Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from acareening building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads ofbabies to the street and the gutter. A wind of early autumn raisedyellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows. Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In allunhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. Inthe street infants played or fought with other infants or satstupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombedhair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, orscreamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curiouspostures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscurecorners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to thestreet. The building quivered and creaked from the weight ofhumanity stamping about in its bowels.

A small ragged girl dragged a red, bawling infant along thecrowded ways. He was hanging back, baby-like, bracing hiswrinkled, bare legs.

The little girl cried out: "Ah, Tommie, come ahn.Dere's Jimmie and fader. Don't be a-pullin' me back."

She jerked the baby's arm impatiently. He fell on his face,roaring. With a second jerk she pulled him to his feet, and theywent on. With the obstinacy of his order, he protested againstbeing dragged in a chosen direction. He made heroic endeavors tokeep on his legs, denounce his sister and consume a bit of orangepeeling which he chewed between the times of his infantileorations.

As the sullen-eyed man, followed by the blood-covered boy,drew near, the little girl burst into reproachful cries."Ah, Jimmie, youse bin fightin' agin."

The urchin swelled disdainfully.

"Ah, what deh hell, Mag. See?"

The little girl upbraided him, "Youse allus fightin', Jimmie,an' yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead,an' it's like we'll all get a poundin'."

She began to weep. The babe threw back his head and roared athis prospects.

"Ah, what deh hell!" cried Jimmie. Shut up er I'll smack yer mout'. See?"

As his sister continued her lamentations, he suddenly sworeand struck her. The little girl reeled and, recovering herself,burst into tears and quaveringly cursed him. As she slowlyretreated her brother advanced dealing her cuffs. The father heardand turned about.

"Stop that, Jim, d'yeh hear? Leave yer sister alone on thestreet. It's like I can never beat any sense into yer damnedwooden head."

The urchin raised his voice in defiance to his parent andcontinued his attacks. The babe bawled tremendously, protestingwith great violence. During his sister's hasty manoeuvres, he wasdragged by the arm.

Finally the procession plunged into one of the gruesome doorways.They crawled up dark stairways and along cold, gloomy halls.At last the father pushed open a door and they entered a lighted roomin which a large woman was rampant.

She stopped in a career from a seething stove to a pan-covered table.As the father and children filed in she peered at them.

"Eh, what? Been fightin' agin, by Gawd!" She threw herselfupon Jimmie. The urchin tried to dart behind the others and in thescuffle the babe, Tommie, was knocked down. He protested with hisusual vehemence, because they had bruised his tender shins againsta table leg.

The mother's massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping theurchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled. She dragged him to an unholy sink, and, soaking a rag in water,began to scrub his lacerated face with it. Jimmie screamed in painand tried to twist his shoulders out of the clasp of the huge arms.

The babe sat on the floor watching the scene, his face in contortionslike that of a woman at a tragedy. The father, with a newly-ladenedpipe in his mouth, crouched on a backless chair near the stove.Jimmie's cries annoyed him. He turned about and bellowed at his wife:

"Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer alluspoundin' 'im. When I come nights I can't git no rest 'causeyer allus poundin' a kid. Let up, d'yeh hear? Don't be alluspoundin' a kid."

The woman's operations on the urchin instantly increased in violence.At last she tossed him to a corner where he limply lay cursing and weeping.

The wife put her immense hands on her hips and with achieftain-like stride approached her husband.

"Ho," she said, with a great grunt of contempt. "An' what inthe devil are you stickin' your nose for?"

The babe crawled under the table and, turning, peered outcautiously. The ragged girl retreated and the urchin in the cornerdrew his legs carefully beneath him.

The man puffed his pipe calmly and put his great mudded bootson the back part of the stove.

"Go teh hell," he murmured, tranquilly.

The woman screamed and shook her fists before her husband'seyes. The rough yellow of her face and neck flared suddenlycrimson. She began to howl.

He puffed imperturbably at his pipe for a time, but finallyarose and began to look out at the window into the darkening chaosof back yards.

"You've been drinkin', Mary," he said. "You'd better let upon the bot', ol' woman, or you'll git done."

"You're a liar. I ain't had a drop," she roared in reply.

They had a lurid altercation, in which they damned eachother's souls with frequence.

The babe was staring out from under the table, his small faceworking in his excitement.

The ragged girl went stealthily over to the corner where theurchin lay.

"Are yehs hurted much, Jimmie?" she whispered timidly.

"Not a damn bit! See?" growled the little boy.

"Will I wash deh blood?"

"Naw!"

"Will I--"

"When I catch dat Riley kid I'll break 'is face! Dat's right! See?"

He turned his face to the wall as if resolved to grimly bidehis time.

In the quarrel between husband and wife, the woman was victor. The man grabbed his hat and rushed from the room, apparentlydetermined upon a vengeful drunk. She followed to the door andthundered at him as he made his way down stairs.

She returned and stirred up the room until her children werebobbing about like bubbles.

"Git outa deh way," she persistently bawled, waving feetwith their dishevelled shoes near the heads of her children.She shrouded herself, puffing and snorting, in a cloud of steamat the stove, and eventually extracted a frying-pan full of potatoesthat hissed.

She flourished it. "Come teh yer suppers, now," she criedwith sudden exasperation. "Hurry up, now, er I'll help yeh!"

The children scrambled hastily. With prodigious clatter theyarranged themselves at table. The babe sat with his feet danglinghigh from a precarious infant chair and gorged his small stomach. Jimmie forced, with feverish rapidity, the grease-enveloped piecesbetween his wounded lips. Maggie, with side glances of fear ofinterruption, ate like a small pursued tigress.

The mother sat blinking at them. She delivered reproaches,swallowed potatoes and drank from a yellow-brown bottle.After a time her mood changed and she wept as she carriedlittle Tommie into another room and laid him to sleepwith his fists doubled in an old quilt of faded redand green grandeur. Then she came and moaned by the stove.She rocked to and fro upon a chair, shedding tearsand crooning miserably to the two children about their"poor mother" and "yer fader, damn 'is soul."

The little girl plodded between the table and the chair witha dish-pan on it. She tottered on her small legs beneath burdensof dishes.

Jimmie sat nursing his various wounds. He cast furtive glancesat his mother. His practised eye perceived her gradually emergefrom a muddled mist of sentiment until her brain burned indrunken heat. He sat breathless.

Maggie broke a plate.

The mother started to her feet as if propelled.

"Good Gawd," she howled. Her eyes glittered on her child withsudden hatred. The fervent red of her face turned almost topurple. The little boy ran to the halls, shrieking like a monk inan earthquake.

He floundered about in darkness until he found the stairs. He stumbled,panic-stricken, to the next floor. An old woman opened a door.A light behind her threw a flare on the urchin's quivering face.

"Eh, Gawd, child, what is it dis time? Is yer fader beatin'yer mudder, or yer mudder beatin' yer fader?"