The boy did not seem to hear. "Funny the way Mag talks about yer all the time. She's purty sick all right. Peterson's baby, it died."
"Can't we go into the house and see Maggie? You must be nearly frozen standing out here in the cold."
"Huh, I'm used to freezin'—I guess yer can come on in though—if yer want to. Mebbe Mag 'd like to see yer."
He pushed open the door, and she followed him into the ghastly barrenness of the place that he knew as home.
Never before had the daughter of Adam Ward viewed such naked, cruel poverty. She shuddered with the horror of it. It was so unreal—so unbelievable.
A small, rusty cookstove with no fire—a rude table with no cloth—a rickety cupboard with its shelves bare save for a few dishes—two broken-backed chairs—that was all. No, it was not all—on a window ledge, beneath a bundle of rags that filled the opening left by a broken pane, was a small earthen flowerpot holding a single scraggly slip of geranium.
Helen seemed to hear again the Interpreter saying, "A girl with true instincts for the best things of life and a capacity for great happiness."
At Bobby's call, Mrs. Whaley came from another room.
The boy did not even attempt an introduction but stood sullenly aside, waiting developments, and the mother in her pitiful distress evidently failed to identify their visitor when Helen introduced herself.
"I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am," she said, mechanically, and gazed at the young woman with a stony indifference, as though her mind, deadened by fearful anxiety and physical suffering, refused even to wonder at the stranger's presence in her home.