Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/323

 an evening like this? Lord! look at it!” He sent his arm round the great curve of the sky.

“If I was a nigger or an Italian I should come out here and sing. I whistle sometimes, but bless you, it’s singing I’ve got in my mind. Sometimes I think I live for sunsets.”

“I don’t see that it does you any good always looking at sunsets like you do,” said the fat woman.

“Nor me. But I do. Sunsets and things I was made to like.”

“They don’t ’elp you,” said the fat woman thoughtfully.

“Who cares?” said Mr. Polly.

A deeper strain had come to the fat woman. “You got to die some day,” she said.

“Some things I can’t believe,” said Mr. Polly suddenly, “and one is your being a skeleton.” He pointed his hand towards the neighbour’s hedge. “Look at ’em—against the yellow—and they’re just stingin’ nettles. Nasty weeds—if you count things by their uses. And no help in the life hereafter. But just look at the look of them!”

“It isn’t only looks,” said the fat woman.

“Whenever there’s signs of a good sunset and I’m not too busy,” said Mr. Polly, “I’ll come and sit out here.”

The fat woman looked at him with eyes in which contentment struggled with some obscure reluctant protest, and at last turned them slowly to the black nettle pagodas against the golden sky.