"Stand there and watch a few moments!"
That broken pane, on that visiting day, was an outlet for much anxiety.
One of the women stood sentinel there all day--sometimes one, sometimes
another.
The steam woman, in her anxiety to discover the approach of her "old
man," forgot the care of her boiler, and created quite a scene. She
turned the water into it and went to the broken pane to look a moment,
forgot to turn it off, and the consequence was an overflow which put out
her fire and flooded the floor,--created what McMullins called an
"explosion." This she did twice in the forenoon.
The hurry and scurry which was created to relight the fire, and sweep
the water down the hatches, diverted the attention of all for a few
moments, and passed away the wearisome time of waiting. I pitied the
poor old thing as the day wore away, and there was no call for her to go
out and see her husband.
"What time is it, if you please, ma'am?" was the continually repeated
question when I went near her.
"I don't expect any one to see me," was the remark of the volatile
O'Brien.
"Then why do you stand at the window so much to watch?" I asked.
"I want to see who comes to see the others. I want to see if anybody
comes in that I know."
Then, the restless thing would mount the window seat. "There goes
Johnny, or Charley, or Jimmy, or Dolan." She either saw some of her old
associates, with her "two eyes," or through the vision of her
imagination. Her suppositions, as to whom they came to see, were as
active as her curiosity to see who came.