No matter what the
weather or what her other toilet, she always wore a thin little
shawl of dingy brick-dust hue about her shoulders. No matter
what the occasion or what the day, she always carried her
knitting with her, and seldom ceased the incessant twist, twist
of the shining steel among the white cotton meshes. She might
put down the needles and lace into the spool-box long enough to
open oysters, or wrap up fruit and candy, or count out wood and
coal into infinitesimal portions, or do her housework; but the
knitting was snatched with avidity at the first spare moment, and
the worn, white, blue-marked fingers, half enclosed in kid-glove
stalls for protection, would writhe and twist in and out again.
Little girls just learning to crochet borrowed their patterns
from Tony's wife, and it was considered quite a mark of
advancement to have her inspect a bit of lace done by eager,
chubby fingers. The ladies in larger houses, whose husbands
would be millionaires some day, bought her lace, and gave it to
their servants for Christmas presents.
As for Tony, when she was slow in opening his oysters or in
cooking his red beans and spaghetti, he roared at her, and
prefixed picturesque adjectives to her lace, which made her hide
it under her apron with a fearsome look in her dull eyes.
He hated her in a lusty, roaring fashion, as a healthy beefy boy
hates a sick cat and torments it to madness.
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