to know what was "up" that she forgot to put in the extra spoonful "fer the pot."

Her suspicions were not allayed by his talkativeness at the table, for she knew him well enough to understand that whenever he had anything on his conscience he was always instinctively ingratiating and good-humored. She said little; she listened without betraying herself; she watched him furtively with her sharp old eyes. But she saw nothing in his talk until he had finished telling her about the opening of the new subway from Brooklyn Bridge to Harlem. Then,