All day long Pepsie sat her window, wielding her little iron nutcracker with much dexterity. While the beautiful clean halves fell nearly always unbroken on their especial pile, she saw everything that went on in the street, her bright eyes flashed glances of recognition up and down, her broad smile greeted in cordial welcome those who stopped at her window to chat, and there was nearly always some one at Pepsie’s window. She was so happy, so bright, and so amiable that every one loved her, and she was the idol of all the children in the neighborhood—not, however, because she was liberal with pecans. Oh, no; with Pepsie, business was business, and pecans cost money, and every ten sugared pecans meant a nickel for her mother; but they loved to stand around the window, outside the iron railing, and watch Pepsie at her work. They liked to see her with her pile of nuts and bowl of foaming sugar before her. It seemed like magic, the way she would sugar them, and stick them together, and spread them out to dry on the clean white paper. She did it so rapidly that her long white fingers fairly flashed between the bowl of sugar, the pile of nuts, and the paper. And there always seemed just enough of each, therefore her just discrimination was a constant wonder.

When she finished her task, as she often did before dark, Tite Souris took away the bowl and the tray of sugared nuts, after Pepsie had counted them and put the number down in a little book, as much to protect herself against Tite Souris’s depredations as to know the exact amount of their stock in trade; then she would open the little drawer in the table, and take out a prayer-book, a piece of needlework, and a pack of cards.

She was very pious, and read her prayers several times a day; after she put her prayer-book aside she usually devoted some time to her needlework, for which she had real talent; then, when she thought she had earned her recreation, she put away her work, spread out her cards, and indulged in an intricate game of solitaire. This was her passion; she was very systematic, and very conscientious; but if she ever purloined any time from her duties, it was that she might engage in that fascinating game. She decided everything by it; whatever she wished to know, two games out of three would give her the answer, for or against.

Sometimes she looked like a little witch during a wicked incantation, as she hovered over the rows of cards, her face dark and brooding, her long, thin fingers darting here and there, silent, absorbed, almost breathless under the fatal spell of chance.

In this way she passed day after day, always industrious, always contented, and always happy. She was very comfortable in her snug little room, which was warm in winter and cool in summer, owing to the two high buildings adjoining; and although she was a cripple, and her lower limbs useless, she suffered little pain, unless she was moved roughly, or jarred in some way; and no one could be more carefully protected from discomfort than she was, for although she was over twelve, Madelon still treated her as if she were a baby. Every morning, before she left for the Rue Bourbon, she bathed and dressed the girl, and lifted her tenderly, with her strong arms, into her wheeled chair, where she drank her coffee, and ate her roll, as dainty as a little princess, for she was always exquisitely clean. In the summer she wore pretty little white sacks, with a bright bow of ribbon at the neck, and in winter her shrunken figure was clothed in warm, soft woolen.

Madelon did not sit out all day in rain and shine on Bourbon Street, and make cakes and pralines half the night, for anything else but to provide this crippled mite with every comfort. As I said before, the girl was her idol, and she had toiled day and night to gratify her every wish; and, as far as she knew, there was but one desire unsatisfied, and for the accomplishment of that she was working and saving little by little.

Once Pepsie had said that she would like to live in the country. All she knew of the country was what she had read in books, and what her mother, who had once seen the country, had told her. Often she closed her eyes to shut out the hot, narrow street, and thought of green valleys, with rivers running through them, and hills almost touching the sky, and broad fields shaded by great trees, and covered with waving grass and flowers. That was her one unrealized ideal,—her “Carcassonne,” which she feared she was never to reach, except in imagination.

CHAPTER VII
THE ARRIVAL

On the other side of Good Children Street, and almost directly opposite Madelon’s tiny cottage, was a double house of more pretentious appearance than those just around it. It was a little higher, the door was wider, and a good-sized window on each side had a small balcony, more for ornament than use, as it was scarcely wide enough to stand on. The roof projected well over the sidewalk, and there was some attempt at ornamentation in the brackets that supported it. At one side was a narrow yard with a stunted fig-tree, and a ragged rose-bush straggled up the posts of a small side-gallery.

This house had been closed for some time. The former tenant having died, his family, who were respectable, pleasant people, were obliged to leave it, much to Pepsie’s sorrow, for she was always interested in her neighbors, and she had taken a great deal of pleasure in observing the ways of this household. Therefore she was very tired of looking at the closed doors and windows, and was constantly wishing that some one would take it. At last, greatly to her gratification, one pleasant morning, late in August, a middle-aged woman, very well dressed in black, who was lame and walked with a stick, a young man, and a lovely little girl, appeared on the scene, stopped before the empty house, and after looking at it with much interest mounted the steps, unlocked the door, and entered.