"Anything I'd like to get!" The words were repeated as if not heard aright. "Anybody would know you'd never been a girl. There isn't much in here I wouldn't like to get if I didn't have to pay for it."
"But not rattles and dolls and drums and pop-guns and boxing-gloves and all the other things you've looked at. Girls of your age—"
"This girl wasn't looking at them for herself. I'm 'most grown up now. But everybody on our street has got a baby, and a lot of children besides. Mrs. Perry has twins and a baby, and Mrs. Latimer always has two on a bottle at the same time. I'm just buying things in my mind. It's the only way I can buy 'em, and Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if you couldn't buy some way. Sallie Simcoe will go crazy if she don't get a doll that whistles. She saw one in a window once. It was a Whistling Jim and cost a dollar. She won't get it. Oh, here it is, Mr. Van! Here's the counter where the jewelry things are."
As she neared it she nodded to Van Landing and pointed to her father, who, hand on her shoulder, had kept close to her, then beckoned him to come nearer. "He can't see, I know"—her voice was excited—"but take him away, won't you? I wouldn't have him guess it, not for anything on earth! I'll be through in a minute."
In moments incredibly few, but to Van Landing tormentingly long, she was back again, and close to her heart she was hugging a tiny package with one hand, while the other was laid on her father's arm. "I got it," she whispered; "it's perfectly beautiful." She spoke louder. "I guess we'd better be going now. I know you're hungry, and so am I. Come on. We can walk home, and then I'll make the tea."
For a second Van Landing hesitated, then he followed the odd-looking couple out into the street, but as they started to turn the corner he stopped.
"I say"—he cleared his throat to hide its embarrassed hesitation—"don't you want to do me a favor? Where I live I don't buy the things I eat, and I've often thought I'd like to. If you are going to make the tea and toast, why can't I get the—the chicken, say, and some salad and things? That's a good-looking window over there with cooked stuff in it. We'll have a party and each put in something."
"Chicken?" Into his face the child gazed with pitying comprehension of his ignorance, and in her voice was shrill amusement. "Chicken! Did you ever price one? I have, when I'm having kings and queens taking dinner with me in my mind. People don't have chicken 'cept at Christmas, and sometimes Sundays if there hasn't been anybody out of work for a long time. Come on. I've got a box of sardines. Just think, Father, he wants to buy a chicken!"
With a gay little laugh in which was shrewd knowledge of the unthinkableness of certain indulgences, the child slipped one arm through her father's and another through Van Landing's, and with a happy skip led the way down the poorly lighted street. A solid mass of dreary-looking houses, with fronts unrelieved by a distinguishing feature, stretched as far as the eye could see, and when a few blocks had been walked it was with a sense of relief that a corner was turned and Van Landing found himself at the foot of a flight of steps up which the child bounded and beckoned him to follow.
The house was like the others, one of a long row, and dull and dark and dingy, but from its basement came a baby's wailing, while from the floor above, as the hall was entered, could be heard the rapid click of a sewing-machine. Four flights of steps were mounted; then Carmencita took the key from her father's pocket and opened the door.