Gloria and Treeless Street | Page 3

the street from us."
"Bag or nurse?"
"Both. She's a dear, but what does she do?"
"Why," explained Uncle Em, "she visits the poor and takes care of
them if they are sick, you know. It's rather a new institution here in
Tilford, but seems to be working finely. The city pays the nurse's salary,
or else it's done by private subscriptions."
"But I don't see how one nurse gets time to take care of a whole
city--mercy!" Gloria's personal experience with nurses had been two to
one girl. She remembered them now--the gentle day-nurse and the
gentle night-nurse, who had moved soft-footedly about her bed,
performing soothing little offices. Uncle Em smiled at her puzzled face.
"No wonder you don't 'see,'" he said, interpreting her thoughts. "But in
this case the sick person gets but an hour's care, perhaps, a day. The
nurse goes from house to house, doing what she can in a little time. She
has to divide up her care, you see. But it is a merciful work--a merciful
work."
Gloria's face was thoughtful. Treeless Street haunted her.
"Do you know a street that hasn't a single tree on it, Uncle Em? The
awfulest street! Just children and children and children and tenement
houses. I suppose I've been by it hundreds of times, but I never saw it
till to-day. It must have a name to it."
"What do you want to know its name for, my dear? It isn't the kind of a
street to run about on!" Uncle Em laughed. To Gloria the note of
uneasiness in his voice was not noticeable.
She nodded a gay little good-by and was gone.

CHAPTER II.
After leaving her uncle's office the fancy seized Gloria to walk home
instead of taking a car. She would find Treeless Street and explore
it--perhaps meet the neat little figure of the District Nurse somewhere
in its dismal depths. She wanted to know more of this new manner of
helping people an hour a day. It was characteristic of Gloria to indulge
her fancies and to find out what she wished to know. She walked
slowly away, searching every cross street for the special one she
wanted. They were all dismal streets for a little way, but none of them
were absolutely devoid of trees. Scanty grass-spots relieved their
dreariness, and the swarms of children were comfortably enough
dressed. It was some little time before Gloria reached Treeless Street,
but when she did, she knew it at once. Without hesitation she turned
into it.
Topply tenement after tenement--was there no end to them? Was there
no end to the children with little old faces? Babies trundled other babies
in rickety carts; the clamor of sharp little voices filled the street. Gloria,
in a new world, threaded her way among the children and thought her
new thoughts. They were confused, unwelcome thoughts, but she
entertained them valiantly.
"Think of coming here every day, perhaps, and living right along!"
A small boy in grotesque man-trousers, reefed and rolled, intruded
himself and his baby-charge in her way. Gloria gazed down into the
boy's face with a sort of fascination. He was so small, yet had such a
protecting way with the baby.
"What is your name, little man?" she asked. "Dinney. What's the name
o' youse?"
Gloria ignored the question.
"Is this your little brother?" gently.

"Well, I guess!" said the boy.
"Can he walk?" more gently still.
"Yep, o' course--I mean when his legs gets stronger he'll walk, won't
youse, Hunkie? De doctor-woman says as wot he needs is plenty o'
milk. Wid its coat on--Hunkie ain't never had none wid its coat on till
de doctor-woman come."
"Its coat on?" murmured Gloria. Then by an inspiration she knew that
the boy meant cream--milk with the cream on. A sob rose unannounced
in Gloria's throat as she looked again at the mite in the cart who would
walk when his legs were stronger.
"Who is the doctor-woman?" she asked; but as she asked the question
she knew the answer and said, "Is she the District Nurse?"
"Yes, she is. She's good to my mother, and Hunkie's the baby. Rosy
does nice things, too. She showed Rosy how to be nice. Me mother's
got de consumption." The boy spoke as though discreetly proud of the
fact.
"And who is Rosy?" Gloria asked.
"Sure--de girl wot lives 'cross de hall. She's got eyes like your eyes, she
has."
Across the hall on Treeless Street. A girl with eyes like hers! It was like
finding herself there. Gloria shivered. She had a sudden inward vision
of herself living in Treeless Street.
A little crowd of interested children had gathered. One, bolder than the
rest, had drawn unpleasantly close, and was smoothing Gloria's soft
white dress with timid little