Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/26

 would fight again at the drop of a hat, not with weak scuffles or wordy quarreling, but with terrible blows of clenched fists that brought blood.

Yet they loved each other, and to meddle with one of them meant to meddle with both.

When Mary told June she was going to marry July, he drew his thick black eyebrows together and his hands doubled up into hard fists. Something like surprise filled his eyes. "July?" he asked. "You is gwine to marry July?" Then he grunted and shrugged his big round shoulders. "July ever was a lucky boy. E ever was. I never had a luck in my life."

"Ain' you glad I'm gwine to be you sister, June?" she asked him.

"Not so glad, Si May-e." June smiled a wry smile and looked far away.

Maum Hannah called July a trifling time-waster and complained that he never stuck to any work; that he never saved a cent or stayed in one place long enough to take root; that he was always courting girls, then leaving them high and dry, and often in trouble. He would never stick to Mary. June would. June was honest and hard-working, strong as an ox, and he would make a fine husband even if he could not play a box like July.

Whenever July came to see her at night while