None of them realized it,
but this really the influence of the new little girl with brown curls.
In that way it came to pass that Tommy lost many of his chances for being a
hero; but a new chance was coming.
Tommy lived in a large tenement-house on one of the back streets of San
Francisco. Seven other families lived in the same house. One Tuesday
evening, Mrs. Carter told the woman who lived across the hall that she had
done the hardest day's work of her life, and was so dead tired that she
felt as if she would like to go to bed and never get up.
At five o'clock the next morning, she, Sissy, close beside her, and Tommy,
in a little cot at the farther end of the room, were all sound asleep.
Suddenly the walls of the big tenement-house began to sway from side to
side in the strangest manner, and there was at the same second a terrible
crashing noise. The kitchen table in the corner tipped over, and the dishes
in the corner cupboard slid to the floor and went to pieces. The big
wardrobe, which was a bureau and a clothes-closet all in one, moved out
into the middle of the room, and the stove fell down.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162