Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/188



was just as dirty and squalid as any other tenement-house street in the poorer section of a middle-class city. The street-cleaning department had given up all hope before they reached Governor Street, and the middle of the way was a series of ridges and mountains of heaped-up, dirty, frozen snow.

The snow had been cleaned from the sidewalks, and the gutters freed so that the melting ice could run off by way of the sewers when the sun was kind; but the way to Number 93 was not a pleasant one to travel.

However, Laura and Jess, with little Maggie, reached the door in question in a few minutes. A puff of steamy air—the essence of countless washings—met the girls as the lower door was pushed open. That is the only way the long and barren halls were heated—by the steam from the wash-boilers. For Number 93 Governor Street was one of those tenement houses which