out to lunch at one and never shows up again
till four. Wears English collars, and smokes a brand of cigarettes we
don't carry."

Thus was the world brought to Rose. Her sallow cheek would show a faint
hint of colour as she sipped her tea.

At six-thirty on a Monday morning in late April (remember, nothing's
going to happen) Rose smothered her alarm clock at the first warning
snarl. She was wide-awake at once, as are those whose yesterdays,
to-days and to-morrows are all alike. Rose never opened her eyes to the
dim, tantalising half-consciousness of a something delightful or a
something harrowing in store for her that day. For one to whom the
wash-woman's Tuesday visitation is the event of the week, and in whose
bosom the delivery boy's hoarse "Groc-rees!" as he hurls soap and cabbage
on the kitchen table, arouses a wild flurry, there can be very little
thrill on awakening.

Rose slept on the davenport-couch in the sitting-room. That fact in
itself rises her status in the family. This Monday morning she opened
her eyes with what might be called a start if Rose were any other sort
of heroine. Something had happened, or was happening. It wasn't the six
o'clock steam hissing in the radiator. She was accustomed to that. The
rattle of the L trains, and the milkman's artillery disturbed her as
little as does the chirping of the birds the farmer's daughter. A
sensation new, yet familiar; delicious, yet painful, held her. She
groped to define it, lying there. Her gaze, wandering over the expanse
of the grey woollen blanket, fixed upon a small black object trembling
there. The knowledge that came to her then had come, many weeks before,
in a hundred subtle and exquisite ways, to those who dwell in the open
places. Rose's eyes narrowed craftily. Craftily, stealthily, she sat up,
one hand raised. Her eyes still fixed on the quivering spot, the hand
descended, lightning-quick. But not quickly enough. The black spot
vanished. It sped toward the open window. Through that window there came
a balmy softness made up of Lake Michigan zephyr, and stockyards smell,
and distant budding things. Rose had failed to swat the first fly of the
season. Spring had come.

As she got out of bed and thud-thudded across the room on her heels to
shut the window she glanced out into the quiet street. Her city eyes,
untrained to nature's hints, failed to notice that the scraggy,
smoke-dwarfed oak that sprang, somehow, miraculously, from the mangey
l