She knew the trick babies had of dying
when the weather was hot! Two other beloved scraps of humanity had been
taken away from her, and she was fiercely determined to keep this one.
Lugging the baby to the window, she scrambled over the sill.
The fire-escape was cluttered with all the paraphernalia that doubles the
casualty of a tenement fire, but she cleared a space with her foot and
sat down on the top step. Beside her loomed the blank warehouse wall, and
from the narrow passage-way below came the smell of garbage. The clanging
of cars and the rumbling of trucks mingled with the nearer sounds of
whirring sewing machines in Lavinski's sweat-shop on the floor below.
From somewhere around the corner came, at intervals, the sharp cry of a
woman in agony. With that last sound Nance was all too familiar. The
coming and going of a human life were no mystery to her. But each time
the cry of pain rang out she tried in vain to stop her ears. At last,
hot, hungry, lonesome, and afraid, she laid her dirty face against the
baby's fuzzy head and they sobbed together in undisturbed misery.
When at last the child fell into a restless sleep, Nance sat patiently
on, her small arms stiffening under their burden, and her bare feet and
legs smarting from the stings of hungry mosquitos.
By and by the limp garments on the clothes line overhead began to stir,
and Nance, lifting her head gratefully to the vagrant breeze, caught her
breath. There, just above the cathedral spire, white and cool among
fleecy clouds, rose the full August moon.
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