girl, and the dirtiest white silk stockings. She had sung a shrill
little song, and danced a little dance at a public benefit for the
widows of three heroic firemen, when she was only nine. Her lovely mop
had been crimped out of all natural wave; her youthful digestion menaced
by candy and chewing gum; her naturally rather sober and pensive
disposition completely altered, or at least eclipsed. Julia could
chatter of the stage, could give a pert answer to whoever accosted her,
could tell a dressmaker exactly how she wanted a gown made, at twelve.
While her mother slept in the morning, before the girl learned to sleep
late, too, the child would get up and slip out. Her playground was
O'Farrell Street, dry and hot in summer, wrapped in soft fog four
mornings a week the year round, reeking of stale beer, and echoing to
the rattle of cable cars. The little Julia flitted about everywhere:
watching janitors as they hosed down the sidewalks outside the saloons,
or rinsed cuspidors; watching grocers set out their big signs for the
day; watching little restaurants open, and first comers sit down to
great cups of coffee and plates of hot cakes. Perhaps the sight of food
would remind the little girl of her own empty stomach; she would
straggle home just as the first sunshine was piercing the fog, and
loiter upstairs, and peep into the bedroom to see what the chances of a
meal might be.

Emeline usually rolled over to smile at her daughter when she heard the
door open, and Julia would be sent to the delicatessen store for the
component parts of a substantial meal. Julia loved the cramped, clean,
odorous shop that smelled of wet wood and mixed mustard pickles and
smoked fish. A little cream bottle would be filled from an immense can
at her request, the shopkeeper's wife wiping it with a damp rag and a
bony hand. And the pat of butter, and the rolls, and the sliced ham, and
the cheese--Herr Bauer scratched their prices with a stubby pencil on an