She did not want to have to murder anybody, especially her parents.
She liked them better when she was away from them.
She hated to waste five cents on a street-car, but finally she
achieved the extravagance. The car went sliding and grinding through
an amazing amount of paved street, with an inconceivable succession
of apartment-houses and shops.
At length she reached a center of what she most desired--noise and
mob and hurry. At 164th Street she came to a star of streets where
the Third Avenue Elevated collaborated with the surface-cars and the
loose traffic to create a delicious pandemonium. She loved those high
numbers--a hundred and eighty streets! Beautiful! At home Main Street
dissolved into pastures at Tenth Street.
She wanted to find Main Street in New York and see what First Street
looked like. It was probably along the Atlantic Ocean. That also was
one of the things she must see--her first ocean!
But while Kedzie was reveling in the splendors of 164th Street her
eye was caught by the gaudy placards of a moving-picture emporium.
There was a movie-palace at home. It was the town's one metropolitan
charm.
There was a lithograph here that reached out and caught her like
a bale-hook. It represented an impossibly large-eyed girl, cowering
behind a door on whose other side stood a handsome devil in evening
dress. He was tugging villainously at a wicked mustache, and his eyes
were thrillingly leery. Behind a curtain stood a young man who held
a revolver and waited.
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