"Evening," said the hunchback, and he was out of breath.
Miss Amelia and the men on the poreither answered his greeting nor spoke. They only looked at him.
"I am hunting for Miss Amelia Evans."
Miss Amelia pushed back her hair from her forehead and raised her . "How e?"
"Because I am kin to her," the hunchback said.
The twins and Stumpy MacPhail looked up at Miss Amelia.
"Thats me," she said. "How do you mean kin?"
"Because --" the hunchback began. He looked uneasy, almost as though he was about to cry. He rested the suitcase otom step, but did not take his hand from the handle. "My mother was Fanny Jesup and she e from Cheehaw. She left Cheehaw some thirty years ago when she married her first husband. I remember heariell how she had a half-sister named Martha. And ba Cheehaw today they tell me that was your mother."
Miss Amelia listened with her head turned slightly aside. She ate her Sunday dinners by herself; her place was never crowded with a flock of relatives, and she claimed kin with no one. She had had a great-aunt who owhe livery stable in Cheehaw, but that aunt was now dead. Aside from her there was only one double first cousin who lived in a towy miles away, but this cousin and Miss Amelia did not get on so well, and when they ced to pass each other they spat on the side of the road. Other people had tried very hard, from time to time, to work out some kind of far-fetched e with Miss Amelia, but with absolutely no success.
The hunchback went into a lmarole, mentioning names and places that were unknown to the listeners on the pord seemed to have nothing to do with the subject. "So Fanny and Martha Jesup were half-sisters. And I am the son of Fannys third husband. So that would make you and I --" He bent down and began to unfasten his suitcase. His hands were like dirty sparrow daws and they were trembling. The bag was full of all manner of junk -- ragged clothes and odd rubbish that looked like parts out of a sewing mae, or something just as worthless. The hunchback scrambled among these belongings and brought out an old photograph. "This is a picture of my mother and her half-sister."
Miss Amelia did not speak. She was moving her jaw slowly from side to side, and you could tell from her face what she was thinking about. Stumpy MacPhail took the photograph and held it out toward the light. It icture of two pale, withered-up little children of about two and three years of age. The faces were tiny white blurs, and it might have been an old picture in anyones album.
Stumpy MacPhail ha back with no ent. "Where you e from?" he asked.
The hunchbacks voice was uain. "I was traveling."
Still Miss Amelia did not speak. She just stood leaning against the side of the door, and looked down at the hunchback. Henry Macy winked nervously and rubbed his hands together. Then quietly he left the bottom step and disappeared. He is a good soul, and the hunchbacks situation had touched his heart. Therefore he did not want to wait and watch Miss Amelia chase this newer off her property and run him out of town. The hunchback stood with his bag open otom step; he sniffled his nose, and his mouth quivered. Perhaps he began to feel his dismal predit. Maybe he realized what a miserable thing it was to be a stranger iown with a suitcase full of junk, and claiming kin with Miss Amelia. At any rate he sat down oeps and suddenly began to cry.
It was not a on thing