gathered in groups and stood gossiping by the fences that separated the
yards. Occasionally the voice of one of the women arose sharp and
distinct above the steady flow of voices that ran like a murmuring
river through the hot little streets.

In the roadway two children had got into a fight. A thick-shouldered
red-haired boy struck another boy who had a pale sharp-featured face, a
blow on the shoulder. Other children came running. The mother of the
red-haired boy brought the promised fight to an end. "Stop it Johnny, I
tell you to stop it. I'll break your neck if you don't," the woman
screamed.

The pale boy turned and walked away from his antagonist. As he went
slinking along the sidewalk past Mary Cochran his sharp little eyes,
burning with hatred, looked up at her.

Mary went quickly along. The strange new part of her native town with
the hubbub of life always stirring and asserting itself had a strong
fascination for her. There was something dark and resentful in her own
nature that made her feel at home in the crowded place where life
carried itself off darkly, with a blow and an oath. The habitual
silence of her father and the mystery concerning the unhappy married
life of her father and mother, that had affected the attitude toward
her of the people of the town, had made her own life a lonely one and
had encouraged in her a rather dogged determination to in some way
think her own way through the things of life she could not understand.

And back of Mary's thinking there was an intense curiosity and a
courageous determination toward adventure. She was like a little animal
of the forest that has been robbed of its mother by the gun of a