Louise Élise Gibbons

“ Dame Nature longed to teach them if they would learn of her; for, besides her beauty, she was very wise in all things. But they thought they knew, and turned a deaf ear to all her teachings.
19 II WHEN Janet opened her eyes, she rubbed them hard to collect her scattered senses. After a few minutes everything came back to her, and with a heart full of sorrow she realized her desolation. Mother, brothers, sisters, all she loved—gone! Even the drunken father did not seem so bad, now she had no one to love her. Yes, there was Roy! ”

“ The children of the slums, born in poverty, sorrow, and disgrace, do not cry. Life is too stern a reality.
14Then Roy spoke in a whisper, as if in his untutored mind he felt that in the presence of such sorrow a loud word would be a sacrilege—“Janet!” ”

“ And now I must go to see Roy. There he is calling his extras at the corner.”
“Well, I never!” said one of the women, as the child skipped away. “She seems to make friends, don’t she? She and that boy are awful fond of each other; and now there ’s this Bishop!”
“Well,” said the other, “Janet is a pretty girl, with her dark eyes, and her hair always braided in one long plait down her back—and even if she is in rags, her hair is always tidy.”
“Her father sells everything that people give her—it ’s a wonder he don’t cut off her hair and sell that. ”

“ Dame Nature in all her glory of sparkling jewels smiled at the ladies of the world, wearing their paltry gems, as they drove to the slums to leave some little dolls, and wooden horses, and tin watches that wouldn’t go, for starving, ragged, weary children. ”

“ Sometimes us boys sleeps in boxes, and sometimes they have straw in ’em, and 16more times not. But you see, Janet, that won’t do for the likes of you.”
He thought in silence for a moment. “Let me see,” he said. “I’ve got ten cents in my pocket. That ought to lodge you for one night—but where? Oh, I know! Now, Janet, listen to me, and do just what I tell you. I’m going to take you to an old apple-woman near here, and don’t you open your mouth about the dipthery, and don’t say nothin’ ’bout where you lived or that you had any people, nor nothin’, ’cause if you do nobody ’ll let us come near ’em ”

“ You had better ride in the cars.”
“But I don’t know how to get the right one,” said Janet.
The woman showed her the car, and with the five cents she rode and rested at the same time.
At last she came to what she knew must be the beautiful park. After she had entered it, she went 30along in a timid, fearful way till at last she came to a secluded spot. She seated herself on one of the benches, but from time to time she looked over her shoulder to see if the policeman (the greatest terror of the poor) was coming. ”

“ The boy and girl parted at the corner, he to sell his papers through the cold and the mire of the slums, and she to go to her poor, wretched home.
8She mounted the rickety stairs of an old tenement-house, up to the top floor, where, in one small garret, the whole family lived. In one corner of the room was an old ragged straw mattress, on which the father, mother, and baby slept. The baby was asleep now, the father was drinking in a saloon near by. In another corner was a pile of straw where Janet and her sister Bessie slept ”

“ Heavy steps ascended the stairs. An unsteady hand opened the door; and a large man fell heavily to the floor. It was the drunken father, returning 11from the saloon.... The gray streaks of early dawn came into the dingy garret, and revealed the face of the dead man.
A few hours later the body was removed. The two dollars the Bishop had given Janet was paid out for back rent, so the poor woman and her children were allowed to stay in the wretched room a little longer. Janet took her mother’s work back to the shop, which was some distance away. ”

“ She sort o’ takes to me, an’ she gives me specked apples for runnin’ errands for her.”
So they went on until they came to the apple-stand, over which a torch was burning.
“Aunt Betsy,” said Roy, “here ’s a poor little girl that can’t be left out on the street to freeze. ”

“ So she trudged along, sometimes stopping for a moment to look at what she passed, and often gazing at the food displayed in the shop-windows, for she was very hungry. Something in her wan, 29white face must have appealed to a man who passed her, for he stopped and gave her a penny. ”