But it seemed, when she mounted a dirty, narrow stair and made enquiries of a person she met atop,—it seemed that they didn't live there. "They moved out a week ago. The man was in some damned Works or other, and it threw him on the scrap-heap with about a thousand more. Then the place where the girl worked thought scrap-heaps were so pretty that it started one, too. Then he heard a report of work to be had over in New Jersey—as if, if this is the frying-pan, that ain't the fire!—and so they left this state. No; they didn't leave any address. Working people's address this year is 'Tramping It. Care of the Unemployed.' Sometimes, it's just plain 'Gone Under.'"
The man looked at Hagar, and Hagar looked at the man. She thought that he had the angriest, gloomiest eyes she had ever seen, and yet they were not wicked eyes. They blazed out of the dark entryway at her, but for all their coal-like glowing they were what she denominated far-away-seeing eyes. They seemed to look through her at something big and black beyond. "Have you seen the evening paper?" he asked abruptly.
"No, I have not. Why?"
"I wanted to see.... This morning's had an account of three Anarchist bits-of-business. A bomb in Barcelona, a bomb in Milan, and a bomb in Paris.—No, I can't tell you anything more about your friends. Yes, I'm sorry. It's a hard world. But there's a better time coming."
Grieving and bewildered, she came out upon the pavement. Why hadn't Thomasine—why hadn't Jim let them know? If there wasn't anything at home for Jim to do,—and she agreed that there wasn't—nor for Thomasine, still they could all have stayed there and waited for a while until Jim's arm and hard times got better. She tried to put them all—there were six—in the overseer's house with Mrs. Green. It would be crowded, but.... The overseer's house was her grandfather's; Mrs. Green had had it, rent free, since William Green's death, and most of her cornmeal and flour came from the Colonel's hand. Hagar tried to say to herself that her grandfather would be glad to see Jim and Marietta and Thomasine and the three children there staying with Mrs. Green as long as was necessary; that if it were crowded in the overseer's house her grandmother would be glad to have Thomasine and perhaps one of the children stay in the big house. It would not work. It came to her too, that perhaps Jim and Marietta and Thomasine might not be so fond of coming and sitting down on Mrs. Green and saying, "We've failed." But couldn't they work in the country? Jim was a mechanic; he didn't know anything about farming—and the farmers were having a hard time, too. Hagar's head began to ache. Then the travelling expenses—she tried to count those up. If they couldn't pay the rent, how could they pay for six to go down to Virginia—and the children's clothes, and the food and everything?... Was there no one who could send them money? Mrs. Green couldn't, she knew—and Thomasine's mother and father were very poor, and Corker wasn't doing well, and Maggie was at home nursing their mother whose spine was bad.... Gilead Balm had a kindly feeling for the Greens, she knew that. William Green had been a good overseer, and he had fought in the regiment the Colonel led. Her grandfather—if he knew how bad it was, if he could see these places where they had been living, if he could have heard the woman in the check apron and the man with the eyes—he might send Jim twenty-five dollars, he might even send him fifty dollars, though she doubted if he could do that much. She herself had twenty dollars left of that August two hundred. She had been saving it for Christmas presents for Gilead Balm, but now she was going to send it to Thomasine—just as soon as she knew where to send it. She walked on for a little way in a hopeful glow, and then the bottom dropped out of that, too. It wouldn't go far or do much. It was too small a cloth to wrap a giant in. Jim and Thomasine's unemployment—Jim's injured arm, hurt in the Works, Marietta weak and worn, trying to care for a little baby.... Other Mariettas, Jims, Thomasines, thousands and thousands of them.... They were willing and wanting to work. They were not lazy. Jim hadn't injured his own arm. Apparently there had to be babies.... Unemployment, and no one to help when help was needed.... It needed a giant. "All of us together could do it—all of us together."
She was cold, even under her warm jacket and with her thick gloves. The street looked horribly cold, but she did not notice many jackets, and no gloves. With all her beauty-loving nature she hated the squalid; nothing so depressed her. She had not seen it before so verily itself; in the country it was apt to have a draping and setting of beauty; even a pigpen might be environed by blossoming fruit trees. Here squalor environed squalor, ugliness ugliness. On a step before her sat a forlorn little girl of eight or nine, taking care of a large baby wrapped in a shawl. Hagar stopped and spoke.
"Are you cold?" The child shook her head. "Are you hungry?" She shook it still; then suddenly broke forth volubly in a strange tongue. She was telling her something, but what could not be made out. The door behind opened, and Elizabeth Eden came forth. She spoke to the child kindly, in her own language, with a caressing touch upon the shoulder. The little girl nodded, gathered up the baby, and went into the house.
"Miss Eden—"
Elizabeth turned. "What—Why, Miss Ashendyne! Did you drop out of the sky? What on earth are you doing in Omega Street?"
"I came down here to find some people whom I know. I am visiting in New York. Oh, I am glad to see you!"