Page:The Family Album.pdf/41

Rh there came a flash of lightning. And Eb saw she was a Kaffir and she saw that Eb was what you might call almost a white-skinned man, if it hadn't been for his neck.

He had a little coal dust in his eyes and his ears, too, but she knew that Eb came from a good family. Naturally, that blighted Eb’s romance like boll weevils in the South. Our family didn’t care much what Eb did.

It was her family that objected to the match.

He wasn’t good looking, but he was kind of absent-minded and good-hearted. Maybe, being absented-minded was what made him good-hearted. You know, our folks have got a reputation for being stingy.

But we never had anything. And you can’t give away something you haven’t got. When we started to get something, we were so used to not giving anything away that we didn’t.

Life is all habits. Eb never recovered from the shock of his wrecked romance. He couldn’t work. And it looked like he might die any minute.

That was fifty-six years ago, and Eb still looks that way.