Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/67

 clean and cocked up on a chair to rest and Mary had put a pan full of good victuals in his lap, she sat on the floor beside him, happy to watch every spoonful he put in his mouth.

Just outside their closed door, the Quarter street might ring with merriment, as the people went to dances or prayer-meetings or hot suppers, but Mary had no interest in any of them so long as July would sit by the fire with her talking, or silent, or nodding with sleepiness. Just to have him in reach, to know he was hers, was enough.

They spent many a happy evening together in front of the fire whose pleasant gleam was bright enough to let them see each other. Mary had been turned out of the church, but when July praised her housekeeping she could hardly have been happier, for July's smiles meant more to her than God or Jesus or any hope of Heaven. The year had been a good one, the crop abundant; they had a barrel of peas picked and dried in the shed room, waiting to be eaten this winter; strings of onions and red peppers hung on the wall; a big bank of sweet potatoes sat in a corner of the vegetable garden where no hog could root into it; the small barn held a nice pile of corn in the shucks, to make meal and food for the cow and pig. She had earned some money