CHAPTER V
MOLLY’S SECRET ROOM
When Molly was a little girl eight or ten years old, she was living in the city with her two sisters who took care of her.
They had no father or mother, and the sisters were clerks in a store, for they had to support themselves. They lived in one room, high up in a business block, so as to be near their work, which was indeed in the very next building.
They had to go to work early in the morning and leave Molly alone. They had lived in the country, and it was very hard for the child to be shut up in one room all day, with no one to play with, and only back windows to look out of.
Once or twice Molly had left the room and wandered into the street, and the sisters were so afraid she would be lost that finally they locked the door and took away the key so that she could not get out.
Playing all alone with her dolls became very tiresome after a while, and looking out of the window was not very exciting; there was nothing to be seen but back yards of stores where nothing ever happened.
Now Molly noticed that the next building, which was lower than the one they were in, was a little deeper than theirs, and stuck out a foot or so beyond it. One of their windows was quite near this roof which was flat, and Molly often looked longingly at it, wishing she could get out upon it and be out of doors.
One day when she was very tired and warm, she stood at the window looking at the tempting roof so near, when suddenly the thought came to her that she could almost step from the window on to it. This was an enticing thought, and without thinking of the danger of falling, or of anything except the longing to get out, she pushed the window as high as it would go, climbed up on the sill, and holding fast to the casing inside, thrust one foot carefully out. Oh, joy! she touched the roof, and with one fearful step was safely on it, though her heart beat a little hard.