Gloria and Treeless Street | Page 4

back. Gloria returned on the opposite side with the idea of more thoroughly exploring. But she might as well have kept to the one side; both sides were alike in tenements and children--dreariness and poverty. There was no choice. It was with a long breath of relief that Gloria emerged again upon the main street. She filled her lungs with the cleaner air, and gazed with a new admiration at the well-to-do buildings.
The grotesque little figure of Dinney tramping back into Treeless Street with his rattling cart lurching behind him, was all that remained of what seemed to Gloria now must have been a dream. She glanced up at the street's name, at its juncture with the main street, and started suddenly, in very astonishment. The name she read pointed playful, jeering letters at her. She had always known there was a street in Tilford by that name--but not this, this street! Pleasant Street! Gloria walked the rest of the way as in a dream.
* * * * *
"Uncle Em, aren't tenements unsafe to live in," Gloria asked at supper, "when they lean every which way? Oughtn't there to be a law to tear them down?" Gloria was too intent on her own musings to intercept the swift glance her guardian gave her.
"Supposing one tumbled down, with little children in it and outside it! What did they name that awful street Pleasant Street for?"
Aunt Em's comely face wore a queer expression. She began to speak, then stopped.
"Don't you want to hear what kind of a runabout I ordered on the way home, Rosy-Posie?" What freak of fate made Uncle Em call her Rosy-Posie? Gloria winced as if with pain at thought of the girl Rosie--with eyes like hers--on Treeless Street.
"There's a girl named Rosie with eyes like mine, on Pleasant Street!" she cried. "A boy told me so. I hate that street!" She got up suddenly and went away.
The two left behind exchanged glances. Aunt Em's eyes were troubled.
"Walter, whatever started the child up to go round exploring streets?" she said.
"Goodness knows! But don't get worked up over nothing."
"Poor child--you know I've always felt just the way she does, Walter." Aunt Em's gentle sigh came once more.
The next morning Aunt Em appeared in Gloria's room before that leisurely young person had decided to get up. She was lying in one of the pleasant intervals between dozes, drowsily conscious that the sunshine was streaming across her feet in a warm flood, and that somewhere children were playing.
'"Lazy girl!" cried Aunt Em in the door. The lazy girl turned without surprise. She was used to early visits. "Perhaps you might like to know the time of day--"
"Oh, say it's 'most bedtime, auntie, then I won't have to get up at all!"
"Nine o'clock!"
Gloria laughed. "Call that late! Why, it might be ten, eleven, twelve! Besides, I had to make up for my nightmares--auntie, I spent nearly all night walking up Treeless Street. I couldn't get out; I thought I'd got to stay there always. The little ragamuffins wouldn't any of them tell me the way out, not even Dinney. I wouldn't have believed it of Dinney!" Aunt Em's face smiled down at the girl among the tumbled pillows. "Poor dear! You have so many troubles!" Aunt Em sympathized in gentle irony.
Gloria sat up straight. "You're making fun! Well, I don't suppose I can complain. It isn't to be wondered at that you can't believe I'd be troubled at other folks' troubles. Honest, auntie, I never was till yesterday on that street!"
"Aren't you ever going to talk about anything else, Rosy-Posie?"
"Don't say 'Rosy,' or you'll set me off again! I won't mention it again to-day if you'll promise to go down there with me some day, Aunt Em. If you won't, I shall go with the District Nurse. I'm going into one of those houses and see if it feels as bad as it looks."
"You can't go very soon, my dear, for we are going out West with Uncle Walter to-night."
"Auntie!--honest?" Gloria was on her feet in a sudden access of energy. Drowsiness and laziness were past things. The trips that she and Aunt Em took occasionally with her guardian were her delight; it was always an occasion of gratitude when a "case" called him away during the long summer vacation.
"We decided last night, dear. You know how Uncle Walter loves to take us along."
"Will it be a nice long case? Say yes!"
"Yes," smiled the elder woman, "three or four weeks, probably, and maybe longer. You never can tell how long lawyers will be, threshing out justice."
"Where? Where? Oh, I call this fine!" Gloria was pulling out the contents of a bureau drawer. "Where are we going, auntie?"
"To Cheyenne. Gloria, what in the world are you up to?"
"Packing. Cheyenne! I'll dress in a jiffy,