"I want to find Mrs. Dunn, Jimmy Dunn's mother."
A babel of shrill voices at once gave directions, which the pointing forefingers rendered unnecessary. As Peggy descended the steps which led to the Dunn's front door, placed, for some inexplicable reason, some feet below the street level, she reflected that in Glen Echo Avenue the name of Jimmy Dunn had proved effective. She was about to knock, when the red-haired girl pushed by and opened the door.
"Mis' Dunn," she screamed. "O, Mis' Dunn, you got company. Come right along," she added, looking over her shoulder. The girls followed as she led the way, uncomfortably aware that all the children from the street were crowding in after them, apparently resolved to lose no detail of the interview.
Mrs. Dunn was seated by the kitchen stove, with a baby in her arms. She was a flabby woman, with a double chin, which seemed superfluous, considering that poor Jimmy had scarcely flesh enough to cover one chin respectably. She eyed her callers with an air more hostile than hospitable.
"If you're lookin' for somebody to wash," she said abruptly, "'tain't no use comin' here. My health don't allow of more than rubbin' out a few pieces for the children."
Peggy explained that their call was purely social, and Mrs. Dunn's manner lost its cold aloofness.
"Isabel," she exclaimed, addressing a freckled child whom Peggy knew at a glance must be one of Jimmy's sisters, "clean off some chairs for the young ladies. Set the potatoes behind the stove. The kindlings might as well go under the bed. 'Liza," she added to the red-haired girl, who, with her usual officiousness, was lending a hand, "now there's a tea-towel hanging up over the sink; take that, some o' you, and dust the chairs off good. No, don't bother about the rungs, Estelle. They ain't going to set on the rungs, be they? Some o' you don't use the sense you was born with."
And so amid a confusion in which Mrs. Dunn sat calm and unperturbed, giving her orders, two chairs were cleared and the girls seated themselves. Peggy, who had discovered that a baby is always a safe entering wedge as a topic of conversation, ventured to pat the round cheek of the child in Mrs. Dunn's arms. "That's a nice fat baby, Mrs. Dunn," she said, and the compliment was not a careless bid for the mother's favor. To Peggy all babies were nice, though some were nicer. This baby was too dirty to admit of the comparative degree, though he was surprisingly plump considering his surroundings.
Mrs. Dunn groaned.
"He may look fat enough, but I've been up with him night and day all winter," she said. "Amonia of the lungs 'twas, and the mumps first of November. So much nursin' is bad for me on account of my heart."