When she seemed about to turn her restlessly bobbing head toward him,
his hands moved and the strong muscles of his face worked in excitement.
Then, when she smiled his way and for an instant there was a flash of
tiny, milk teeth, that man, the old silly, made the most dreadful facial
contortion, something between a wink, a smile, a booh and a grimace.
Then when she turned from him he sat there eating her up. I saw him look
reverently at her exquisite hands and at the awkward little legs
sticking out straight ahead. When her mother arranged her ruffles he
watched every move - absorbed. Then he would wait eager, hoping and
praying for her to smile his way again. . .
Why, I was waiting for her smile too and so was every one of the staid
and grown-up people in the car. I don't know when we would ever have
come out from the spell of that ten-months-old baby girl if just then
the conductor had not called out reproachfully - "Central Avenue -
Central Avenue." Then the pepper-and-salt man jumped and looked
nervously out and rushed for the door. I, myself, had to walk back two
blocks and when I turned at my corner he was still going back to his
street.
The Bay on Sunday Morning
Perhaps to go to Fort Mason on a sunny Sunday morning, that beautiful
relaxed moment of the whole week, and there to sit with others who have
no autos to go gallivanting in, and to sit idly gazing off at the bay.
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