The slits look as if the owners of
the skulls got it there from an upward blow of a sharp tomahawk, from
a shorter man--who was no friend of theirs--just about the time they
died. The slits open occasionally, and mothers of the nation, mostly
holding their garments together at neck or bosom, lean out--at right
angles almost--and peer up and down the road, as if they are casually
curious as to what is keeping the rent collector so late this morning.
Then they shut up till late in the day, when a boy or two comes home
from work. The terrace should be called "Jim's Terrace" if the road
is not "James's" Road, because no bills ever seem to be paid there
as they are in our street--and for other reasons. There are four
houses, but seldom more than two of them occupied at one time--often
only one. Tenants never shift in, or at least are never seen to, but
they get there. The sign is a furtive candle light behind an old
table cloth, a skirt, or any rag of dark stuff tacked across the front
bedroom window, upstairs, and a shadow suggestive of a woman making up
a bed on the floor.
If more than two of the houses are occupied there is almost certain to
be an old granny with ragged grey hair, who folded her arms tight under
her ragged old breasts, and bends her tough old body, and sticks her
ragged grey old head out of the slit called a door, and squints up and
down the road, but not in the interests of mischief-making--they are
never here long enough--only out of mild, ragged, grey-headed
curiosity regarding the health or affairs of the rent collector.
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