Demry were as futile as
the twittering of a sparrow.
"I'll fix you, you little spitfire!" cried the irate officer, holding her
hands and lifting her into the wagon. "Some of you women put a cloak
around her, and be quick about it."
Nance, refusing to be wrapped up, continued to fight savagely.
"I ain't goin' in the hurry-up wagon!" she screamed. "I ain't done
nothin' bad! Let go my hands!"
But the wagon was already moving out of the alley, and Nance suddenly
ceased to struggle. An accidental combination of circumstances, too
complicated and overwhelming to be coped with, was hurrying her away to
some unknown and horrible fate. She looked at her mud-splashed white
slippers that were not yet paid for, and then back at the bright window
behind which the party was waiting. In a sudden anguish of disappointment
she flung herself face downward on the long seat and sobbed with a
passion that was entirely too great for her small body.
Sitting opposite, his stiff, stubby hair sticking out beneath his pirate
hat, Dan Lewis, forgetting his own misfortune, watched her with dumb
compassion, and between them, on the floor, lay a drunken hulk of a man
with blood trickling across his ugly, bloated face, his muddy feet
resting on all that remained of a gorgeous, tinsel crown.
It was at this moment that the Christmas spirit fled in despair from
Calvary Alley and took refuge in the big cathedral where, behind the
magnificent new window, a procession of white-robed choir-boys, led by
Mac Clarke, were joyously proclaiming:
"Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King;"
CHAPTER XI
THE STATE TAKES A HAND
The two reformatories to which the children, after various examinations,
were consigned, represented the worst and the best types of such
institutions.
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