Ella Corpening sat facing the door in a rocking chair, purring lazily in the red glow of a little kitchen range, with her big legs stretched comfortably out on the floor. She was a mulatto of twenty-six years, a handsome woman of Amazonian proportions, with smooth tawny skin.
She was dressed in the garments of some former mistress: she wore a brown woollen skirt, patent-leather shoes with high suede tops pearl-buttoned, and gray silk hose. Her long heavy arms shone darkly through the light texture of a freshly laundered white shirtwaist. A lacing of cheap blue ribbon gleamed across the heavy curve of her breasts.
There was a bubbling pot of cabbage and sliced fat pork upon the stove.
“Paper boy,” said Eugene. “Come to collect.”
“Is you de boy?” drawled Ella Corpening with a lazy movement of her arm. “How much does I owe?”
“$1.20,” he answered. He looked meaningfully at one extended leg, where, thrust in below the knee, a wadded bank-note gleamed dully.
“Dat’s my rent money,” she said. “Can’t give you dat. Dollah— twenty!” She brooded. “Uh! Uh!” she grunted pleasantly. “Don’t seem lak it ought to be dat much.”
“It is, though,” he said, opening his account book.
“It mus’is,” she agreed, “if de book say so.”
She meditated luxuriously for a moment.
“Does you collec’Sunday mawnin’?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“You come roun’in de mawnin’,” she said hopefully. “I’ll have somethin’fo’yuh, sho. I’se waitin’fo’a white gent’man now. He’s goin’gib me a dollah.”
She moved her great limbs slowly, and smiled at him. Forked pulses beat against his eyes. He gulped dryly: his legs were rotten with excitement.
“What’s—what’s he going to give you a dollar for?” he muttered, barely audible.
“Jelly Roll,” said Ella Corpening.
He moved his lips twice, unable to speak. She got up from her chair.
