Rose felt her eyes filling with tears. The figure of her lonely old father came before her. She saw him sitting beside the kitchen table, his head on his palm, and all the new house empty and dark.
Mary jumped up. "Here now, stop that talk, we must leave Rose alone and let her go to sleep."
They left her alone, but sleep was impossible. The tramp of feet, the sound of pianos, the slam of doors, the singing, laughing of the other boarders made sleep impossible. The cars jangled by, the click-clack of horses' hoofs and the swift rattle of wagons kept up long after the house was silent. Between midnight and four o'clock she got a little sleep, out of which she awoke while a booming, clattering wagon thundered by. Other wagons clattered viciously along up the alleys, and then some early riser below began to sing, and Rose wearily dressed and sat down by the window to listen.
Far to the south a low, intermittent, yet ever deepening, crescendo bass note began to sound. It was Chicago waking from the three hours' doze, which is its only sleep. It grew to a raucous, hot roar; and then to the north she heard the clear musical cry of a fruit vendor,—then another: "Black-berries! Fine fresh black-berries!"
The cars thickened, the sun grew hot and lay in squares of blinding light across her carpet. That curious pungent smell came in with the wind. Newsboys cried their morning papers. Children fought and played in the street. Distant whistles began to sound, and her first morning in Chicago came to Rose, hot, brazen, unnatural, and found her blinded, bruised, discouraged, abased, homesick.
CHAPTER XVI
HER FIRST CONQUEST
She was still sitting by the window wondering what to do next, when Mary tapped at her door.
"May I come in?"