How I hate you! she said aloud to the rusty iron sink that the landlady had bought for fifty cents from a junk man when she bungled her rickety old dwelling over into a so-called apartment house. When the dishes were done and the clammy towels hung up to dry, she scrubbed away at the ugly sink with a worn old sink brush. If they were all going to starve to death, she resolved that at least she, Phyllis, would die smiling.
Mother had enough to worry her now without having anyone of her family give way to weakness. Things did look pretty bleak, but she was not going to let a mere greasy plate in a cold room conquer her. This cold dishwater in the cold room with the greasy dishes seemed just the last straw, and another tear followed the first one.īut Phyllis Challenger was not a crying person, and with the upper part of her sleeve she wiped her eyes defiantly and applied a little more soap to the greasy plate she was washing, setting her lips firmly. That meter was always eating up quarters. But the gas had flickered and gone out under the kettle before it was more than lukewarm, and Phyllis had not another quarter to put into the meter to start it again. Phyllis had tried to heat some water because the dishes were greasy, leftover from last night to save heating dishwater twice. Unbidden, a great hot tear rolled down her white cheek and dropped into the dishwater. She had no desire to bring down upon her lonely young self a tirade such as her mother had had to endure the evening before, just because she had told the old skinflint that she would not be able to pay the rent for another week. When Phyllis remembered that, she beat a hasty retreat back to her cold room. But, of course, that was because the rent wasn’t paid. She had heard her scolding her baby but a moment before. The apartment was supposed to have heat in it, but the radiators had been stone cold all day, and when she tapped on the door of the landlady’s room down the hall there was no answer, although Phyllis was sure she was there. Phyllis tossed her head to get the refractory lock of hair out of her eyes and, failing, pushed it back with her elbow then shivered again. One had to turn around carefully lest something be knocked over.
Everything in the tiny dark hole that passed for a kitchenette was cramped. The table was inadequate because there wasn’t room for a larger one. Phyllis shivered as she took her hands out of the dishwater to reach for a pile of plates that stood on the inadequate little table behind her. Copyright © 2019 Classica Libris Chapter 1
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