Thomas softly and virtuously.
"Such things look worse'n dying to me," replied the gipsy. "And,"
turning again to Gallito, "the taste goin' out of my tea and coffee
wasn't the worst. It went out of my pipe, too. Gosh a'mighty, Gallito!
I'll never forget the night I sat beside my dyin' fire and felt that I
didn't even take no interest in winnin' their money from the boys; and
then suddenly most like a voice from outside somep'n in me says: 'What's
the matter with you, Sadie Nitschkan, is that you're a reapin' the
harvest you've sowed, gipsyin' and junketin', fightin' and gamblin' with
no thought of the serious side of life?'"
"And what is the serious side of life, Nitschkan?" asked Jose, sipping
delicately his glass of wine as if to taste to the full its ambrosial
flavors, like the epicure he was. "I have not yet discovered it."
"You will soon." There was meaning in the gipsy's tone and in the
glance she bestowed upon him. "It's doin' good. I tell you boys when I
realized that I'd probably have to change myself within and without and
be like some of the pious folks I'd seen, it give me a gone feeling in
the pit of my stomach. But you can't keep me down, and after I'd saw I
was a sinner and repented 'cause I was so bad, I saw that the whole
trouble was this, I'd tried everything else, but I hadn't never tried
doin' good."
"No, Sadie, you sure hadn't made duty the watch-word of your life,"
agreed Mrs. Thomas.
Mrs. Nitschkan ignored this.
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