“I’ll be sure you’re all goat if you butt into my cherished plan in that rude fashion,” I responded gaily. “Never mind. Wait till your shin feels better and you’ve had something to eat and we’ll talk it over.”
I drew the table closer to our tiny stove and set out the meal while Dan prepared for supper.
“You remember my telling you about that poor little couple that I used to see at the Public Library,” I began when we were comfortably settled, “the ones that used to come in about two or three o’clock and go off in a corner somewhere to eat a bit of lunch when the librarian wasn’t looking? She’s been going down very fast for the last few weeks, hasn’t been able to look for work at all, but waited in the library till he came in, half crazy from the continued failure to find anything, and then she’d try to comfort him while they shared the part of a loaf of bread that she’d have hidden beneath her old cape.
“When I was warming up in the library this morning she was coughing terribly and I talked her into trying the charity hospitals again. It seemed as if they must take her. You know she went a while back, but couldn’t get in; she was an ambulatory case. He came in about noon, all used up and they didn’t have even a crust of bread.
“We started out and just on the edge of the sidewalk she had a hemorrhage and before we could get the ambulance she was dead. I had taken her in my arms, her little body was light as a feather.” My voice failed.
“I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he realised that she was dead.... Dan, I can’t die as she did. Before I go I want to see the open fields, feel the soft earth beneath my feet, draw a few breaths of real air. Since I’ve lived in this slum I’m getting so I can’t even believe in God.”
“Ethel, you’re getting morbid. What’s all this talk about dying? You’re simply upset over these people’s trouble.”
“No, I’m not morbid, Danny boy. I hate to tell you, but Doctor Graves says I have consumption and must go back to California at once if I’m to get well.”
“What utter nonsense. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculous to talk of a strapping girl like you having consumption.”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m afraid it’s true just the same. I’ve had a good many symptoms ... but I won’t die like an animal in a trap. I won’t die in this pest hole. I’ve a fighting chance and I’m going to take it. We’ll ride that tandem west or die in the attempt. When I think of the terrors of the journey, the miles and miles of desert that I know so well, when I picture those tremendous mountains, my heart almost fails me, but nothing, nothing can be so terrible, so horrible to our souls as well as destructive to our bodies as these loathsome slums.