g all.
They are very young, "under age," though each and every one would
glibly swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is
sixteen, and therefore free to make her own bad choice. Of these, one
was brought up among the rugged hills of Maine; the other two are from
the tenement crowds, hardly missed there. But their companion? She is
twirling the sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the
bowl of her pipe with it. As she does so, the sunbeam dances across
the bed, kisses the red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her
tyrant long has known,--though to her it is hidden yet,--that the pipe
has claimed its victim and soon will pass it on to the Potter's Field.

"Nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred
within her by the flash, "Nell, did you hear from the old farm to home
since you come here?"

Nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly
look on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips.

"To hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her
mouth inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back
on her pillow in drunken stupor.

That is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in Mott Street.

It had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and
vainly seeking entry to others; had gilded with equal impartiality the
spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty
thousand tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled
courage and cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life
in the teeming crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to
toiling fathers striving early and late for bread to fill the many
mouths clamoring to be fed.

The brief December day was far spent. Now its rays fell across the
North River and lighted up the windows of the tenements in Hell's
Kitchen and Poverty Gap. In the Gap especially they made a brave show;
the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that sat
back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. But
the glory did not cross the threshold. Within it was dark and dreary
and cold. The room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was
empty. The last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his
drunken fury. The sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it
was long since it could have made out the red daub from the mould on
the rotten floor.

Upstairs, in the cold attic