“I can get a square meal for twenty cents,” Tom reflected, “and I’ll do it.”
But she must go home first, as delay would be dangerous, and have disagreeable consequences.
She prepared for the visit by dividing her morning’s receipts into two parcels. The two ten-cent scrips she hid away in the lining of her tattered jacket. The pennies, including one five-cent scrip, she put in the pocket of her dress. This last was intended for her granny. She then started homewards, dragging her broom after her.
She walked to Centre Street, turned after a while into Leonard, and went on, turning once or twice, until she came to one of the most wretched tenement houses to be found in that not very choice locality. She passed through an archway leading into an inner court, on which fronted a rear house more shabby, if possible, than the front dwelling. The court was redolent of odors far from savory; children pallid, dirty, and unhealthy-looking, were playing about, filling the air with shrill cries, mingled with profanity; clothes were hanging from some of the windows; miserable and besotted faces were seen at others.
Tom looked up to a window in the fourth story. She could descry a woman, with a pipe in her mouth.
“Granny’s home,” she said to herself.
She went up three flights, and, turning at the top, went to the door and opened it.
It was a wretched room, containing two chairs and a table, nothing more. On one of the chairs was seated a large woman, of about sixty, with a clay pipe in her mouth. The room was redolent of the vilest tobacco-smoke.
This was granny.
If granny had ever been beautiful, there were no traces of that dangerous gift in the mottled and wrinkled face, with bleared eyes, which turned towards the door as Tom entered.