“No mam! Nuthin’ like that! I never looks beyond Second Street, Miss Ferguson. Two blocks this side of Beeker Street is an awful nice I-talyan neighb-hood. It’s sweet t’see th’women nursin’ babies on do’steps. That’s helped me an awful lot ... sometimes....
“Wouldn’t you like to take a look, dearie?”
Emma removed the thong from her neck with the care a concert master saves for his violin. Her face had now a deep, sweet warmth. Miss Ferguson had given her five dollars at Easter and at Christmas and this was a chancst....
Sally saw the look and rose. The folds of her blue crepe dress molded the curve of her slender thighs as she lifted the thong carefully over her head, adroitly around her white cowl collar, and walked toward the window.
Emma stood proudly by and suggested:
“If you look tword the sout’wes’ down by Sears, Roebuck, you kin’ jes’ catch a piece of the bridge ’roun’ th’corner buildin’. It’s awful prutty at sunset.”
Sally, who was something of a football fan, realized these were eight-power Zeiss binoculars. They brought the city out with startling clearness. She looked for the University, and on out toward Sears, Roebuck and across the river. Then she began picking out the Italian district near Becker Street and the Speakeasy just around the corner near Pershing Road.
“They’re wond-er-ful, Emma!”
“Ain’t they gran’?”
Suddenly she remembered about Cub, and trained the glasses upon the Elijah Wilson four blocks uphill. Cub was over there ... somewhere.... Cub was....