Edith was glad to get out of the house. She had avoided the streets lately, but as it was the supper hour the pavements were empty. Only Joe Wilkinson, bare-headed, stood in the next doorway, and smiled and flushed slightly when he saw her.
“How's your mother?” he asked.
“She's not so well. I'm going to get the doctor.”
“Do you mind if I get my hat and walk there with you?”
“I'm going somewhere else from there, Joe.”
“Well, I'll walk a block or two, anyhow.”
She waited impatiently. She liked Joe, but she did not want him then. She wanted to think and plan alone and in the open air, away from the little house with its odors and its querulous thumping cane upstairs; away from Ellen's grim face and Dan's angry one.
He came out almost immediately, followed by a string of little Wilkinsons, clamoring to go along.
“Do you mind?” he asked her. “They can trail along behind. The poor kids don't get out much.”
“Bring them along, of course,” she said, somewhat resignedly. And with a flash of her old spirit: “I might have brought Jinx, too. Then we'd have had a real procession.”