The voice of the rag-and-bone man, grew
fainter and fainter round corners out of sight; Lima Street became as
empty and uninteresting as the nursery. Mark wished that a knife-grinder
would come along and that he would stop under the dining-room window so
that he could watch the sparks flying from the grindstone. Or that a
gipsy would sit down on the steps and begin to mend the seat of a chair.
Whenever he had seen those gipsy chair-menders at work, he had been out
of doors and afraid to linger watching them in case he should be stolen
and his face stained with walnut juice and all his clothes taken away
from him. But from the security of the dining-room of the Mission House
he should enjoy watching them. However, no gipsy came, nor anybody else
except women with men's caps pinned to their skimpy hair and little
girls with wrinkled stockings carrying jugs to and from the public
houses that stood at every corner.
Mark turned away from the window and tried to think of some game that
could be played in the dining-room. But it was not a room that fostered
the imagination. The carpet was so much worn that the pattern was now
scarcely visible and, looked one at it never so long and intently, it
was impossible to give it an inner life of its own that gradually
revealed itself to the fanciful observer.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51