it is small
wonder that Eve fell for them.

There are fresh mushrooms, and jumbo cocoanuts, and green almonds; costly
things in beds of cotton nestle next to strange and marvelous things in
tissue, wrappings. Oh, that window is no place for the hungry, the
dissatisfied, or the man out of a job. When the air is filled with snow
there is that in the sight of muskmelons which incites crime.

Queerly enough, the gazers before that window foot up the same, year in,
and year out, something after this fashion:

Item: One anemic little milliner's apprentice in coat and shoes that
even her hat can't redeem.

Item: One sandy-haired, gritty-complexioned man, with a drooping ragged
mustache, a tin dinner bucket, and lime on his boots.

Item: One thin mail carrier with an empty mail sack, gaunt cheeks, and
an habitual droop to his left shoulder.

Item: One errand boy troubled with a chronic sniffle, a shrill and
piping whistle, and a great deal of shuffling foot-work.

Item: One negro wearing a spotted tan topcoat, frayed trousers and no
collar. His eyes seem all whites as he gazes.

Enough of the window. But bear it in mind while we turn to Jennie.
Jennie's real name was Janet, and she was Scotch. Canny? Not
necessarily, or why should she have been hungry and out of a job in
January?

Jennie stood in the row before the window, and stared. The longer she
stared the sharper grew the lines that fright and under-feeding had
chiseled about her nose, and mouth, and eyes. When your last meal is an
eighteen-hour-old memory, and when that memory has only near-coffee and a
roll to dwell on, there is something in the sight of January peaches and
great strawberries carelessly spilling out of a tipped box, just like
they do in the fruit picture on the dining-room wall, that is apt to
carve sharp lines in the corners of the face.

The tragic line dwindled, going about its business. The man with the
dinner pail and the lime on his boots spat, drew the back of his hand
across his mouth, and turned away with an ugly look. (Pork was up to
$14.25, dressed.)

The errand boy's blithe whistle died down to a mournful dirge.

He was window-wishing. His choice wavered between the juicy pears, and
the foreign-looking red things that looked like oranges, and weren't.
One hand went into his coat pocket, extracting an apple that was to have
formed the piece de resistance of his noonday lunch. Now he regarded it
with a sort of p