When they got off at 24th Street and made the sidewalk in tremulous safety, they marched east in silence, counting the numbers as they went.
“’Tain’t much of a neighbourhood,” sniffed Mrs. Lane, wondering at the ash barrels and pails of swill that lined the way.
“Don’t jedge hasty, mother,” said Joshua; “we mustn’t be hard on city folks that ain’t got our advantages in the way o’ pigs to turn swill into meat, and bog-holes ter swaller ashes what don’t go to road-makin’.”
“We must be near there,” gasped Lauretta Ann, presently. She had been persuaded to have her new gown made a “stylish length” by Hope Snippin, the village dressmaker, in consequence of which she was grasping her skirts on both sides, floundering and plunging along very much like an old-style market schooner, with its sails fouled in the rigging.
“Oh, mother, look there!” said Lammy, with white, trembling lips. He had been running on ahead and keeping track of the numbers, but he now stood still, pointing to a half block of burned and ruined buildings, walled in ice and draped with cruel icicles that seemed to pierce his very flesh as he gazed at them.
For a minute they were all fairly speechless and stood open-mouthed, then Joshua, recovering first, settled his teeth firmly back in place, and laughing feebly, said: “Been a fire, I reckon; thet’s nothing. I’ve heard somethin’ gets afire as often as every week in N’York. They must be somewhere, and we’ll jest calm down and ask the neighbours over the way—in course they’ll know.”
But to Joshua’s wonder they didn’t, at least not definitely, and all he could learn was that the O’Mores had moved somewhere a couple of blocks “over.”
“Gosh, but ain’t N’York a heathen town,” muttered Joshua; “jest think, folks burned out an’ their neighbours don’t take no trouble about ’em; we might even get knocked down, and I bet they wouldn’t be a bit surprised. I’d like to strike fer home.”
As they wandered helplessly along block after block, the crowd of workmen and children in the streets coming home to dinner told that it was noon.