Sister Carrie | Page 7

hurried forward.
"Why, Sister Carrie!" she began, and there was embrace of welcome.
Carrie realised the change of affectional atmosphere at once. Amid all
the maze, uproar, and novelty she felt cold reality taking her by the
hand. No world of light and merriment. No round of amusement. Her
sister carried with her most of the grimness of shift and toil.
"Why, how are all the folks at home?" she began; "how is father, and
mother?"
Carrie answered, but was looking away. Down the aisle, toward the
gate leading into the waiting-room and the street, stood Drouet. He was
looking back. When he saw that she saw him and was safe with her
sister he turned to go, sending back the shadow of a smile. Only Carrie
saw it. She felt something lost to her when he moved away. When he
disappeared she felt his absence thoroughly. With her sister she was
much alone, a lone figure in a tossing, thoughtless sea.



Chapter II
WHAT POVERTY THREATENED--OF GRANITE AND BRASS

Minnie's flat, as the one-floor resident apartments were then being
called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of
labourers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with
the rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year. It was on
the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where,
at night, the lights of grocery stores were shining and children were
playing. To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horse-cars, as
they tinkled in and out of hearing, was as pleasing as it was novel. She
gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the front
room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the
vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.
Mrs. Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby
and proceeded to get supper. Her husband asked a few questions and
sat down to read the evening paper. He was a silent man, American
born, of a Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator
cars at the stock-yards. To him the presence or absence of his wife's
sister was a matter of indifference. Her personal appearance did not
affect him one way or the other. His one observation to the point was
concerning the chances of work in Chicago.
"It's a big place," he said. "You can get in somewhere in a few days.
Everybody does."
It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and
pay her board. He was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already
paid a number of monthly instalments on two lots far out on the West
Side. His ambition was some day to build a house on them.
In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found
time to study the flat. She had some slight gift of observation and that
sense, so rich in every woman--intuition.
She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life. The walls of the rooms were
discordantly papered. The floors were covered with matting and the
hall laid with a thin rag carpet. One could see that the furniture was of
that poor, hurriedly patched together quality sold by the instalment
houses.

She sat with Minnie, in the kitchen, holding the baby until it began to
cry. Then she walked and sang to it, until Hanson, disturbed in his
reading, came and took it. A pleasant side to his nature came out here.
He was patient. One could see that he was very much wrapped up in his
offspring.
"Now, now," he said, walking. "There, there," and there was a certain
Swedish accent noticeable in his voice.
"You'll want to see the city first, won't you?" said Minnie, when they
were eating. "Well, we'll go out Sunday and see Lincoln Park.
Carrie noticed that Hanson had said nothing to this. He seemed to be
thinking of something else.
"Well," she said, "I think I'll look around tomorrow. I've got Friday and
Saturday, and it won't be any trouble. Which way is the business part?"
Minnie began to explain, but her husband took this part of the
conversation to himself.
"It's that way," he said, pointing east. "That's east." Then he went off
into the longest speech he had yet indulged in, concerning the lay of
Chicago. "You'd better look in those big manufacturing houses along
Franklin Street and just the other side of the river," he concluded. "Lots
of girls work there. You could get home easy, too. It isn't very far."
Carrie nodded and asked her sister about the neighbourhood. The latter
talked in a subdued tone, telling the little she knew about