“The soldier-boy did start to walk, but that leg—he must of hurt them nerve ends when he fell. I imagine it was like a aching tooth and he couldn’t keep from grabbing it. Leaning on them crutches trying to keep his hands from going to that sawed-off leg, but he couldn’t keep from grabbing it. He just stood still. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I thought I would take my handkerchief and wipe some of the wet off the back of his coat.

“But he said, ‘Get away, man!’

“It was old Dad Martin what owns that little hamburger stand that did the best thing. Dad come out and said, ‘Son, anybody could fall down on this wet night. Is you hurt?’

“‘Naw, Dad, I just slipped, that’s all.’

“‘I mean, did it hurt your feelings?’ Dad said.

“‘No,’ said the soldier.

“‘Then everything’s all right,’ the old man said.

“Just then Cassie hollered, ‘Baby, here’s the cab! Come on!’

“The little woman beat Cassie to him, though. ‘Here’s our taxi, honey! Come on, Charlie, we got a cab.’

“‘You better set between them two women else they liable to tear each other’s eyes out,’ yells that agitating old Negro in the bar door.

“‘Everything’s under control,’ said the soldier, ‘don’t worry.’

“He pulled his own self up in that cab. But the women jumped in after him and there he was between them when the taxi pulled off in the rain—and they was still fussing over who he belonged to. It was funny—still and yet it wasn’t funny either.

“You can laugh at a man when he falls if he’s got two legs, but I couldn’t laugh at him. Couldn’t nobody laugh at that soldier like they would laugh at you and me if we fell down trying to ignore a couple of women. That’s why it was kinder hard for that boy to take. I aimed to order a beer when I got in the bar but my mouth said, ‘A double whiskey!’ It damn sure did, after that boy fell down.”

High Bed

High Bed

“I TOLD you you should take care of yourself,” I said to Simple as I sat down beside his bed. “Running around half high in all this cold weather. If you had taken care of yourself. and not gotten all run down, you would not be here now in this hospital with pneumonia.”

“If I had taken care of myself,” said Simple, “I would not have these pretty nurses taking care of me.”

“Everything has its compensations, I admit. But look at the big hospital bill you will have when you get out.”

“Just let me draw two or three weeks’ pay or hit one number, and I will settle it,” said Simple. “But what worries me is when am I going to get out?”