Ollie Miss by George Wylie Henderson

Author:George Wylie Henderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

"I HARDLY evah see Jule any more," Delia said. "He go off an' stay fer weeks at a time, an' sometime when he be comin' in late at night he mought stop by. But he don't loose no mo' time wid me. Peoples say he go yonder to Roba and Fort Davis an' places lak dat. They sey he got a new 'oman dere. They sey she jes a young gal an' sort o' pretty-lookin'. They sey her an' Jule done fell in love wid one 'nother an' they is gwine git married. . . ."

Delia's voice died away. She looked up at Ollie's face beseechingly, and her lower lip quivered. And, for once, Ollie looked as though she could feel sorry for Della—Della who had caused her and Jule to break off.

Ollie breathed a sigh and brushed the ash from her cigarette. She didn't say anything. She simply looked at Delia's face and the swelling about her eyes.

They were sitting in Della's doorway, facing each other in the settling dusk. They had sat there every evening since Ollie came, talking and looking down the trail toward the swamp, each hoping in her own way that Jule would come. Ollie had made the trip especially to see Jule, and the knowledge of another woman didn't matter now. She simply wanted to see Jule. To-day was Friday and tomorrow she was going back to Alex's.

With Della, it was different. Della wanted Jule to come while Ollie was there. Della felt that, if Jule would come now and see Ollie, she could get a new hold on Jule herself. Della despised Ollie—despised her very insides. But she saw in Ollie's presence now her only hope of getting even a partial grip on Jule. Men, Della felt, were sometimes like that. When they had pie they wanted cake. They didn't know why they wanted pie and cake, both at the same time. But they did. And when there wasn't any more pie they didn't want the cake. They wanted something else, even though that something might be slop. So, when Ollie was around, Jule would come to her. He'd pay her some attention, spend an evening or sit awhile. But after Ollie left, Jule didn't come around her at all. And that hurt Della. It hurt her and puzzled her, too. It increased her bitterness against Ollie. Della didn't know that, while Ollie was around, Jule would come to her simply because his going back to Ollie would be the sweeter then. Jule could appreciate Ollie after Della. That Della, herself, had never mattered, Della was never to know.

So, now, they sat there—Ollie and Della—in Della's doorway and talked. And now and then each of them would look down the trail as far as the eye could see, as though they hoped to see Jule, tall and strong, emerging from the maze of a settling dusk, coming home to his own! . . .

They had sat there every evening since Monday and now it was Friday.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.