Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/318

306 the sound of trickling water—she washed a thousand glasses, cups and saucers, plates and spoons, knives, forks, pans and pots, deaf to the kindly garrulity of the cook who helped her. When it was done, she went back to her bed again. "Ah, go away, Mary," she said wearily. "Go away an' let be."

Mary took the kitchen rocking-chair and carried it out resolutely to the area, "As sure 's my name 's Mary McShane," she promised herself, "I 'll break the back o' that boy Jawn! Here 's Saturda' night, an' no sight of 'm since this day week. Let 'm come now. Let 'm come. I 'll give 'm a piece o' me mind." And she sat down with her arms crossed to wait for him.

There was a fluttering of white skirts here and there on the porches across the road, where some boarders were sitting out. Men dragged past with their straw hats in their hands and their coats on their arms. The clang of trolley gongs and the iron hum of trains on the elevated railroad came to her drowsily. She relaxed to an easier posture and began to fan herself with her apron as she rocked. Both motions ceased together. She closed her eyes.

It seemed only a. moment later that she was awakened by an insistent "I say, cook! Cook!" She started up to see the young man whom she knew as "Mr. Beatty of the top-floor rear" leaning over her. He said: "What 's wrong with Annie?"

"Annie?" she gasped, wide awake. "Saints in Hiven—"