The best short stories of 1915, and the yearbook of the American short story
General
The best short stories of 1915, and the yearbook of the American short story
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories -- 20th century -- Bibliography; Short stories -- 20th century -- Indexes; Short stories, American
"Look at the papa--slippers and all! And the kid! Look at the kid,
Sweetness."
Her confusion nearly choked her and her rapid breath clouded the window
glass.
"Yeh, Charley! Looka the little kid! Ain't he cute?"
An Elevated train crashed over their heads, drowning out her words; but
her smile, which flickered like light over her face, persisted and her
arm crept back into his. At each shop window they must pause, but the
glow of the first one remained with her.
"Look, Sweetness--Red Swag, the Train King! Performance going on now.
Wanna go in?"
"Not to-night. Let's stay outside."
"Anything your little heart de-sires."
They bought hot chestnuts, city harbingers of autumn, from a vender and
let fall the hulls as they walked. They drank strawberry ice-cream soda,
pink with foam. Her resuscitation was complete; his spirits did not
wane.
"I gotta like a queen pretty much not to get sore at a busted evening
like this. It's a good thing the ticket didn't cost me nothing."
"Ain't it, though?"
"Look! What's in there--a exhibit?"
They paused before a white-lighted store front and he read laboriously:
FREE TUBERCULOSIS EXHIBIT
TO EDUCATE PEOPLE HOW TO PREVENT CONSUMPTION
"Oh!" She dragged at his arm.
"Aw, come on, Sweetness; nothing but a lot of T.B.'s."
"Let's--let's go in. See, it's free. Looka--it's all lit up and all;
see, pictures and all."
"Say, ain't I enough of a dead one without dragging me in there? Free! I
bet they pinch you for something before you get out."
"Come on, Charley; I never did see a place like this."
"Aw, they're all over town."
He followed her in surlily enough and then, with a morbid interest,
round a room hung with photographs of victims in various emaciated
stages of the white plague.
"Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful? Ain't it awful? Read them symptoms. Almost with
nothing it--it begins. Night sweats and losing weight and coughing,
and--oh--"
"Look! Little kids and all! Thin as matches."
"Aw, see, a poor little shaver like that! Look! It says sleeping in
that dirty room without a window gave it to him. Ugh, that old man!
'Self-indulgence and intemperance.' Looka that girl in the tobacco
factory. Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful! Dirty shops and stores, it says;
dirty saloons and dance halls--weak lungs can't stand them."
"Let's get out of here."
"Aw, look! How pretty she is in this first picture; and look at her
here--nothing but a stack of bones on a stretcher. Aw! Aw!"
"Come on!"
"Courage is very important, it says. Consumptives can be helped and many
are cured. Courage is--"
"Come on; let's get out of this dump. Say, it's a swell night for a
funeral."
She grasped at his coat sleeve, pinching the flesh with it, and he drew
away half angrily.
"Come on, I said."
"All right!"
A thin line filed past them, grim-faced, silent. At the far end of the
room, statistics in red inch-high type ran columnwise down the wall's
length. She read, with a gasp in her throat:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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