The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Read Online Free PDF Page B

bottle, see? Born joined plumb together—dead a course." Leota dropped her voice into a soft lyrical hum. "They was about this long—pardon—must of been full time, all right, wouldn't you say?—an' they had these two heads an' two faces an' four arms an' four legs, all kind of joined
here.
See, this face looked this-a-way, and the other face looked that-a-way, over their shoulder, see. Kinda pathetic."
    "Glah!" said Mrs. Fletcher disapprovingly.
    "Well, ugly? Honey, I mean to tell you—their parents was first cousins and all like that. Billy Boy, git me a fresh towel from off Teeny's stack—this 'n's wringin' wet—an' quit ticklin' my ankles with that curler. I declare! He don't miss nothin'."
    "Me and Mr. Fletcher aren't one speck of kin, or he could never of had me," said Mrs. Fletcher placidly.
    "Of course not!" protested Leota. "Neither is me an' Fred, not that we know of. Well, honey, what Mrs. Pike liked was the pygmies. They've got these pygmies down there, too, an' Mrs. Pike was just wild about 'em. You know, the teeniniest men in the universe? Well, honey, they can just rest back on their little bohunkus an' roll around an' you can't hardly tell if they're sittin' or standin'. That'll give you some idea. They're about forty-two years old. Just suppose it was your husband!"
    "Well, Mr. Fletcher is five foot nine and one half," said Mrs. Fletcher quickly.
    "Fred's five foot ten," said Leota, "but I tell him he's still a shrimp, account of I'm so tall." She made a deep wave over Mrs. Fletcher's other temple with the comb. "Well, these pygmies are a kind of a dark brown, Mrs. Fletcher. Not bad lookin' for what they are, you know."
    "I wouldn't care for them," said Mrs. Fletcher. "What does that Mrs. Pike see in them?"
    "Aw, I don't know," said Leota. "She's just cute, that's all. But they got this man, this petrified man, that ever'thing ever since he was nine years old, when it goes through his digestion, see, somehow Mrs. Pike says it goes to his joints and has been turning to stone."
    "How awful!" said Mrs. Fletcher.
    "He's forty-two too. That looks like a bad age."
    "Who said so, that Mrs. Pike? I bet she's forty-two," said Mrs. Fletcher.
    "Naw," said Leota, "Mrs. Pike's thirty-three, born in January, an Aquarian. He could move his head—like this. A course his head and mind ain't a joint, so to speak, and I guess his stomach ain't, either—not yet, anyways. But see—his food, he eats it, and it goes down, see, and then he digests it"—Leota rose on her toes for an instant—"and it goes out to his joints and before you can say 'Jack Robinson,' it's stone—pure stone. He's turning to stone. How'd you like to be married to a guy like that? All he can do, he can move his head just a quarter of an inch. A course he
looks
just
terrible.
"
    "I should think he would," said Mrs. Fletcher frostily. "Mr. Fletcher takes bending exercises every night of the world. I make him."
    "All Fred does is lay around the house like a rug. I wouldn't be surprised if he woke up some day and couldn't move. The petrified man just sat there moving his quarter of an inch though," said Leota reminiscently.
    "Did Mrs. Pike like the petrified man?" asked Mrs. Fletcher.
    "Not as much as she did the others," said Leota deprecatingly. "And then she likes a man to be a good dresser, and all that."
    "Is Mr. Pike a good dresser?" asked Mrs. Fletcher sceptically.
    "Oh, well, yeah," said Leota, "but he's twelve or fourteen years older'n her. She ast Lady Evangeline about him."
    "Who's Lady Evangeline?" asked Mrs. Fletcher.
    "Well, it's this mind reader they got in the freak show," said Leota. "Was real good. Lady Evangeline is her name, and if I had another dollar I wouldn't do a thing but have my other palm read. She had what Mrs. Pike said was the 'sixth mind' but she had the worst manicure I ever saw on a living person."
    "What did she tell Mrs. Pike?" asked Mrs. Fletcher.
    "She told her Mr. Pike was