Evening star., 1911-08-20
Around the City

Two women stood at the market corner
waiting for car. One of them carried
something in a paper bag. The bag was
shipped into saw teeth around the top,
and there was a jigsaw edge to the Wom-
ans tongue:
."ren cents for three tomats this
timer year Shows how much all that
there recipirosity talk was worth. why,
I've bought quarter peck or tomats
for a nickel and that man tellin' me
they'd cost double if We didn't have rain
-aint that the limit?''
Her companion was a fat woman,
weighted down with a basket that show
ed beet tops and chicken legs under Its
half-cocked lid. And in her good-natur-
ed voice was the wheeze that comes from
overexertion.
Everything gone up-cep'n cymlins-
on accounter the dry spell. Looks like
we might be goin'-to have rain now
though-Lor' knows the poor farmer
needs it."
The jigsaw woman cast weather eye
at the sky and shifted her bag of toma-
toes as to get car ticket from her
purse.
We'll. all hope is We don't get it. I'm
goin down the river tonight and l hater
sloppy deck Me and Susy's got date
with a gent man friend from Jersey
"A rain would bring prices down"
well i like that. Considerin' you're
woman. l paid s. for pink one-piece
TO wear tonight. and You know what
dampness does to plumes; but I'm not
surprised at you
"Oh, say. / didn't mean nothin' like
that. / wish YOU good time and all.
but we was talking about things costin
double on accounter the dry spell
We'll, all l gotta say is. it en- keep
on bein' dry. for me. Comerlong.
them entered third woman. who had
also been waiting. And the third woman.
having a cross seat to herself, laid her
belongings alongside and began to read
letter. A home budget from country
folks is not. of course. document of
public Importance. but, after all, the
weather belongs to every body:
I'VE are suffering down here. No crops.
no gardens and all the runs and springs
dried LID, so that We have to water the
stock from the we'll. and that is getting
low. There is no fruit of any kind this
year-no peaches. nor plums. nor pears,
nothing to can for winter. No one around
has vegetables-they have withered or
burned up in the sun. We have not been
able to put in tobacco crop. and there
isn't a potato anywhere. The rain has
come. at last. and We may be able to
make turnips and maybe save the corn
crop"
The woman with the letter looked up
at the sky The gray cloud had slipped
away. And the jigsaw woman was smil-
ing.
O.d-time singing games have about
vanished from Washington's front pave
ment," but a flock of small girls were
enjoying one last night in the quiet of a
street downtown. 1t was a double game,
in which four girls. each arched arms
crosswise and seesawed together to
song that went like this:
Draw a pail of water
For the governors daughter.
NY fathers king. my mothers queen,
yyn sisters n
Marigold daisies. green weeds and rush.
Pray. fair maiden. come under my bush"
Then every head ducked under the
arched arms. the children logged up and
Buncher ragsv' until somebody got her
toes jumped on and walled "Ouch!'
Then the game was over
Ever play 1t?
A black dot OF a girl with kinky pig
tails and a widely grinning mouth that
had shed its front teeth was flinging her
bow legs about in ecstatic abandonment
to the music of a passing band.
4 southern woman. who has a warm
spot i'm her heart for pickaninnies, was
so amused at the moving picture of bliss
that she paused to say, with head-shak-
ing regret:
MY. my, my. little girl, 1 am sorry you
to some little girl for candy. but you
can't eat candy, can you?'
The child stopped dancing. and be-
tween the prospect OF money and the
panic that she mightn't get it, her eyes
were worth going mile to see.
Gimme DAT nickel, lady, for de laws
sake. I don't has to eat candy wifi NAH
from teef! l has whole passler kind
toofs-bran new ones-an' what / can't
chaw i swallers whole
The nickel was hers.
A young woman whose house had plain
ly no back yard was stretching lace cur
tains on the pavement before her door.
The curtain frame was placed as close to
the House possible. and the young
woman. protected from the sun of a tree
that flecked its shadows over her light
hair and neat frock, pinned the scalops
on her Nottingham strip as unconscious
of publicity as though she were in a
country garden a hundred miles from
town.
The street is in what old Washington
used to call its Murder bay section, and
the conventional Miss Pris woman, who
had plunged into 1t to shorten an emer-
gency sick call to the southwest. won-
dered if 1t were quite proper for her to
be where she might run into murder
or bay or something unusual, don t
you know?
Which she did. For everybody knows
1t isn't usual to see woman stretching