“Oh, you must be good to me—very,
very good to me, dear—for you’re all
that I have in the world now.”
That summer passed, then the winter. The wet
season began in the last days of September and continued
all through October, November, and December.
At long intervals would come a week of perfect days,
the sky without a cloud, the air motionless, but touched
with a certain nimbleness, a faint effervescence that
was exhilarating. Then, without warning, during
a night when a south wind blew, a gray scroll of cloud
would unroll and hang high over the city, and the rain
would come pattering down again, at first in scattered
showers, then in an uninterrupted drizzle.
All day long Trina sat in the bay window of the sitting-room
that commanded a view of a small section of Polk Street.
As often as she raised her head she could see the
big market, a confectionery store, a bell-hanger’s
shop, and, farther on, above the roofs, the glass
skylights and water tanks of the big public baths.
In the nearer foreground ran the street itself; the
cable cars trundled up and down, thumping heavily
over the joints of the rails; market carts by the score
came and went, driven at a great rate by preoccupied
young men in their shirt sleeves, with pencils behind
their ears, or by reckless boys in blood-stained butcher’s
aprons. Upon the sidewalks the little world of
Polk Street swarmed and jostled through its daily round
of life. On fine days the great ladies from the
avenue, one block above, invaded the street, appearing
before the butcher stalls, intent upon their day’s
marketing. On rainy days their servants—the
Chinese cooks or the second girls—took
their places. These servants gave themselves great
airs, carrying their big cotton umbrellas as they
had seen their mistresses carry their parasols, and
haggling in supercilious fashion with the market men,
their chins in the air.
The rain persisted. Everything in the range of
Trina’s vision, from the tarpaulins on the market-cart
horses to the panes of glass in the roof of the public
baths, looked glazed and varnished. The asphalt
of the sidewalks shone like the surface of a patent
leather boot; every hollow in the street held its
little puddle, that winked like an eye each time a
drop of rain struck into it.
Trina still continued to work for Uncle Oelbermann.
In the mornings she busied herself about the kitchen,
the bedroom, and the sitting-room; but in the afternoon,
for two or three hours after lunch, she was occupied
with the Noah’s ark animals. She took her
work to the bay window, spreading out a great square
of canvas underneath her chair, to catch the chips
and shavings, which she used afterwards for lighting
fires. One after another she caught up the little
blocks of straight-grained pine, the knife flashed
between her fingers, the little figure grew rapidly
under her touch, was finished and ready for painting
in a wonderfully short time, and was tossed into the
basket that stood at her elbow.
