Next a broad avenue with a jumble of old, low shops and fine new buildings side by side; still Bird looked anxiously out for some place where it seemed possible that people might live and found none.
“Here’s 2—th Street where we land,” said O’More, presently looking up, and when the car had stopped, Bird found herself walking along a sidewalk between another wall of buildings without gardens, while the heat of the first warm day rising from the pavement made her dizzy, and she asked, “Is it far from here to where you live, Uncle John?”
“No, right close by, only a few steps farther. We’re facing east now and down yonder half a dozen blocks is the river, the same as we crossed coming in saving a turn in it.
“Getting tired, ain’t yer? Well, it’s been a long day for us, and I’m mighty glad to be gettin’ to a homelike place myself.”
“Do you live right by the water, and is there any garden?” Bird continued, a feeling of nameless dread creeping over her as she saw nothing but buildings still closing in on all sides; even a blacksmith’s shop, from which a spirited pair of horses were coming with newly shod polished hoofs, seemed strange and out of place. Then there were more poor looking buildings, and a great stable with many men standing about and horses being constantly driven in and out to show the people who waited on the curbstone.
“By the river, and do I have a garden,” he echoed, laughing heartily. “Do you think I’m one o’ the millionnaires you read about in the papers, my girl? Do I keep an automobile and eat at the Waldorf-Astoria?” and then, seeing that Bird could not understand the comparison, he patted her good-naturedly on the shoulder.
As they passed the stable quite a number of the men spoke to her uncle, but instead of resenting it as she expected, he joked and laughed and seemed very glad to see them.
“It’s called the ‘Horse’s Head,’ and it’s out of there my job is,” he said to Bird, pointing over his shoulder at the stable, “for half the time I’m over the country from Kentucky to Canada picking up horses, and the other half of the time I’m helping to sell them out again, so I live as near by as may be for convenience.”
At this Bird’s heart sunk still farther, for in the prim New England town where she was born and bred a Puritan, a horse-dealer meant either some oversharp farmer who could outwit his neighbours or a roving fellow, half gypsy, half tramp, of very ill repute, who went about from town to town buying and selling animals who mostly had something the matter with them that had to be concealed by lying.