The Maid's Quarters Read Online Free PDF

his hat to her
and to the other women standing nearby. She was struck, as she was yesterday
but refused to think on it at the time, that this Albert Donahue was a gentle
man. Tall and lean, but with broad shoulders, he towered over most of the men,
all but Mr. McKinnell, who was eyeing him now with distrust as were most of her
neighbors. Donahue was staring at her and walking toward her, as if she were
the only person on the street and there were not pots and pans and bits of
chairs strewn about his feet and the yard. She wanted to look away, away from
the intensity of his gaze, but she could not.
    “They’ve ransacked the property, Mr. Donahue,” Nyturn said
then. “We couldn’t stop them, and they turned on us. Wild animals they are.
Look at poor Williams over there with his teeth near gone.”
    “They’re gone,” Robbie Duff called out, and held up a fist
full of teeth. “He’s got a soft mouth.”
    “What malarkey!” Mr. McKinnell shouted. “Alice stopped to
tell us last night that the agent would be dropping off a key here so she’s
able to get her brother’s medicine. I’ve been on the lookout, staying back from
Mass, but no one knocked at my door and I didn’t know nothing till I heard
crashing and shouting from the Porterman house. Is your men that done this with no provocation!”
    “No provocation? They’re squatters! Behind on their rent and
only here as long as they were because of your good graces,” Nyturn said. “We
came to salvage what furniture and wares we could to sell to make up for the
lost revenue and found them inside tearing the place to pieces.”
    The crowd groaned and shouted their indignation. Mr. Donahue
turned to Nyturn. “They were inside ahead of your arrival making this mess?”
    “They were!” Nyturn said, and looked at his crew of men.
    “Throwing furniture out the door as we got here, sir!” one
of the men said. “We just tried to stop them.”
    Donahue nodded and looked around the yard and at Alice as
she knelt beside her ma and Jimmy. Her ma stood, wiping her face of dirt and
tears with the edge of her apron as she did.
    “Are you Mr. Donahue?” Maeve asked.
    “Let it go, Ma,” Alice said, and rose to hold her arm.
    Maeve shook off her daughter’s hand. “I won’t be silent,
Alice. This man, all nice in his fancy clothes, will hear the truth from me, he
will, and not some fairy tale this villain is telling.”
    “Mind your place in front of your betters, woman,” Nyturn
said.
    Mr. Donahue turned and stared at his employee. “I’m willing
to listen to her, Mr. Nyturn. Thank you for your input.”
    Maeve waited till he looked at her and reached down into her
apron pocket. “Here. Here is your two dollars. That is what I was behind on the
rent, and I won’t have you or your men calling me a moocher. I won’t!”
    “Two dollars? Nothing compared to what she owes!” Nyturn
said. “The police should be here any minute, sir. Let them straighten this
lying thief out.”
    “I am not a thief! And here are the receipts to prove it!”
Maeve said, as she dug into the box she’d carried out of her house. “Here!
Look! Here are the slips signed by him there.”
    Maeve’s hands shook as she sorted through the small pieces
of paper. Alice sought to catch them before they landed on the frozen mucky
ground and straightened one out while her ma handed them to Mr. Donahue.
    “This is what your agent gives me every month when I’ve paid
the rent. I have them all,” Maeve said.
    Nyturn picked one off the ground, looked at it, and laughed.
“Why these only say the date. Not the amount given or who it was given to or
anything. Are you daft, woman?”
    “You gave me one of these every month when I paid, don’t
deny it!”
    Nyturn shrugged. “Then tell me what it says.”
    “I can’t,” Maeve said quietly. “I can’t read and you know
it. You gave me one of these every time I paid and told me it was my receipt.”
    “There’s nothing on this slip,