Availability: Usually ships within 48 hours. Ships from and sold by Babblebooks.com.Running time: 12 hr 48 min
The unabridged classic on MP3 audio, narrated by Anais 9000. Three playback speeds on one disk; etext edition included. Running time: 12.8 hours (slow), 11.7 hours (medium), 10.7 hours (fast).
Chapter I
One morning, in the fall of 1880,
a middle-aged woman, accompanied
by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk's desk of
the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether
there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a
helpless, fleshy build, with a frank, open countenance and an innocent,
diffident manner. Her eyes were large and patient, and in them dwelt
such a shadow of distress as only those who have looked sympathetically
into the countenances of the distraught and helpless poor know anything
about. Any one could see where the daughter behind her got the timidity
and shamefacedness which now caused her to stand back and look
indifferently away. She was a product of the fancy, the feeling, the
innate affection of the untutored but poetic mind of her mother
combined with the gravity and poise which were characteristic of her
father. Poverty was driving them. Together they presented so appealing
a picture of honest necessity that even the clerk was affected.
"What is it you would like to do?" he said.
"Maybe you have some cleaning or scrubbing," she replied, timidly.
"I could wash the floors."
The daughter, hearing the statement, turned uneasily, not because it
irritated her to work, but because she hated people to guess at the
poverty that made it necessary. The clerk, manlike, was affected by the
evidence of beauty in distress. The innocent helplessness of the
daughter made [...]
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