at it. I thought she wanted to see if I was strong enough to
go on, but that wasn't it at all, for in a minute I heard her say, in a
voice so sweet I thought I had never heard the like, 'Yes, you're pretty;
I want a pretty girl to stay with me and go about selling my things. I
love pretty girls; I never was pretty myself. Will you stay with me if I
take you up to my room and take care of you? I'll be good to you, little
duckling, everybody about here will tell you that; everybody but the
children, they don't like me.' I moaned, but it was from happiness. It
seemed too good to hear that cooing voice in my ear. I thought of my
mother--a dream--and my arms went up as they had in the street below. 'I
will stay,' I said. She caught my hands and that is all I remember till I
found myself in bed, with my ankle bound up and a gentle hand smoothing
my hair. It was a month before I walked again. All the time this woman
tended me, but always from behind. I did not see her face--not well--only
by glimpses and then only partly, for the shawl was always over her head,
covering everything but her eyes and mouth. These were small, the
smallest I ever saw, little pig eyes, and little screwed up mouth; but
the look of them was kindly and that was all I cared about then; that and
her talk, which made me cry one minute and laugh the next. I have never
cried so much or laughed so much in my life as I did that one month. She
told such sad things and she told such funny ones. She made me glad to
see her come in and sorry to see her go out. She let no one else come
near me. I did not care; I liked her too well. I was never tired of
listening to her praises and she praised me a great deal. I even did not
mind sleeping under a roof as much as I had before, perhaps because we
were so near it; perhaps because the room was so full of all sorts of
things, I never got tired of looking at them. Pretty things she called
them, but when I saw more things, things outside in shop windows and the
houses I afterwards went into, I knew they were very cheap things and not
always pretty. But she thought they were, and used to talk about them by
the hour and tell me stories she had made up about the pictures she had
cut out of newspapers. And I learned something; I could not help it, and
even began to think a bit--something I had never done before. But when I
got on my feet again, and was given the choice of staying there all the
time, I did not know at first whet