One by one the city clocks chimed the hour of midnight. One by one Jane
counted the strokes and sighed despairingly as she glanced at the window
in which the light still burned so brightly. The air was bitter cold, a
fine snow was falling, and she had been trudging up and down, up and
down, for ages it seemed to her. Richard was growing so heavy and her
arms ached so she could scarcely hold him. Still, there was nothing for
it but to tramp up and down, up and down the narrow street, the baby in
her arms, until mother should give the welcome signal. When that lamp in
the window opposite was put out and the house in darkness, she would
know that it was safe for her to creep up the stairs and into the bed in
the kitchen which she shared with the baby brother now sleeping in her
arms.
Seating herself upon a doorstep she was passing, Jane shifted the baby
to a more comfortable position and leaned her head against the rough
woodwork of the tenement house. How tired, she was, how very tired! Her
head ached, her back ached, she ached all over. Day after day, she
worked in the factory from early morning until nightfall. Night after
night, she walked the street with Richard in her arms, not daring to
enter the house until father was safely sleeping. Of course it did not
happen every night. Just once in a while father would come home sober
and then there was no fear of harm to the baby or herself. Many a night,
too, he did not come home at all, but on those occasions she and mother
scarce dared to close an eye. They knew not at what moment he might
return, possibly in even an uglier mood than usual. Mother was never
afraid for herself. She could usually manage him, although there had
been times when bad cuts and bruises bore testimony to the treatment to
which she had been subjected. For Jane and little Richard, their only
chance lay in keeping out of the way, so Jane would tramp the street,
Richard in her arms, despite aches and pains and weariness.
The child on the doorstep anxiously watched the window across the way.
Would the light never go out? Father must be unusually bad to-night, and
she was so tired. The day had been a hard one at the factory and every
bone in her body ached. Well, there was one comfort; to-morrow would be
Sunday and she could stay at home all day. To-morrow? To-day, rather,
for midnight had already passed. She would have one long day to rest and
help mother. She felt now as if she could sleep the whole day through.
She would like to sleep for a week at least, and even then she would not
be rested quite enough. There were moments of unusual fatigue and
depression in which she could almost wish that she might fall asleep and
sleep forever as the other little ones had done. Three of them there
were, delicate, sickly little creatures, who had struggled for a time
against the ills of human existence and then given up the unequal
conflict. At times, she could almost find it in her heart to envy them
were it not for mother and Richard, especially Richard.
There, at last! The light was gone, the window in darkness, and it was
safe for her to return to the tenement across the way.