Nance looked at him apprehensively.

"Well, we better be doin' something'," she said. "Can't Uncle Jed help us?"

"I ain't goin' to let him. He's paid my rent fer the last time."

This unexpected flare of independence in Mr. Snawdor was disturbing. The Snawdor family without Uncle Jed was like a row of st.i.tches from which the knitting needle has been withdrawn.

"If I was two years older, I could go to work," said Nance, thinking of Dan, who was now on the pay-roll of Clarke's Bottle Factory.

"It ain't right to make you stop school," said Mr. Snawdor. "It ain't bein' fair to you."

"I'd do it all right," said Nance, fired by his magnanimity, "only they're on to me now I've reported myself. Ain't you makin' any money at the shop?"

Mr. Snawdor shook his head.

"I might if I was willin' to buy junk. But you know where them boys gets their stuff."

Nance nodded wisely.

"The gang bust into a empty house last night an' cut out all the lead pipes. I seen 'em comin' home with it."

Mr. Snawdor rose and went to the window.

"There ain't no chance fer a honest man," he said miserably. "I'm sick o'

livin', that's whut I am. I am ready to quit."

When Mrs. Snawdor arrived, she swept all domestic problems impatiently aside.

"Fer goodness' sake don't come tellin' me no more hard-luck tales. Ain't I got troubles enough of my own? Nance, soon 's you git through, go git me a bucket of beer, an' if you see any of the Gormans, say I'll stop in this evenin' on my way to work."

"I ain't goin' fer the beer no more," announced Nance.

"An' will ye tell me why?" asked Mrs. Snawdor.

"'Cause I ain't," said Nance, knowing the futility of argument.

Mrs. Snawdor lifted her hand to strike, but changed her mind. She was beginning to have a certain puzzled respect for her stepdaughter's decision of character.

After the children had been put to bed and Nance had cried over the smallest nightgown, no longer needed, she slipped down to the second floor and, pausing before the door behind which the sewing-machines were always whirring, gave a peculiar whistle. It was a whistle possible only to a person who boasted the absence of a front tooth, and it brought Ike Lavinski promptly to the door.

Ikey was a friend whom she regarded with mingled contempt and admiration--contempt because he was weak and undersized, admiration because he was the only person of her acquaintance who had ever had his name in the newspaper. On two occasions he had been among the honor students at the high school, and his family and neighbors regarded him as an intellectual prodigy.

"Say, Ikey," said Nance, "if you was me, an' had to make some money, an'

didn't want to chuck school, what would you do?"

Ikey considered the matter. Money and education were the most important things in the world to him, and were not to be discussed lightly.

"If you were bigger," he said, sweeping her with a critical eye, "you might try sewing pants."

"Could I do it at night? How much would it pay me? Would yer pa take me on?" Nance demanded all in a breath.

"He would if he thought they wouldn't get on to it."

"I'd keep it dark," Nance urged. "I could slip down every night after I git done my work, an' put in a couple of hours, easy. I'm a awful big child fer my age--feel my muscle! Go on an' make him take me on, Ikey, will you?"

And Ikey condescendingly agreed to use his influence.

CHAPTER IX

b.u.t.tONS

The Lavinskis' flat on the second floor had always possessed a mysterious fascination for Nance. In and out of the other flats she pa.s.sed at will, but she had never seen beyond the half-open door of the Lavinskis'. All day and far into the night, the sewing-machines ran at high pressure, and Mr. Lavinski shuffled in and out carrying huge piles of pants on his head. The other tenants stopped on the stairs to exchange civilities or incivilities with equal warmth; they hung out of windows or dawdled sociably in doorways. But summer and winter alike the Lavinskis herded behind closed doors and ran their everlasting sewing-machines.

Mrs. Snawdor gave her ready consent to Nance trying her hand as a "home finisher."

"We got to git money from somewheres," she said, "an' I always did want to know how them Polocks live. But don't you let on to your Uncle Jed what you're doing."

"I ain't goin' to let on to n.o.body," said Nance, thrilled with the secrecy of the affair.

The stifling room into which Ikey introduced her that night was supposed to be the Lavinskis' kitchen, but it was evident that the poor room had long ago abandoned all notions of domesticity. The tea-kettle had been crowded off the stove by the pressing irons; a wash-tub full of neglected clothes, squeezed itself into a distant corner, and the cooking utensils had had to go climbing up the walls on hooks and nails to make way on the shelves for sewing materials.

On one corner of the table, between two towering piles of pants, were the remains of the last meal, black bread, potatoes, and pickled herring.

Under two swinging kerosene lamps, six women with sleeves rolled up and necks bared, bent over whirring machines, while Mr. Lavinski knelt on the floor tying the finished garments into huge bundles.

"Here's Nance Molloy, Pa" said Ikey, raising his voice above the noise of the machines and tugging at his father's sleeve.

Mr. Lavinski pushed his derby hat further back on his perspiring brow, and looked up. He had a dark, sharp face, and alert black eyes, exactly like Ikey's, and a black beard with two locks of black hair trained down in front of his ears to meet it. Without pausing in his work he sized Nance up.

"I von't take childern anny more. I tried it many times already. De inspector git me into troubles. It don't pay."

"But I'll dodge the inspectors," urged Nance.

"You know how to sew, eh?"

"No; but you kin learn me. Please, Mr. Lavinski, Ikey said you would."

Mr. Lavinski bestowed a doting glance on his son.

"My Ikey said so, did he? He thinks he own me, that boy. I send him to high school. I send him to Hebrew cla.s.s at the synagogue at night. He vill be big rich some day, that boy; he's got a brain on him."

"Cut it out, Pa," said Ikey, "Nance is a smart kid; you won't lose anything on her."

The result was that Nance was accorded the privilege of occupying a stool in the corner behind the hot stove and sewing b.u.t.tons on knee pantaloons, from eight until ten P.M. At first the novelty of working against time, with a room full of grown people, and of seeing the great stacks of unfinished garments change into great stacks of finished ones, was stimulation in itself. She was proud of her cushion full of strong needles and her spool of coa.r.s.e thread. She was pleased with the nods of approval gentle Mrs. Lavinski gave her work in pa.s.sing, and of the slight interest with which she was regarded by the other workers.

But as the hours wore on, and the air became hotter and closer, and no enlivening conversation came to relieve the strain, her interest began to wane. By nine o'clock her hands were sore and stained, and her back ached. By a quarter past, the b.u.t.tons were slipping through her fingers, and she could not see to thread her needle.