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Hilda once more began to sob. "Ach, Mammy, please, PLEASE, I want it. I'm hungry." The jangled nerves snapped at last under the tension, and Mrs. Hooven, suddenly shaking Hilda roughly, cried out: "Stop, stop. Doand say ut egen, you. My Gott, you kill me yet." But quick upon this came the reaction.
"I'm tired, carry me." Using all her strength, Mrs. Hooven picked her up and moved on aimlessly. Then again that terrible cry, the cry of the hungry child appealing to the helpless mother: "Mammy, I'm hungry." "Ach, Gott, leedle girl," exclaimed Mrs. Hooven, holding her close to her shoulder, the tears starting from her eyes. "Ach, leedle tochter. Doand, doand, doand. You praik my hairt.
Turning towards the wife of the Railroad King, he said: "My best compliments for a delightful dinner." The doctor who had been bending over Mrs. Hooven, rose. "It's no use," he said; "she has been dead some time exhaustion from starvation."
They fattened on the blood of the People, on the blood of the men who had been killed at the ditch. It was a half-ludicrous, half-horrible "dog eat dog," an unspeakable cannibalism. Harran, Annixter, and Hooven were being devoured there under his eyes.
"Where's Hooven?" enquired Cutter. "I don't know," Osterman replied. "He was out watching the Lower Road with Harran Derrick. Oh, Harran," he called, "isn't Hooven coming in?" "I don't know what he is waiting for," answered Harran. "He was to have come in just after me. He thought maybe the marshal's party might make a feint in this direction, then go around by the Upper Road, after all.
He felt that she spoke the truth, and as he stood there speaking to her for the last time, his arm about little Sidney's shoulder, he knew that he was seeing the beginnings of the wreck of another family and that, like Hilda Hooven, another baby girl was to be started in life, through no fault of hers, fearfully handicapped, weighed down at the threshold of existence with a load of disgrace.
Luckily she was leading Hilda by the hand at the time and the little girl was not hurt. In vain had Mrs. Hooven, hour after hour, walked the streets. After a while she no longer made any attempt to beg; nobody was stirring, nor did she even try to hunt for food with the stray dogs and cats.
It was for this that Lyman Derrick had been bought, the Governor ruined and broken, Annixter shot down, Hooven killed. The soup, puree a la Derby, was served, and at the same time, as hors d'oeuvres, ortolan patties, together with a tiny sandwich made of browned toast and thin slices of ham, sprinkled over with Parmesan cheese. The wine, so Mrs.
She could have danced without stopping until morning. Minna Hooven and Cutter were "promenading." Mrs. Hooven, with little Hilda already asleep on her knees, never took her eyes from her daughter's gown. As often as Minna passed near her she vented an energetic "pst! pst!" The metal tip of a white draw string was showing from underneath the waist of Minna's dress. Mrs.
Hooven and her little girl had begun from the very moment of her eviction. While she waited for Minna, watching every street car and every approaching pedestrian, a policeman appeared, asked what she did, and, receiving no satisfactory reply, promptly moved her on. Minna had had little assurance in facing the life struggle of the city. Mrs. Hooven had absolutely none.
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