e
familiar noises were a babel to her ears; the peddlers with their
carts piled high with fruits and vegetables and colourful merchandise
seemed like strangers; the glossy-haired women with baskets seemed to
be passing backward out of her life, and the street was suddenly an
alien land. "What's the matter with me?" she asked herself.

Returning to the interior gloom of the warehouse, she looked down upon
the old junk-cart. The string of bells was the only part of it that
had not been renewed twice, thrice, a number of times since Grit had
left it standing on the vacant lot. "Guess I'll save the bells," she
decided.

The rest she would destroy. Nobody else was going to use it--nobody.
She cast about for an adequate instrument of destruction, an axe or
sledge, and remembering a piece of furnace grate upon the farther pile
of junk, made her way slowly into the deepening shadows.

There, at the foot of the rusty mountain of scrap iron, Great Taylor
stood irresolute, straining her eyes to pierce the gloom. She had not
seen any one enter; and yet, standing beyond the pile with white hands
stabbing the bottom of his pockets, was a man. She could not remember
having seen him before, and yet he was vaguely familiar. One eye
looked at her steadily from beneath a drooping lid, the other blinked
like the shutter of a camera and seemed to take intimate photographs
of all parts of her grimy person. His sleek hair was curled over his
temples with ends pointing up, and she caught, or imagined, the
fragrance of pomade.

"What do you want?" she breathed, allowing the heavy piece of iron to
sink slowly to her side.

"Sit down," said the man. "Let's talk things over."

Great Taylor sank into a broken armchair, her huge calloused hands
rested in her lap, wrists crossed, palms turned upward, fingers
stiffly curled. "I know who you are," she mumbled, leaning forward and
peering through the half-light. "What do you want?"

"You hung out a sign...."

"You ain't the man I expected."

"No?" He rocked up on his toes and made a gesture that indicated the
piles of junk. "You're done."

"I'm done," assented Great Taylor. "I ain't going to lay a hand on the
cart again. Ten years...."

"Uhm. You have a right to the things that other women have. But...."
He glanced around the dingy warehouse. "Is this all you have for your
ten years?"

Great Taylor made no reply.

"It isn't much," said the man.

"It's something," said Great Taylor.