Show Boat by Edna Ferber

“We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see.” Andy followed after, almost a-tiptoe; afraid to break the spell with a sudden sound.
    “But is it? I want to know. Papa, make her tell me. Look! The window here is a little door. It’s a door and I can go right out on the upstairs porch. And there’s the whole river.”
    “I should say as much, and a fine way to fall and drown without anybody being the wiser.”
    But the child was beside herself with excitement andsuspense. She could endure it no longer; flew to her stern parent and actually shook that adamantine figure in its dolman and bonnet. “Is it? Is it? Is it?”
    “We’ll see.” A look, then, of almost comic despair flashed between father and child—a curiously adult look for one of Magnolia’s years. It said: “What a woman this is! Can we stand it? I can only if you can.”
    Andy tried suggestion. “Could paint this furniture any colour Nola says——”
    “Blue,” put in Magnolia, promptly.
    “—and new curtains, maybe, with ribbons to match——” He had, among other unexpected traits, a keen eye for colour and line; a love for fabrics.
    Parthy said nothing. Her lips were compressed. The look that passed between Andy and Magnolia now was pure despair, with no humour to relieve it. So they went disconsolately out of the door; crossed the balcony, clumped down the stairs, like mutes at a funeral. At the foot of the stairs they heard voices from without—women’s voices, high and clear—and laughter. The sounds came from the little porch-like deck forward. Parthy swooped through the door; had scarcely time to gaze upon two sprightly females in gay plumage before both fell upon her lawful husband Captain Andy Hawks and embraced him. And the young pretty one kissed him on his left-hand mutton-chop whisker. And the older plain one kissed him on the right-hand mutton-chop whisker. And, “Oh, dear Captain Hawks!” they cried. “Aren’t you surprised to see us! And happy! Do say you’re happy. We drove over from Cairospecially to see you and the
Cotton Blossom
. Doc’s with us.”
    Andy flung an obliging arm about the waist of each and gave each armful a little squeeze. “Happy ain’t the word.” And indeed it scarcely seemed to cover the situation; for there stood Parthy viewing the three entwined, and as she stood she seemed to grow visibly taller, broader, more ominous, like a menacing cloud. Andy’s expression was a protean thing in which bravado and apprehension battled.
    Magnolia had recognized them at once as the pretty young woman in the rose-trimmed hat and the dark woman who had told her not to smile too often that day when, in company with the sloppy young man, they had passed the Hawks house, laughing and chatting and spitting cherry stones idly and comfortably into the dust of the village street. So she now took a step forward from behind her mother’s voluminous skirts and made a little tentative gesture with one hand toward the older woman. And that lively female at once said, “Why, bless me! Look, Elly! It’s the little girl!”
    Elly looked. “What little girl?”
    “The little girl with the smile.” And at that, quite without premeditation, and to her own surprise, Magnolia ran to her and put her hand in hers and looked up into her strange ravaged face and smiled. “There!” exclaimed the woman, exactly as she had done that first time.
    “Maggie Hawks!” came the voice.
    And, “Oh, my God!” exclaimed the one called Elly,“it’s the——” sensed something dangerous in the air, laughed, and stopped short.
    Andy extricated himself from his physical entanglements and attempted to do likewise with the social snarl that now held them all.
    “Meet my wife Mrs. Hawks. Parthy, this is Julie Dozier, female half of our general business team and one of the finest actresses on the river besides being as nice a little lady as you’d meet in a month of Sundays.… This here little beauty is Elly Chipley—Lenore La Verne