"That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke.
She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength.
Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Café. At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall.
The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake.
But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning.
"W-who's there?"
"It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water."
"Thanks so much, but I don't need it now."
"Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up."
At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. D-don't bother me."