The woman gathered herself together. “Absurd!” she cried. “You’ll never get it, never!”
“All right!” smiled Blue. “We’re satisfied.”
“But—but haven’t you any regard for your mother?” she exclaimed, still clinging to her original tactics. “Think what that twenty dollars would buy! And she slaving herself for you! It’s an extravagance for you to keep such a bird!”
“That’s our business!” returned the boy quietly.
“Well,” she flung out with rising anger, “I hope you’re saucy enough! I might have expected it from anybody that lived in The Flatiron!” She rose hurriedly. “You’ll see the day that you’ll regret this!”
A retort was upon Blue’s lips, but the face of his brother, white and troubled, held it back, and the woman swept from the room in silence.
CHAPTER XVII
A THUNDERBOLT
It was hot in The Flatiron. The July sun rose early and blazed over the tin roof, until by nine o’clock the rooms underneath began to feel like ovens. Doodles had never drooped as he drooped this summer. Yet he sang and made melody on his violin whenever he was able, and forgot the tenement and the hard things of life.
Across the sea of roofs, from the kitchen window, was a small opening through which one with clear eyes might discern a bit of velvety green and a fleck of brilliant color.