The Rising of the Court by Henry Lawson
page 53 of 113 (46%)
page 53 of 113 (46%)
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angles almost--and peer up and down the road, as if they are casually
curious as to what is keeping the rent collector so late this morning. Then they shut up till late in the day, when a boy or two comes home from work. The terrace should be called "Jim's Terrace" if the road is not "James's" Road, because no bills ever seem to be paid there as they are in our street--and for other reasons. There are four houses, but seldom more than two of them occupied at one time--often only one. Tenants never shift in, or at least are never seen to, but they get there. The sign is a furtive candle light behind an old table cloth, a skirt, or any rag of dark stuff tacked across the front bedroom window, upstairs, and a shadow suggestive of a woman making up a bed on the floor. If more than two of the houses are occupied there is almost certain to be an old granny with ragged grey hair, who folded her arms tight under her ragged old breasts, and bends her tough old body, and sticks her ragged grey old head out of the slit called a door, and squints up and down the road, but not in the interests of mischief-making--they are never here long enough--only out of mild, ragged, grey-headed curiosity regarding the health or affairs of the rent collector. Perhaps there are no bills to be collected in Skull Terrace because no credit is given. No jugs are put out, because there is no place to put them, except on the pavement, or on the narrow window ledges, where they would be in great and constant danger from the feet or elbows of passers-by. There are no tradesmen's entrances to the houses in Skull Terrace. Tenants and sub-tenants often leave on Friday morning in the full glare of the day. Granny throws down garments from the top window to |
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