“‘Then I’ll take some bread and not try to come home for dinner.’
“This was the ordinary course of things. Clary at the printing-press, and her mother doing days’ work for people well off in the world; while the younger children were locked in or locked out, as the case might be.
“It was a foggy December morning,—not very cold, but with a drizzling mist that was more chilling than snow; and by the time Clary reached the office she felt as moody and uncomfortable as the weather. It was warm enough in the office, but not very cheering she thought; though some of the men looked as if they enjoyed life sufficiently well, as with sleeves rolled up they whistled softly over their work, keeping time with their heads if the tune were a particularly lively one.
“Clary put her bonnet and shawl in their place, and went to the press she always tended. It was motionless now, and a man was just putting in a new set of plates. Clary hardly noticed what he was doing—it mattered so little to her what words were printed on those great sheets of paper that she handled every day; though she could read, and very well; but stood listlessly.
“‘What’s the matter, Clary?’ said the man. ‘You look dumpish this morning. I’ve fixed you a new piece of work here that’ll be good for that—they say poetry’s firstrate for the spirits.’
“Something good for her! She knew the man spoke jestingly, and yet as he walked off Clary thought she would look and see what it was that he was talking about. She had seen type enough to be able to spell it out backwards, and bending over the plates she read at the corner next her,—
‘O how happy’—
“And then the machine was suddenly put in motion; and not faster could she supply the sheets than the press drew them in, printed them, and tossed them out in a nice pile at one end.
“Clary could not stop for one instant. But she had something to think about. Again and again she repeated those three words to herself, and wondered of whom they spoke, and what could be the rest of the sentence. She could guess,—it must mean the people who were rich, and had plenty of clothes, and plenty to eat, and time to sleep and to walk about in the sunshine. The people who bought the meats that she saw hanging up in the butchers’ shops, which she hardly knew by name and much less by taste,—the beautiful ladies that she sometimes saw in Broadway when she happened to get through work a little earlier than usual—wrapped up in furs and velvets and looking as if they wouldn’t know calico when they saw it,—the children that she had seen looking out of carriage windows with little white lap-dogs; the curling ears on the head of the dog and the curling feathers on the head of the child seeming to Clary almost equally beautiful. Yes, those must be the happy people; but then she would very much like to know more about them—to read all those stories which the press was no doubt printing off, of these same happy people—who never were poor and who had no little ragged brothers and sisters. For the first time in her life Clary wished the press would get out of order, for some other reason than because she was tired. Her mind worked and worked upon those three words till she was almost wild with the desire to read more. Perhaps it told the way to be rich and happy,—and that cruel press kept moving just as fast as it could. Not till twelve o’clock did it make a pause. But at twelve o’clock there was a sudden hush; and hardly had the rollers stopped their rolling, before Clary had left her place and gone to that corner of the pile of printed sheets where she knew the words must be. Yes, they were there—she found them easy enough; but what were they?