"You were talking mit the salesmen! All times you talk mit them. And that I will not—I shall not have!"
His tirade was interrupted by the teasing voice of a woman.
"There, there, Joseph, give me one little kiss! You know how much you lofe me."
There was an explosion of wrath and a woman, rolling in flesh, shaking with laughter, entered the millinery shop. She nodded to Emily, still smiling; but in spite of the merriment that convulsed her, she examined the hats attentively and counted the money very carefully into the other's hand. One of the hats she declined to pay for until the trimming was changed.
"All times you make 'em too dark, Miss Short,—too dark, like a hearse," she remonstrated affably; "put a little more red on it."
When Rachel, following Emily, once more gained the street, her tender face was clouded.
Men, women, children; hats, socks, coats; candles, worn-out books; dirt, dirt, dirt! Men, men, men, bearded, unkempt, bedraggled, saddened, stupid, hungry! Under each coat, each gown was a living heart, struggling to keep its life. In every eye was a demand; in too few hands were the coppers to buy—not the pears, the grapes, the oranges that grow in Hester Street as in an orchard—but the great black loaves of bread, round, twisted, covered with a strange kind of seed. Coppers were lacking to buy milk for the starving, anemic baby, dirty-faced, struggling over the floor of the tenement; lacking for the shoes,—thirty pennies enough—for the shoes of little Johnnie that he might go to school: pennies lacking for the whiskey and the beer,—pennies that must be cheated for, thieved for, murdered for,—the all-necessary pennies for the drink.
Separated from the life about her, Rachel was yet united to it, she was a part of it, and she drew her breath sharply. But should she be less brave than these others? Emily, who divined what was passing within her, came to a decision.
"You've been a great help with the boxes, Miss Beckett," she said cheerfully when they reached the house and mounted the stairs; "now you come along in for a cup of tea."
To the lonely girl the little toy-maker's room wore a grateful air of comfort. Emily placed her in a rocking-chair where she could see the windows of the church; then she bustled about preparing the tea. She had just handed a cup to Rachel when there came a rap on the door; before Emily could open it a pretty light-haired girl stood on the threshold. She was dressed in a starched waist and a plaid skirt and the eyes under her smart hat showed red rims.