Two of the older
children, stupid-looking little blondes, with colds in their noses, and
dirt showing under the fair hair, were playing in the dooryard of the
shabby cottage now. The gate hung loose, the ground was worn bare by
children's feet and dug into holes where children had burrowed, and
littered with cans and ropes and boxes.
Emeline was genuinely shocked by the evidences of actual want inside.
May was a thin, bent, sickly looking woman now, her graying hair hanging
in a loose coil over her cotton wrapper. Floors everywhere were bare, a
few chairs were here and there, a few beds running over with thin
bedding, a table in the kitchen was covered with scattered dishes, some
dirty and some clean. Ashes drifted out of the kitchen stove, and in the
sink was a great tin dish-pan full of cool, greasy water. The oldest
child, a five-year-old girl, had followed these dazzling visitors in,
and now mounted a box and attacked this dish-pan with pathetic energy.
The two younger children sat on the floor, apathetically staring. May
made only a few smiling apologies. They "could see how she was," she
said, limping to a chair into which she dropped with a sigh of relief.
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