Bound Down; Or Life and Its Possibilities (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII. " Oh, Miss Mildred !" cried Cora, in her eagerness, half breaking away from Mrs. Haywood, who was busy dismantling the little figure, "you never saw, you never thought about, so funny a city as this, I am sure; almost like ' Five Points, ' only the nice people and all are mixed up together. Nobody begs; Uncle Hal says so; and, oh, how he laughed at the pennies I had saved out to give the street-sweepers; none of them either, Miss Mildred " There are no streets, are there, Cora ?" interrupted her listener. Having no time for metaphysics, or the discussion of causes and effects, the excited young lady rattled on, "And, Miss Mildred, I know you would just stare at the people ? couldn't help it. Queer! Umph!" And she closed her lips with a desperate spring, highly expressive of her opinion of the inadequateness of words. The ladies exchanged amused glances, while the child continued, " I never knew till this morning that I had seen real Indians; but I have seen them somewhere? oh, I believe I dreamed about them?not exactly like these, maybe, but a little nicer; these haven't good clothes at all. Some of them," and she lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, " haven't much of any at all, Miss Mildred. And then there were Chinamen with long braids of hair down to their feet, and Chinawomen with very red lips and cheeks, and hair parted out like spread wings on their heads; and then we saw somevery dark-complexioned ladies, with real pretty black eyes, and loose, lazy-looking clothes, shawls, and scarfs, and all that, but no bonnets on; and then there were ladies like you and Aunty, only they would drag their handsome dresses in the mud, and didn't seem to care; and there were nicely-dressed gentlemen with plenty of jewelry, and a great many with shabby-...