Then suddenly he straightened up and leaned from the window alertly! The fire alarm was sounding. Its sinister wheeze shrilled through the hot air tauntingly! It sounded again. One! two! One! two! three! It was in the neighborhood.
Without waiting for a word, both men sprang out the door and down the stairs.
CHAPTER XXIX
"The Whited Sepulcher," as some of the bitterest of her poorly paid slaves called the model factory, stood coolly, insolently, among her dirty, red-brick, grime-stained neighbors; like some dainty lady appareled in sheer muslins and jewels appearing on the threshold of the hot kitchen where her servitors were sweating and toiling to prepare her a feast.
The luxuriant vines were green and abundant, creeping coolly about the white walls, befringing the windows charmingly, laying delicate clinging fingers even up to the very eaves, and straying out over the roof. No matter how parched the ground in the little parks of the district, no matter how yellow the leaves on the few stunted trees near by, no matter how low the city's supply of water, nor how many public fountains had to be temporarily shut off, that vine was always well watered. Its root lay deep in soft, moist earth well fertilized and cared for; its leaves were washed anew each evening with refreshing spray from the hose that played over it. "Seems like I'd just like to lie down there and sleep with my face clost up to it, all wet and cool-like, all night!" sighed one poor little bony victim of a girl, scarcely more than a child, as the throng pressed out the wide door at six o'clock and caught the moist fragrance of the damp earth and growing vine.
"You look all in, Susie!" said her neighbor, pausing in her interminable gum-chewing to eye her friend keenly. "Say, you better go with me to the movies to-night! I know a nice cool one fer a nickel!"
"Can't!" sighed Susie. "'Ain't got ther nickel, and, besides, I gotta stay with gran'mom while ma goes up with some vests she's been makin'. Oh, I'm all right! I jus' was thinkin' about the vine; it looks so cool and purty. Say, Katie, it's somepin' to b'long to a vine like that, even if we do have it rotten sometimes! Don't you always feel kinda proud-like when you come in the door, 'most as if it was a palace? I like to pertend it's all a great big house where I live, and there's carpets and lace curtings to the winders, and a real gold sofy with pink-velvet cushings! And when I come down and see one of the company's ottymobiles standin' by the curb waitin', I like to pertend it's mine, only I don't ride 'cause I've been ridin' so much I'd ruther walk! Don't you ever do that, Katie?"
"Not on yer life, I don't!" said Katie, with an ugly frown. "I hate the old dump! I hate every stone in the whole pile! I could tear that nasty green vine down an' stamp on it. I'd like to strip its leaves off an' leave it bare. I'd like to turn the hose off and see it dry up an' be all brown, an' ugly, an' dead. It's stealin' the water they oughtta have over there in the fountain. It's stealin' the money they oughtta pay us fer our work! It's creepin' round the winders an' eatin' up the air. Didn't you never take notice to how they let it grow acrost the winders to hide folks from lookin' in from the visitor's winders there on the east side? They don't care how it shuts away the draught and makes it hotter 'n a furnace where we work! No, you silly! I never was proud to come in that old marble door! I was always mad, away down inside, that I had to work here. I had to go crawlin' and askin' fer a job, an' take all their insults, an' be locked in a trap. Take it from me, there's goin' to be some awful accident happen here some day! If a fire should break out how many d'you s'pose could get out before they was burned to a crisp? Did you know them winders was nailed so they wouldn't go up any higher 'n a foot? Did you know they 'ain't got 'nouf fire-escapes to get half of us out ef anythin' happened? Did you never take notice to the floor roun' them three biggest old machines they've got up on the sixth? I stepped acrost there this mornin'—Mr. Brace sent me up on a message to the forewoman—an' that floor shook under my feet like a earthquake! Sam Warner says the building ain't half strong enough fer them machines, anyway. He says they'd oughtta put 'em down on the first floor; but they didn't want to 'cause they don't show off good to visitors, so they stuck 'em up on the sixth, where they don't many see 'em. But Sam says some day they're goin' to bust right through the floor, an' ef they do, they ain't gonta stop till they get clear down to the cellar, an' they'll wipe out everythin' in their way when they go! B'leeve me! I don't wantta be workin' here when that happens!"
"Good night!" said Susie, turning pale. "Them big machines on the sixth is right over where I work on the fifth! Say, Katie, le's ast Mr. Brace to put us on the other side the room! Aw, gee! Katie! What's the use o' livin'? I'd 'most be willin' to be dead jest to get cool! Seems zif it's allus either awful hot er awful cold!"