It was past one o'clock when we got to the city, and we hadn't had
anything to eat. We found a lunch place near the depot, and then I spent
a penny for a paper, and we set there in the restaurant and tried to
find where to go. It wasn't much of any fun, getting to the city, not
the way you'd think it would be, because Mis' Bingy and I didn't know
where we were going.
The Furnished Room page all sounded pleasant, but when we asked the
restaurant keeper where the cheap ones were, most of them was quite far
to walk. Finally we picked out some near each other and started out to
find them. I carried my valise and Mis' Bingy's, and she had the baby.
It was a hot day, with a feel of thunder in the air.
We walked for two hours, because neither of us thought we'd ought to
begin by spending car-fare. Mis' Bingy had sixteen dollars that she'd
saved, off and on, for two years. I had five dollars. So neither of us
was worried very much about money; but we wanted to save all we could.
We went to five or six places that were nice, but they cost too much;
and to two that we could have taken, only the lady said she didn't want
a baby in the house.
"If they're born in your house, do you turn 'em out?" I says to one of
'em.
Pretty soon we found a little grassy place with trees, and big buildings
around it, and we went in that and sat down on the grass.
"Mis' Bingy," I says, "was you ever in the city before?"
"Sure I was," she says, proud, "twelve years ago. We come to his uncle's
funeral. But he didn't leave him anything."
"I was here once," I says, "when I was 'leven. To have my eyes done to.
And once when I was eighteen, when Mother got her teeth. Did you ever go
to the theater here?" I ask' her.
"No," says she.
"Did you ever see in a jewelry store here?"
"No," says she.
"Or in stores with low-neck dresses and light colors?"
"No," says she.
"Nor the Zoo with the animals, nor a store where they sell just flowers,
nor the band?" I says.
"No," says she. "But he used to tell me, when he come up sometimes," she
tacks on.
The sun kept coming out and going under. The trees moved pleasant and
folks went hurrying by. It kind of come over me:
"Mis' Bingy," I says, "you ain't ever had anything in your whole life,
and neither have I. And now it's the city!"
But she put her head down on the baby and begun to cry.
"I don't know what's going to become of us," she says. "It's awful."
I jumped up and stood on the grass and looked off down the street toward
the city.
"And I don't know what's going to become of us!" I says. "Ain't it
grand?"
I laughed, and whirled on my toe. A woman was going along the walk that
cut through the grassy place where we was. She looked nice, like
pictures of women.
"Excuse me," I says to her, "can you tell us somebody that has a room to
rent, a cheap room?"
"I'm sorry," she says, and bent her head and went on.
It give me a little cold feeling. It come to me that maybe everything
wasn't the way it looked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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