al.

"I was 'most all the afternoon in the City, an' it was pretty warm--a
hot April followin' on a raw March. I stood waitin' for the six o'clock
car an', my grief, I was tired. My feet ached like night in preservin'
time. An' I was thinkin' how like a dunce we are to live a life made up
mostly of urrants an' feetache followin'. _Yet_, after all, the right
sort o' urrants an' like that _is_ life--an', if they do ache, 'tain't
like your feet was your soul. Well, an' just before the car come, up
arrove the girl.

"I guess she was towards thirty, but she seemed even older, 'count o'
bein' large an' middlin' knowin'. First I see her was a check gingham
sleeve reachin' out an' she was elbowed up clost by me. 'Say,' she says,
'couldn't you gimme a nickel? I'm starved hollow.' She didn't look it
special--excep' as thin, homely folks always looks sort o' hungry. An'
she was homely--kind o' coarse made, more like a shed than a dwellin'
house. Her dress an' little flappy cape hed the looks o' bein' held on
by her shoulders alone, an' her hands was midnight dirty.

"I was feelin' just tired enough to snap her up.

"'A nickel!' s'I, crisp, 'give you a nickel! An' what you willin' to
give me?'

"She looked sort o' surprised an' foolish an' her mouth open.

"'Huh?' s'she, intelligent as the back o' somethin'.

"'You,' I says, 'are some bigger an' some stronger'n me. What you goin'
to give me?'

"Well, sir, the way she dropped her arms down sort o' hit at me, it was
so kitten helpless. I took that in rather than her silly, sort o'
insultin' laugh.

"'I can't do nothin',' she told me--an' all to once I saw how it was,
an' that that was what ailed her. I didn't stop to think no more'n as if
I didn't hev a brain to my name. 'Well,' I says, 'I'll give you a
nickel. Leastways, I'll spend one on you. You take this car,' I says,
'an' come on over to Friendship with me. An' we'll see.'

"She come without a word, like goin' or stayin' was all of a piece to
her, an' her relations all dead. When I got her on the car I begun to
see what a fool thing I'd done, seemin'ly. An' yet, I donno. I wouldn't
'a' left a month-old baby there on the corner. I'd 'a' _bed_ to 'a' done
for that, like you do--I s'pose to keep the world goin'. An' that woman
was just as helpless as a month-old. Some are. I s'pose likely,"
Calliope said thoughtfully, "we got more door-steps than we think, if we
get 'em all located.

"When we got to my house I pumped