Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/353



T was an April morning after a night's rain; and the day had come nimbly—clean, ruddy, and tingling—from a cool bath. It was now ten o'clock. Central Park had been stirring since the dawn with the bustle of winds that shook out the tufts of glued leaflets, and tossed and dried the wet grasses. The sunshine was as yellow as the season's daffodils. The sky, washed like a pearl, seemed to swim in a dazzling brilliancy of light.

To the old washerwoman, shuffling along the asphalt walks with her bundle, these unshaded glories of the spring were giddily bright and dizzying. She had been to West End Avenue to get a Monday washing, and she had walked the whole way. The moisture of the air had started all her aches. The light bewildered her eyes. She had a touch of vertigo that made her uncertain on her feet.

She turned aside to the path that entered the "Ramble," and sat down there on a rustic bench, dropping her bundle on the seat beside her, and clasping her hands over the ragged fringe of her shawl, as if she were clinging to the strength in her gnarled fingers. She blinked under her bonnet—a mourning bonnet, faded from black to dusty green—that did not shade