“The one she drinks from, of course. She gets terrible drunk sometimes, an’ lays right down on the floor.”
“An’ do you stay in the house then?” Josiah asked.
“Of course. Where else could I go? You see, that is my home so long as I pay what she asks, an’ it’s got to be there or on the street, though I did walk ’round one night when she was on a tantrum.”
Josiah was shocked. He knew that at Berry’s Coiner on certain occasions, Daniel Downs was known to be intoxicated, and it always caused a great deal of excitement in the little settlement: but that women could so far demean themselves had never entered his mind, and more than once he decided Sadie must be mistaken.
It was destined he should have positive proof of the truth of the statement; for when they arrived at the building, and after he had followed her through an unlighted hall to as wretched a room as he had ever seen, the girl stood pointing to what at first looked like a bundle of rags on the floor.
“There she is! She must have been out beggin’, ’cause I know there wasn’t any money in the house when I left.”
One hasty glance at the unconscious woman was sufficient for the boy from the country, and, turning away to avoid looking at her, he asked Sadie:—
“Now what are you goin’ to do?”
“Try to find your chums, of course.”
“I mean after that?”