WHAT POVERTY THREATENED--OF GRANITE AND BRASS
Minnie's flat, as the one-floor resident apartments were then being called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of labourers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with the rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year.It was on the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where, at night, the lights of grocery stores were shining and children were playing.To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horse-cars, as they tinkled in and out of hearing, was as pleasing as it was novel.
She gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the front room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.
Mrs.Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby and proceeded to get supper.Her husband asked a few questions and sat down to read the evening paper.He was a silent man, American born, of a Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator cars at the stock-yards.To him the presence or absence of his wife's sister was a matter of indifference.Her personal appearance did not affect him one way or the other.His one observation to the point was concerning the chances of work in Chicago.
"It's a big place," he said."You can get in somewhere in a few days.Everybody does."
It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and pay her board.He was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already paid a number of monthly instalments on two lots far out on the West Side.His ambition was some day to build a house on them.
In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found time to study the flat.She had some slight gift of observation and that sense, so rich in every woman--intuition.
She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life.The walls of the rooms were discordantly papered.The floors were covered with matting and the hall laid with a thin rag carpet.One could see that the furniture was of that poor, hurriedly patched together quality sold by the instalment houses.