"Have you had a good time?" she asked when the last one was eaten, and she led the way to go down-stairs.
"Good time! That ain't nothin'! I've had a reg'lar bust! I'm comin' agin'; it's bully. Now I must get my loaf and my shoes, and go along back and take a lickin'."
That was the way Hazel caught her first child.
She made her tell her name,—Ann Fazackerley,—and promise to come on Saturday afternoon, and bring two more girls with her.
"We'll have a party," said Hazel, "and play Puss in the Corner. But you must get leave," she added. "Ask your mother. I don't want you to be punished when you go home."
"Lor! you're green! I ain't got no mother. An' I always hooks jack. I'm licked reg'lar when I gets back, anyway. There's half a dozen of 'em. When 'tain't one, it's another. That's Jane Goffey's bread; she's been a swearin' after it this hour, you bet. But I'll come,—see if I don't!"
Hazel drew a hard breath as she let the girl go. Back to her crowded cellar, her Jane Goffeys, the swearings, and the lickings. What was one hour at a time, once or twice a week, to do against all this?
But she remembered the clean little round in her face, out of which eyes and mouth looked merrily, while she talked rough slang; the same fun and daring,—nothing worse,—were in this child's face, that might be in another's saying prettier words. How could she help her words, hearing nothing but devil's Dutch around her all the time? Children do not make the language they are born into. And the face that could be simply merry, telling such a tale as that,—what sort of bright little immortality must it be the outlook of?
Hazel meant to try her hour.