As if the luster of this girl child could be any brighter, yet here was
the new shine of the mental beginning to radiate through. Nunk!
Was there any limit to this ecstasy of possession? It ran through her
days like a song.
It meant that while the home-going six-o'clock rush at Union Square,
which of face is the composite immobility of a dead Chinaman, would
presently cram into street cars and then deploy out into the
inhospitable cubbyholes of the most hospitable city in the world, Lilly,
even in her weariness, could be deterred by the lure of a curb vender
and a jumping toy dog. There was never a time or a weather that she
could pass, without pause, Westheim's Art Needlework Shop on Broadway
and its array of linen-lawn dainties, and, remarkably enough, the
purchase of the toy dog or a five-cent peppermint cane could send her
home with an actual physical refreshment as if she had slept off, rather
than cast off, fatigue.
She would line up during the week, Monday's toy dog, Tuesday's
peppermint cane, Wednesday's cap rosettes (fashioned out of five yards
of baby ribbon at one cent the yard), and so on to Saturday's climax of
bootines, and on one occasion a large circular wooden arrangement, a
sort of first aid to the first step, which she carried out herself,
standing with it on the train platform.
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