The
longer she stared the sharper grew the lines that fright and
under-feeding had chiseled about her nose, and mouth, and eyes.
When your last meal is an eighteen-hour-old memory, and when that
memory has only near-coffee and a roll to dwell on, there is
something in the sight of January peaches and great strawberries
carelessly spilling out of a tipped box, just like they do in the
fruit picture on the dining-room wall, that is apt to carve sharp
lines in the corners of the face.
The tragic line dwindled, going about its business. The man
with the dinner pail and the lime on his boots spat, drew the back
of his hand across his mouth, and turned away with an ugly look.
(Pork was up to $14.25, dressed.)
The errand boy's blithe whistle died down to a mournful dirge.
He was window-wishing. His choice wavered between the juicy pears,
and the foreign-looking red things that looked like oranges, and
weren't. One hand went into his coat pocket, extracting an apple
that was to have formed the piece de resistance of his noonday
lunch. Now he regarded it with a sort of pitying disgust, and bit
into it with the middle-of-the-morning contempt that it deserved.
The mail carrier pushed back his cap and reflectively
scratched his head. How much over his month's wage would that
green basket piled high with exotic fruit come to?
Jennie stood and stared after they had left, and another line
had formed.
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