Kate said at table one evening that she had just happened to look in Ethel’s room and it was so neat and pretty she couldn’t help buying her a present. When Ethel unwrapped the package right at the table it was a big bottle of Hoyt’s German, enough to keep her smelling sweet for a long time. Ethel was pleased, and she hoped Kate hadn’t seen the dirty clothes under the bed. After supper she not only got the clothes out but brushed the floors and swept the cobwebs out of the corners.

Then Grace looked so pretty one afternoon that Kate couldn’t help giving her the rhinestone butterfly pin she was wearing. And Grace had to rush up and put on a clean shirtwaist to set it off.

Alex in the kitchen, who, if he had believed what was usually said of him would have considered himself a murderer, found that he had a magic hand with biscuits. He discovered that cooking was something you couldn’t learn. You had to feel it.

Cotton Eye learned that nobody hated him. His tub-thumping piano playing changed imperceptibly.

He told Kate, “It’s funny what you remember when you think back.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well, like this,” and he played for her.

“That’s lovely,” she said. “What is it?”

“Well, I don’t know. I think it’s Chopin. If I could just see the music!”

He told her how he had lost his sight, and he had never told anyone else. It was a bad story. That Saturday night he took the chain off the piano strings and played something he had been remembering and practicing in the morning, something called “Moonlight,” a piece by Beethoven, Cotton Eye thought.

Ethel said it sounded like moonlight and did he know the words.

“It don’t have words,” said Cotton Eye.

Oscar Trip, up from Gonzales for Saturday night, said, “Well, it ought to have. It’s pretty.”

One night there were presents for everyone because Faye’s was the best house, the cleanest, and nicest in the whole county—and who was responsible for that? Why, the girls—who else? And did they ever taste seasoning like in that stew?

Alex retired into the kitchen and shyly wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. He bet he could make a plum pudding would knock their eyes out.

Georgia was getting up at ten every morning and taking piano lessons from Cotton Eye and her nails were clean.

Coming back from eleven o’clock mass on a Sunday morning, Grace said to Trixie, “And I was about ready to get married and give up whoring. Can you imagine?”

“It’s sure nice,” said Trixie. “Jenny’s girls came over for Faye’s birthday cake and they couldn’t believe their eyes. They don’t talk about nothing else but how it is at Faye’s. Jenny’s sore.”

“Did you see the score on the blackboard this morning?”

“Sure I did—eighty-seven tricks in one week. Let Jenny or the Nigger match that when there ain’t no holidays!”