Page:Minnie Flynn (1925).pdf/26

 was looking at the untidy room with disgust. "It's been two weeks since we've had a decent place to sit in, and I get sick of eatin' off the kitchen sink."

"Of course you would." Nettie always sneered when she spoke. "You'd be glad if I kicked the bucket. I know you."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Nettie, can that kind o talk. Don't you think a family ever gets tired of hearing it? You've always got a chip on your shoulder about somethin' or other. Try bein' a sport for once."

Nettie stared at her sharply. "That's easy enough for you to talk. You're the only one that ever gets a good time as far as I can see. I don't notice anybody tryin' to be nice to me so I guess I'll. . . . Oh, hell—" Her angry tug at the towel around her throat pulled it off and it fell to the floor.

"Don't move, I'll get it." Minnie leaned down to pick it up, then refolded and wrapped it around Nettie's throat. "I'm sorry if you thought I was sore about the place, Net, but you know why I hoped you'd be moved tonight."

"Billy comin' here?"

"Yeh, but that's all right. I can meet him downstairs again. He always whistles first. Don't make much difference, except the hall is gettin' awful cold these nights."

Nettie looked at her sister's thin cotton serge suit, the sheer lisle stockings, and the cheap lace waist. "What's the matter with bundlin' up in your old check coat? Ain't that good enough for Billy MacNally?" She added maliciously, "he ain't so much, you know."

Minnie didn't answer. She stood staring at Nettie, frustrated and furious. Nettie was sick or she would have hurled herself upon her.

Billy MacNally was a steady, plodding boy who had left grammar school to work in Hesselman's butcher shop. He had begun humbly, as a delivery boy. Through the years