I would have been on time, but Mr. Dempsey asked me to sweep the store again. I thought he would give me a quarter or even more, but I only got a dime. It wasn’t worth a dime to be kept from going to Kips. Instead, I have to sit around Mrs. Grayson’s apartment on Sutton Place while Mommy works the vacuum and washes Mrs. Grayson’s clothes in the sink.She puts on a housecoat over her skirt and sweater. It has so many flowers that it looks like wallpaper. As she buttons it up she tells me to sit in a kitchen chair and to read my book.“I don’t have a book,” I say.Mommy takes a book from her bag and hands it to me. It is a library book, Hans Brinker, a book about a person in another country where there is a lot of ice on the ground. It snows sometimes on 56th Street, but there is never any ice. Slush comes with the snow.You can always tell a library book because the corners are usually popping out with frayed cardboard, and I think of a new book and new snow, and how quickly both get dirty.
