“Oh, look!” cried “Oregon”, leaning from the car. “She wanted to ride _in here_! In a yellow calico dress and copper-toed shoes!” Then the band played, the horses pranced and tossed their heads, the flags and banners floated on the breeze, and the beautiful car moved away. Esther stood looking after it until she heard Mr. Hoover’s voice at her side. “W’y, what a funny little girl! There the car’s gone, an’ she didn’t go an’ git in it, after all! Did anybody ever see sech a funny little girl? After gittin’ up so airly, an’ hurryin’ everybody so for fear she’d be late, an’ a-talkin’ about ridin’ in the Libraty Car for months—an’ then to go an’ not git in it after all!” Esther turned with a bursting heart. She threw herself passionately into his arms and hid her face on his breast. “I want to go home,” she sobbed. “Oh, I want to go home!” THE BLOW-OUT AT JENKINS’S GROCERY THE BLOW-OUT AT JENKINS’S GROCERY The hands of the big, round clock in Mr. Jenkins’s grocery store pointed to eleven. Mr. Jenkins was tying a string around a paper bag containing a dollar’s worth of sugar. He held one end of the string between his teeth. His three clerks were going around the store with little stiff prances of deference to the customers they were serving. It was the night before Christmas. They were all so worn out that their attempts at smiles were only painful contortions. Mr. Jenkins looked at the clock. Then his eyes went in a hurried glance of pity to a woman sitting on a high stool close to the window. Her feet were drawn up on the top rung, and her thin shoulders stooped over her chest. She had sunken cheeks and hollow eyes; her cheek-bones stood out sharply. For two hours she had sat there almost motionless. Three times she had lifted her head and fixed a strained gaze upon Mr. Jenkins and asked, “D’yuh want to shet up?” Each time, receiving an answer in the negative, she had sunk back into the same attitude of brute-like waiting. It was a wild night. The rain drove its long, slanting lances down the window-panes. The wind howled around corners, banged loose shutters, creaked swinging sign-boards to and fro, and vexed the telephone wires to shrill, continuous screaming. Fierce gusts swept in when the door was opened. Christmas shoppers came and went. The woman saw nothing inside the store. Her eyes were set on the doors of a brightly lighted saloon across the street.