Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/212

202 single bare hillside, white with the first snowfall, down which to fly into the sunset, upon skiisskis [sic]; nor of any stone wall to follow for pussy-willows in March; nor rocky pasture-land nor rough woodland, to steal away to, all alone, in April, in search of trailing arbutus.

She didn't know of any corner store where stationery was sold and pencil boxes and return balls and jackstones, and gumdrops, seven for five cents, and cocoanut cakes, three for two. She didn't know of any hump-backed cobbler, whose tiny shop smelled deliciously of leather and was such a cheery place to visit when school was over and her mother was out. Jake, the hump-backed cobbler, would bow and bob at her like a Rip Van Winkle dwarf, whenever she came into his little box, and sweep off a place with his grimy shirt-sleeve for her to sit down upon, and chuckle and spit, and tell her stories about what his father used to do when he was drunk.

Laurel missed Jake. She missed Tony, too—the black-haired, olive-skinned young Greek, who kept a fruit store, and gave her a plum or a pear, or a banana, not the least bit rotten, whenever she went to see him; and, smiling, showing his beautiful white teeth, told her about the lovely dark girl in Athens, waiting for him to send her a ticket to come to America and marry him.

She missed Mrs. McDavitt, who had so many children, and lived in Cataract Village in the top of a tenement house, whom her mother used to take her to see occasionally of late—but whom she must never refer to, any more than to her grandfather—the queer, glum, ragged old man, who lived all alone