“Yes,” said Tom. “Besides, I wouldn’t want Mrs. Merton, or Mary, to see me doin’ that.”
“Who’s Mary?”
“It’s her child.”
“Did you like her?”
“No, I didn’t. She hated me too.”
“Well, I’m goin’ home. Come along, Tom.”
Tom got up from her seat with alacrity, and prepared to accompany Mike. It was a great burden off her mind to think she was likely to have a shelter for the night. Perhaps something would turn up for her the next day. This thought brought back some of her old courage and confidence.
Mike Murphy’s home was neither elegant nor spacious. Mulberry Street is not an aristocratic locality, and its residents do not in general move in fashionable society. Mrs. Murphy was a retail merchant, being the proprietor of an apple-stand on Nassau, near Spruce Street. Several years’ exposure to the weather had made her face nearly as red as the apples she dealt in, and a sedentary life had enlarged her proportions till she weighed close upon two hundred pounds. In nearly all weathers she was to be found at her post, sometimes sheltered by a huge cotton umbrella, whose original color had been changed by the sun to a pale brown. Though she had not yet been able to retire from trade upon a competence, she had earned enough, with Mike’s assistance, to support a family of six children,—in Mulberry Street style, to be sure, but they had never been obliged to go to bed hungry, and the younger children had been kept at the public school.
When Mike entered, his mother was already at home. She usually closed up her business about five o’clock, and went home to get supper.
She looked up as Mike entered, and regarded his companion with some surprise.