water and a
mustard plaster on your chest."

"Didn't I take the iron tonic and spoil my teeth?"

"My sister Lizzie--that's the way she started, Sara; right down here in
this basement. There never was a prettier little queen down here. Ask
any of the old girls. Like you in looks and all; full of vim, too.
That's the way she started, Sara. She wouldn't get out in the country on
Sundays or get any air in her lungs walking with me evenings. She was
all for dance-halls, too, Sara. She--she--'Ain't I told you about her
over and over again? 'Ain't I?"

"'Sh-h-h! Don't cry, Hat. Yes, yes; I know. She was a swell little kid;
all the old girls say so. 'Sh-h-h!"

"The--the night she died I--I died, too; I--"

"'Sh-h-h, dearie!"

"I ain't crying, only--only I can't help remembering."

"Listen! That's the new hit Charley's playing--'Up to Snuff!' Say,
'ain't that got some little swing to it? Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m! Some
little quickstep, ain't it? How that boy reads off by sight! Looka, will
you? They got them left-over ribbed undervests we sold last season for
forty-nine cents out on the grab table for seventy-four. Looka the mob
fighting for 'em! Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m!"

The day's tide came in. Slowly at first, but toward noon surging through
aisles and around bins, up-stairs and down-stairs--in, around, and out.
Voices straining to be heard; feet shuffling in an agglomeration of
discords--the indescribable roar of humanity, which is like an army
that approaches but never arrives. And above it all, insistent as a
bugle-note, reaching the basement's breadth, from hardware to candy,
from human hair to white goods, the tinny voice of the piano--gay,
rollicking.

At five o'clock the patch of daylight above the red-lighted exit door
turned taupe, as though a gray curtain had been flung across it; and the
girls, with shooting pains in their limbs, braced themselves for the
last hour. Shoppers, their bags bulging and their shawls awry, fumbled
in bins for a last remnant; hatless, sway-backed women, carrying
children, fought for mill ends. Sara Juke stood first on one foot and
then on the other to alternate the strain; her hands were hot and dry as
flannel, but her cheeks were pink--very pink.

At six o'clock Hattie Krakow untied her black alpaca apron, pinned a hat
as nondescript as a bird's nest at an unrakish angle, and slid into a
warm, gray jacket.

"Ready, Sara?"

"Yes, Hat." But her voice came vaguely, as through