Tales of Mean Streets

remnant of land too small for another six-roomer, there stood an odd box of a cottage, with three rooms and a wash-house. It had a green door with a w

even though it be the smallest of all. And here the seal of respectability was set by the shade of fruit — a sign accepted in those parts. Now, when people keep a house to themselves, and keep it clean; when they neither stand at the doors nor gossip across back-fences; when, moreover,

eedom; and some while after his death his widow and daughter came to live in the small house, and kept a school for tradesmen’s little girls in a back room over the wash-house. But as the school board waxed in power, and the tradesmen’s pride in regard thereunto waned, the attendance, never large, came down to twos and threes. Then Mrs. Perkins met with her accident. A dweller in Stidder’s Rents overtook her one night, and, having vigorously punched her in the face and breast, kicked her and jumped on her for five minutes as she lay on the pavement. (In the dark, it afterward appeared, he had mistaken her for his mother.) The one distinct

ns were eight-and-sixpence a quarter, two a week. Nobody was ever known to take them but the relieving officer’s daughter, and she paid sixpence a lesson, to see how she got on, and left off in three weeks. The card stayed in the window a fortnight longer, and none of the neighbors saw the cart that came in the night and took away the old cabinet piano with the channeled keys, that had been fourth-hand when Perkins bought it twenty years ago. Mrs. Clark, the widow who sewed far into the nigh

ngier than her mother — who had been stingy enough herself. Indeed, the Perkins demeanor began to change for the worse, to be significant of a miserly retirement and an offensive alienation from the rest of the s

er and Mrs. Jones, that she tripped on the broken sole of one shoe, and fell headlong. The newspaper broken away from its pins, and although the woman reached and recovered her parcel before she rose, it was plain to see that it was made up of cheap shirts, cut out ready for the stitching. The street had the news the same hour, a

g, went unremarked, the door being round the corner, and most people within. One morning, though, Miss Perkins, her best foot foremost, was venturing alon

me advance upon the nod, although it would be absurd to raise them to a level with the minister’s wife. So he had long since established a compromise. He closed his finger and thumb upon the brim of his hat, and let his hand fall forthwith. Preparing now to accomplish this salute, he was astounded to see that Miss Perkins, as soon as she was aware of his approach, turned her face, which was rather flushed, away

of rent with Mrs. Crouch every Saturday evening. He noted with satisfaction the whitened sills and the shade of fruit, behind which the curtains were now dr

down the street, puffing and blowing and staring. “Why, the woman frightened me,” he afterward explained to Mrs. Crouch. “There’s som

uggested Mrs. Crouch. “Anyhow, I should thing the

s the women in the street were sweeping their steps, Mr. Crouch was seen at the green door. He lifted the knocker, dull and sticky now with the foul vapor, and knocked a gentle rat-tat. There was no answer. He knocked again, a little louder, and waited, listening. But there was neither voice nor movement within. He gave three heavy knocks, and then came round to the front window. There was a shade of fruit, the glass a little duller on the top, the curtains pinned close abou

ouse. The wash-house was vacant, but it was clean, and there was a little net curtain in the window. The short passage and the stairs were bare boards. In the back room by the stair-head was a drawn

it exhibited a degree of shrinkage in the digestive organs unprecedented in his experience. After the inquest the street had an evening’s fame; for the papers printed coarse drawings of the house, and in