The peddler of wild
game was looking at her suspiciously. It would not do to tell him. He
would go away like the butcher's boy.
"Now, wait a minute," Trina said to herself, speaking aloud. She put her
hands to her head. "Now, wait a minute. It won't do for me to lose my
wits now. What must I do?" She looked about her. There was the same
familiar aspect of Polk Street. She could see it at the end of the
alley. The big market opposite the flat, the delivery carts rattling up
and down, the great ladies from the avenue at their morning shopping,
the cable cars trundling past, loaded with passengers. She saw a little
boy in a flat leather cap whistling and calling for an unseen dog,
slapping his small knee from time to time. Two men came out of Frenna's
saloon, laughing heartily. Heise the harness-maker stood in the
vestibule of his shop, a bundle of whittlings in his apron of greasy
ticking. And all this was going on, people were laughing and living,
buying and selling, walking about out there on the sunny sidewalks,
while behind her in there--in there--in there----
Heise started back from the sudden apparition of a white-lipped woman
in a blue dressing-gown that seemed to rise up before him from his very
doorstep.
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