Nogales international., 1931-02-25
First Installnlent

sawed whisper. Small, shabby, alone,
and sFluddering with pleaSurable ex-
c7trzr1ent and chill, she hung upon the
gate of the paternal residence and paid
to the miracle of paling' and brighten
7Ix lights and colours in the gray
world about her an involuntary trib-
utc of delight and reverence. !.
Behind her shabby little back, and
the dTaggled strings of her shabby little
kitchen apron, and the carelessly
Ezassed ringletS of her tousled little
head, the sun was rising.
The Johnson cottage stood at the
very top of a steep city block. 1t was
meek, self-effacing little dwelling,
SiisTeprtable, lacking paint. Behind the
cottage was low row of miserable
sJutbuildings, none able to stand alone,
each one yet managing to afford
xrretcl1ed support to its neighbour.
On this cool winter morning, light
fxou the kitchen window lay warm
and yellow across the frightening yard,
and cat, huddled disgustedly against
9Ile closed kitchen door, mewed occa-
s70naliy in a protesting and attronted
fashion
The two figures that were at the
street gate, however, saw and heard
9loiSsi1g of this. One of them was a
small cur dog. The other figure was
ttat Of Maggie Johnson.
It's pretty" she said aloud, in a
dreamy voice, as the gold flashed on
distant windows and dripped through
trees, and the familiar silhouette of
the city grew more and more recog-
xnzable. Its like it was big tide
wasl1in' everyone along before it?' +
For, as she hung there, tranced,
whistles far away and nearby shrilled
TIE quarter before seven o'clock, and
the carly workers in factories and in
4he big machine shops began to gather
vliszbIy In the streets. For few min
zyscs, their shadows moved, long and
red ahead of them. Then it was day,
ordinary, commonplace, work-time
again, and Maggie, rousing herself
with a guilty start from the luxury
OF dreaming, returned to her house
hold cares with the velocity of little
dynamo.
The sense of beauty and adventure
was still strong upon her as she caught
Ed the bottles that supplied the John
sCas with their breakfast milk and
cream, and fled back to the neglected
kitchen.
There was everything, domesiically
speaking, to be done in the kitchen,
but nobody in Maggie's seventeen years
had ever done it, or even half done it,
and the wild disorder troubled her
not at all. At seventeen "a peculiarly
youthful and innocent seventeen, she
was not analytical. She had spent
every night of her life under this low,
ogd-fashioned cottage roof and the dirt
and disorder that Ma and Liz created
IN their. wake and spread about them
instantly were one of the simple and
unavoidable conditions of her life.
Maggie had to push aside the sugar
howl and the blue plate OF stale and
broken soda crackers, to find room on
the ciuttered table to cut the fresh loaf
size had to unearth the coffee-pot from
the confusion of the sink and rinse
away the cuff of black ground from
dis spout before she could mix fresh
coffee and set it on the stove to boil.
This done, she seized an instant to
TuK into the adjoining bedroom and
whisper into the ear of the man who
Fay asleep there:
Seven, Pop! Lissen-seven clock !!
The man, a small, huddled, insignifi-
can't figure in the close gloom of the
ugly little room, reused himself alertly
The double beds other occupant also
roszsed, groaned, and Maggie's mother
stirred reluctantly and asked anxiously,
apparently out of deep slunber:
Maggie. how's the Mayor?
Il didn't have time to look, Ma. But
don't get up" the girl urged her, con-
ccraedly. 'I'll bring you in some
breakfast, and the paper tool"
1T don't seem right you should,
Mrs. Johnson said perfunctorily. us
~Iixabett, up?" she asked. "You make
a1er do her share! The worst of house
keeping" Mrs. Johnson, who had a
very slight acquaintance with the sub
Jecs. resumed, sighing, "is dividing up
the work so one don't get it all."'
Maggie, too we'll accustomed to these
rambling dissertations to waste time
In listening to them, had returned to
the kitchen. She poured her father,
IaElo came noiselessly out in his post
mans gray, cup of smoking coffee,
poured herself glass of milk, and put
the toast and butter between them.
Len Johnson sat down cautiously,
sent an interrogative glance to the
bedroom door. He was small, tin1id
man, with strands of silky hair brushed
damp and neat across the shining bald
&3ome of his head
"Mad?" he asked, without sound.
Maggie set down her glass, looked
straight at him. looked at the bedroom
door, and shook her head.
~You walin' her TIP" Len John
son brcathed almost inaudibly.
She didn't care!" Maggie Shaped
she words, with her lips, rather thar
said them. -
Mrs. johnson. 1ured by the appetiz'
ing odours kitchen-ward, appeared
r1zajestically in the doorway.
A worn and spotted kimono wa
wrapped about her, her rich dark hail
was in disorder. her eyes were fxeC
steadily upon her husbands shrink