Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/228

 ence to Mary. Hard work had kept her lean and hard-muscled. She was still keen-eyed and erect while they were paunchy in the middle and saggy in the cheeks. Their faces were lined and their hair streaked with white, and fear of Mary's charm made their tongues bitter. They had more pleasure in her misery than in her happiness. Her sorrow pleased them more than her joy.

So Mary valued Budda Ben's smiles and dreaded his frown. Nobody could say before her that he was only a cripple who walked half squatting with a stick; nobody could hint at his debasement. She loved him and she was as kind to him as if he stood tall and perfect in grace and bearing. Perhaps she clung closer to him because he was not whole. Maybe if he had been a strong man, she would have treated him as she did the others, whom she lured boldly and without shame, using the love-charm Daddy Cudjoe gave her to get July back.

That charm, old and worn as it was now, still stood by her faithfully. It had never failed her. She prized it and cherished it as if it were God's best gift instead of something that would send her to the bottomless pits of perdition.

When she first tried it, she was stunned to see how it worked on June. She was ugly then with her blood turned to water, and her flesh all