The cold was blowing in at the open door, and his tone was a little like that of a man who wants to say, but does not feel it wise to do so, “Come in and shut the door after you!”

“Your daughter!” I said, trying to think of something to say that would show what I thought of him, her, and their dirty pretense; “your daughter!  Hell!”

“Young man,” said he, drawing himself up stiffly, “what do you mean—?”

“I mean to find my mother!” I cried.  “Where is she?”

Suddenly the thought of being halted thus longer, and the fear that my mother was not there, drove me crazy.  I lunged at Rucker, and with a sweep of my arms, threw him staggering across the room.  The girl screamed, and ran to, and behind him.  I stormed through to the kitchen, expecting to find my mother back there, working for this smooth, sly, scroundrelly pair; but the place was deserted.  There were dirty pots and pans about; and a pile of unwashed dishes stacked high in the sink—­and this struck me with despair.  If my mother had been about, and able to work, such a thing would have been impossible.  So she either was not there or was not able to work—­my instinct told me that; and I ran to the foot of the stairs, and calling as I had so often done when a child, “Ma, Ma!  Where are you, ma!” I waited to hear her answer.

Rucker, pale as a sheet, came up to me, his quivering mouth trying to work itself into a sneaking sort of smile.

“Why, Jacob, Jakey,” he drooled, “is this you?  I didn’t know you.  Sit down, my son, and I’ll tell you the sad, sad news!”

I heard him, but I did not trust nor understand him, and I went through that house from cellar to garret, looking for her; my heart freezing within me as I saw how impossible it would be for her to live so.  There were two bedrooms, both beds lying just as they had been left in the morning—­and my mother always opened her beds up for an airing when she rose, and made them up right after breakfast.

The room occupied by the young woman was the room of a slut; the clothes she had taken off the night before, or even before that, lay in a ring about the place where her feet had been when she dropped them in the dust and lint which rolled about in the corners like feathers.  Her corset was thrown down in a corner; shoes and stockings littered the floor; her comb was clogged with red hair like a wire fence with dead grass after a freshet; dingy, grimy underclothing lay about.  I peered into a closet, in which there were more garments on the floor than on the nails.  The other bedroom was quite as unkempt; looking as if the occupant must always do his chamber work at the last moment before going to bed.  They were as unclean outwardly as inwardly.