doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing
women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces.
Somewhere a baby was wailing piteously. Somewhere else a man was
cursing. Everywhere was the smell of bad whiskey, stale cabbage, and
unwashed humanity.

At the top of the third and last stairway the boy came to a pause
before a closed door.

"I'm just a-thinkin' what Sir James'll say when he's wise ter the
prize package I'm bringin' him," he whispered in a throaty voice. "I
know what mumsey'll do--she'll turn on the weeps in no time ter see
Jamie so tickled." The next moment he threw wide the door with a gay:
"Here we be--an' we come in a buzz-wagon! Ain't that goin' some, Sir
James?"

It was a tiny room, cold and cheerless and pitifully bare, but
scrupulously neat. There were here no tousled heads, no peering
children, no odors of whiskey, cabbage, and unclean humanity. There
were two beds, three broken chairs, a dry-goods-box table, and a stove
with a faint glow of light that told of a fire not nearly brisk enough
to heat even that tiny room. On one of the beds lay a lad with flushed
cheeks and fever-bright eyes. Near him sat a thin, white-faced woman,
bent and twisted with rheumatism.

Mrs. Carew stepped into the room and, as if to steady herself, paused
a minute with her back to the wall. Pollyanna hurried forward with a
low cry just as Jerry, with an apologetic "I gotta go now; good-by!"
dashed through the door.