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And the capstone of humiliation seemed to be when Edward and his brother, after having for several mornings found no kindling wood or coal to build the fire, decided to go out of evenings with a basket and pick up what wood they could find in neighboring lots, and the bits of coal spilled from the coal-bin of the grocery-store, or left on the curbs before houses where coal had been delivered.
First he was led across the stage on his hind legs, looking very fierce and indignant, with a long tape trailing behind him; and, being set free at the proper moment, he gave one bound over the four-and-twenty blackbirds who happened to be in the way, and dashed off as if an enraged cook had actually been after him, straight downstairs to the coal-bin, where he sat glaring in the dark, till the fun was over.
But while prices are lower than in Panama or Colon they are every whit as high as in American stores; and most of us know something of the exorbitant profit our private merchants exact, particularly on manufactured goods. The government claims to run the commissary only to cover cost. Either that is a crude government joke or there is a colored gentleman esconced in the coal-bin.
The combination of color was indescribably pictorial, and as lurid and suggestive as an old-fashioned Orthodox sermon. As I went through the lower hall, I found Mr. Bowker assisting Helen to search the coal-bin. "Don't smile," she cried. "Punch says, 'Sometimes the least likeliest place is more likelier than the most likeliest, and sure enough, here is the hat!
Outbursts of war talk thrilled me, and occasionally I had a little adventure of my own, as when one day, in visiting our cellar, I heard a noise in the coal-bin. I investigated and discovered a negro woman concealed there. I had been reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, as well as listening to the conversation of my elders, so I was vastly stirred over the negro question.
Yesterday Sister was trying to get some coal out of the coal-bin with a shovel that turned round and round on its handle; she was unsuccessful. I said, "Let me, Sister!" She said, "Why?" And I: "Because I think I can do it better." "Why should you think that?" "Because all human beings do," I said, and, luckily, she smiled. She was washing her caps out in a bowl in the afternoon when I came on.
"I thought about the little thing all that mornin' layin' all alone up there in that room that wa'n't no bigger'n a coal-bin. It's bad enough to be sick anywheres, but it's like havin' both legs in a trap to be sick in New York. Towards noon I went into one o' the flats first floor front it was with the kindlin' barrel, an' I give the woman to understand they was somebody sick in the house.
She followed them upstairs and downstairs, and tormented them to that extent, that Charlie gave it as his private opinion that he should not be in the least surprised, on going up there, to find that the two old women had made away with Caddy, and hidden her remains in the coal-bin.
Mary Cary opened the coal-bin, and with the tongs lifted a large lump of coal and put it in the grate. "It must be a dreadful thing to have, judging by his expression." She laughed and wiped her hands on her handkerchief. "I suggested peppermint and hot water, but he looked so reproachfully at me that I changed it to Compound Elixir of Hexagonal Serafoam. He's anxious to try that." "What is it?"
The cold woodshed became a chantry on the New England coast, the alley the wintry sea soon to embrace our ship, the saw-horses which stood between a coal-bin on one side and unused stalls filled with rubbish and kindling on the other the ways; the yard behind the lattice fence became a backwater, the flapping clothes the sails of ships that took refuge there on Mondays and Tuesdays.
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