she’d be dead when I woke up. She lay so still, and she looked so white and death-like, and I would lean on my elbow and watch her, fearing her breath would stop. Every few moments I prayed, ‘O God, save her!’ ‘O God, have mercy!’ I—I couldn’t say more, and I would swallow down the thing that would[Page 73] choke my throat and wink away the tears that would come, and watch and watch, until I couldn’t bear the doubt any longer, then I would touch her gently with my foot to see if she was still warm, and that would wake her, and I would be so sorry. [Page 73] “All last night I never took my eyes off her dear face,” Maggie continued between her sobs, and Dido was softly crying, too, then. “She wouldn’t eat the things I had brought her, and when I talked to her she didn’t seem to understand, but said things about father, who died so long ago, and once or twice she laughed, but it only made me cry. She didn’t seem to see me either, and when I spoke to her it only started her to talk about something else, so I watched and watched. I didn’t pray any more. Somehow all the prayer had left my soul. Just before morning she got very still, sometimes a rolling sound would gurgle in her throat, but when I offered[Page 74] her a drink she couldn’t swallow, and then I called to her—I couldn’t stand it any longer—‘Mother, mother, speak to me. I have always loved you, speak to me once,’ and her dear lips moved and I bent over her, holding my breath for fear I would not hear, and she whispered: ‘Lucille—my—pretty—one,’ and then her eyes opened and her head fell to one side, but she didn’t see; she was dead—dead without one word to me, and I loved her so.” [Page 74] Dido Morgan shared her own scant dinner with Maggie that day, and the unhappy girl remained at work that she might earn some money, which would help towards burying her mother. That afternoon foreman Flint came in, and, nailing a paper to the elevator shaft, told the girls to read it, saying he’d teach them to disobey another time, and that next week they would work harder for their money. [Page 75] [Page 75] In fear and trembling the girls crowded timidly about the shaft to read what new misery the foreman had in store for them. They instinctively felt it was a reduction, and the first glance proved their fears were not unfounded. Some of the girls began to cry, and Dido, the
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