The ragpicker sat down flat upon the floor, and drew the unconscious child gently across her lap, and proceeded to divest her of her costly trinkets and rich clothing, all of which she made into a bundle and thrust it far under the pile of rags.
Then she looked at the beautiful, nude statue of a child that lay upon the floor, and considered:
“’Twon’t do to take her out that-a-way. But w’at shall I put onto her? Not a child’s garment in all that pile. Oh! I know,” she suddenly mumbled. “I roll her in my shawl. I can get another one to-morrow outen the fortin I have come inter. Them there jew’ls and frock and things’ll fetch a pile, I know.”
Saying this, she took off her own ragged shawl, laid it over her knees, drew the nude and senseless form of the child upon it, and rolled her up in it, securing it here and there by scraps of strings drawn from the pile, and run through the holes of the wrap.
“That’ll do,” she said, as she took little Owlet in her arms, laid her head over her shoulder and left the room, on this occasion taking the precaution to lock the door and put the key in her bosom.
“I never do lock my door, except when I’m gwine to bed; but I guess I’ll do it now, fear of accidents. Though nobody’ll never guess nothing ’bout the fortin as I’ve got locked up in there. Lor’, no! They’ll only think, if any on ’em come and try my door, as I’ve turned in airlier, and some on ’em liars’ll say drunker nor usual. They’ll never think of the fortin. Lor’, no! If they did, it wouldn’t be there long. Lor’, no! So I reckon as I had better hurry and get back’s soon as I can, anyhow,” she concluded, as she went down the stairs, dark or only dimly lighted by the gleam of candles, or kerosene lamps, from the partly open doors of the tenement rooms.
She passed downstairs without being questioned, or even observed, until she reached the front door, where a woman sat on the steps, smoking a short, clay pipe.
“Umphe—humphe! There’s Kit, as us’al, filling up the door,” muttered the ragpicker, as she came upon the smoker.
The latter took the pipe from between her lips, looked up, and said:
“Evenin’! What’s that you’ve got there, Muck?” calling the crone by the nickname that had been given her in recognition of her pre-eminent attainments in squalor.