SELMA

[_Tearfully._] Mother ain't been home at all yesterday or to-day. I can't get no sleep with this child. He just moans all night. I gotta get some sleep sometime! I'll jump outa the window first thing or I'll let the baby lie in the middle o' the street an' run away so no policeman can't never find me!

JOHN

[_Looks at the strange child._] Looks bad! Mother, why don't you try an'

do somethin' for the little beggar?

MRS. JOHN

[_Pushing SELMA and the perambulator out determinedly._] March outa this room. That can't be done, Paul. When you got your own you can't be lookin' out for other people's brats. That k.n.o.bbe woman c'n look after her own affairs. It's different with Selma. [_To the girl._] You c'n come in when you want to. You c'n come in here after a while an' take a nap even.

[_She locks the door._

JOHN

You used to take a good deal o' interest in k.n.o.bbe's dirty little brats.

MRS. JOHN

You don' understan' that. I don' want our little Adelbert to be catchin'

sore eyes or convulsions or somethin' like that.

JOHN

Maybe you're right. Only, don't go an' call him Adelbert, mother. That ain't a good thing to do, to call a child by the same name as one that was carried off, unbaptised, a week after it was born. Let that be, mother. I can't stand for that, mother,

_A knocking is heard at the door. JOHN is about to open._

MRS. JOHN

What's that?

JOHN

Well, somebody wants to get in!

MRS. JOHN

[_Hastily turning the key in the lock._] I ain't goin' to have everybody runnin' in on me now that I'm sick as this. [_She listens at the door and then calls out:_] I can't open! What d'you want?

A WOMAN'S VOICE

[_Somewhat deep and mannish in tone._] It is Mrs. Ha.s.senreuter.

MRS. JOHN

[_Surprised._] Goodness gracious! [_She opens the door._] I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ha.s.senreuter! I didn't even know who it was!

_MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER has now entered, followed by WALBURGA. She is a colossal, asthmatic lady aver fifty. WALBURGA is dressed with greater simplicity than in the first act. She carries a rather large package._

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

How do you do, Mrs. John? Although climbing stairs is ... very hard for me ... I wanted to see how everything ... goes with you after the ...

yes, the very happy event.

MRS. JOHN

I'm gettin' along again kind o' half way.

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

That is probably your husband, Mrs. John? Well, one must say, one is bound to say, that your dear wife, in the long time of waiting--never complained, was always cheery and merry, and did her work well for my husband upstairs.

JOHN

That's right. She was mighty glad, too.

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

Well, then we'll have the pleasure--at least, your wife will have the pleasure of seeing you at home oftener than heretofore.

MRS. JOHN

I has a good husband, Mrs. Ha.s.senreuter, who takes care o' me an' has good habits. An' because Paul was workin' out o town you musn't think there was any danger o' his leavin' me. But a man like that, where his brother has a boy o' twelve in the non-commissioned officers' school ...

it's no kind o' life for him havin' no children o' his own. He gets to thinkin' queer thoughts. There he is in Hamburg, makin' good money, an'

he has the chance every day and--well--then he takes a notion, maybe, he'd like to go to America.

JOHN

Oh, that was never more'n a thought.

MRS. JOHN

Well, you see, with us poor people ... it's hard-earned bread that we eats ... an' yet ... [_lightly she runs her hand through JOHN'S hair_]

even if there's one more an' you has more cares on that account--you see how the tears is runnin' down his cheeks--well, he's mighty happy anyhow!

JOHN

That's because three years ago we had a little feller an' when he was a week old he took sick an' died.

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

My husband has already ... yes, my husband did tell me about that ... how deeply you grieved over that little son of yours. You know how it is ...

you know how my good husband has his eyes and his heart open to everything. And if it's a question of people who are about him or who give him their services--then everything good or bad, yes, everything good or bad that happens to them, seems just as though it had happened to himself.

MRS. JOHN

I mind as if it was this day how he sat in the carridge that time with the little child's coffin on his knees. He wouldn't let the gravedigger so much as touch it.