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Indeed, in such a blind tumult of passion, could there be any truth? There was a rush forward, the horn of the car sounded, everything swayed violently to the right for perhaps ten yards or so, and there was a report like a pistol-shot. For a moment every one seemed running away. A woman, carrying a shawl-wrapped child, blundered into me, and sent me reeling back.
It was a rosy, healthy child, about a year old. The lady's handsome face suggested she was about seven-and-twenty. Among all the shawl-wrapped heaps of restless humanity around them, this pair looked very lovely together. The dusty lamplight fell upon them.
She flashed a quick glance around at the curious faces that regarded her so intently, and she eased her shawl-wrapped burden to the ground with the air of one who has reached her journey's end. "Yes, I plenty long ways," she assented placidly. "I don't stay by reservation no more. Too lonesome. One night I beat it. I work for you now." "How you know you work for me?"
For two days and two nights, while the good ship floundered on the tempestuous bosom of the overwrought ocean, they were gone from human ken. On the afternoon of the third day, the sea being calmer now, but still sufficiently rough to satisfy the most exacting, a few hardy and convalescent souls sat in a shawl-wrapped row on the lee side of the ship.
"He's got the baby too!" was the tenor of that victorious cry; and it was as though every man and boy and other person present felt a personal interest in the success of Jack's daring venture. The precious baby was saved; yes, he was hugging the bundle to his breast; and during a lull in the clamor they plainly heard the lusty cries that proceeded from that shawl-wrapped package.
The woman was twenty-two and looked forty-five, but the small, shawl-wrapped bundle of humanity that she held in her arms was her first child, and two years ago she had been accounted a neighbourhood beauty. Under her feet the flooring of the porch creaked its complaint of disrepair and the baby in her arms raised a shrill and peevish howl of malnutrition.
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