“Oh-h-h! what in h— are you boys doing there?” And the question has in it a note of light-hearted merriment, as though the words had come upon a wave of rippling laughter.
She is facing us near at hand, her head framed in the dark umbrella which rests upon her shoulder, and her face in the full side-light of a neighboring window. Out of large dark eyes she is looking straight at us, and I mark at once the clean-cut pencilling of her eyebrows against a skin of natural pallor, and the backward sweep of black hair from a low forehead and about her ears. She is no beauty, but her mouth is one of almost faultless drawing, large and sensitive and firm, with a dimple at each corner, and her chin of perfect moulding fades into the graceful lines of a well-rounded throat.
SHE IS FACING US NEAR AT HAND, HER HEAD FRAMED IN THE DARK UMBRELLA WHICH RESTS UPON HER SHOULDER.
I am struck dumb for the moment, but Clark is disturbed in no wise by the situation, and is answering her in perfect calmness that we have taken shelter there, and “won’t you go on,” he asks, “for you may attract to us the notice of a cop.”
“He’s not coming this way yet awhile,” she retorted; “I met him just now at the corner.”
They fall into easy, natural dialogue, and the girl soon learns that we are newly come to Chicago seeking work, and hungry and shelterless we are waiting for the right hour in which to go to the station-house.
“And why did you ever come to this God-condemned town?” she asks. “There’s thousands of boys like you here, and no jobs for none of you.”
There is quick resentment in Clark’s sharp rejoinder:
“And why in h— did you come?” But the girl’s good-nature is unruffled; you simply feel an instinctive tightening of her grip upon herself as her figure straightens slightly to the reply: