Her fears were true. She had left New York. She
must get home to it again.
She walked back along the way she had come, on the sidewalk beneath
the tracks. This meandering street was called Boston Road. Kedzie had
no ideas as to the distance of Boston. She only knew that New York
was good enough for her--the New York of Forty-second Street,
of course. Kedzie did not know yet how many, many New Yorks there
are in New York.
She was discouraged by her present surroundings. Along the rough
and neglected streets were little rows of shanty shops, and there
were stubby frame residences.
There was one two-story cottage snuggling against a hill; it had
a little picket fence with a little picket gate leading to a little
ragged yard with an old apple-tree in it; and there was a pair of
steps up to the front door, and a rough trellis from there to the
woodshed with a grapevine draped across it. It was of the James
Whitcomb Riley school of architecture--a house with a woodshed.
Rich people who were tired of the city, and chanced that way,
used to pause and look at that little nook and admire its meek
attractiveness. It made them homesick.
But Kedzie was sick of home. This lowly cot was too much like
her father's. It had a sign on it that said, "To Let." It was
a funny expression. Kedzie studied it a long time before she
decided that it was New-Yorkese for "For Rent."
She shuddered at the idea of renting or letting such a house--
especially as it was so close to a church, a small, seedy,
frame church nearly all roof, a narrow-chested, slope-shouldered
churchlet with a frame cupola for a steeple.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72