Page:The Eleventh Virgin.pdf/35

THE ELEVENTH VIRGIN freedom offered and go to the concert. Adele was by nature more cautious and conscientious than June but she longed so to get away from the house that she was easily persuaded to do what she considered a wicked and thrilling thing.

“Suppose the boys tell?” she whispered.

“I know they won’t.” June was very confident of that. “I’ve got something on both of them, and they don’t dare. You didn’t know and you mustn’t tell, but Dan broke a window on the next block and got arrested for it. He made me promise not to tell, but I will if he starts snitching on us. And Dave is fighting—real prize fights—in the back room of the Emery Street saloon. Mother doesn’t know that either. One day he broke his thumb. I promised I wouldn’t tell her, so they won’t dare tell anything that we do.”

It had showered that afternoon, and all the park was cool and moist. People were hurrying to the concert to get sears. A slight breeze stirred the women’s clothes and wafted faint perfumes to June as the children passed them. Every now and then a little toad hopped across the path.

“Everything smells so good!” and Adele sniffed ecstatically.

They arrived at the concert ground early and found seats in the second row of the benches where they faced the band-master and could watch his every movement. They waited and waited. There