#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #domesticdrudgery


I found Henri-Christian down the street, playing with the two smallest Phillips girls. The Phillipses had ten children, and even Henri-Christian could blend into their household without causing much notice.

Some parents kept their children from coming anywhere near Henri-Christian—whether from fear that dwarfishness was catching, I supposed, or from the popular superstition that his appearance was the result of his mother having fornicated with the Devil. I’d heard that one now and then, though everyone in the neighborhood knew better than to say it anywhere in the hearing of Jamie, Fergus, Ian, or Germain.

The Phillipses were Jewish, though, and apparently felt some kinship with a person whose differences set him aside; Henri-Christian was always welcome at their house, and it was in fact the first place I had thought to look for him. Their maid-of-all-work merely nodded when I asked whether one of the older children would walk home with him later, and went back to her washing; it was laundry day all over Philadelphia, and the humid atmosphere was aggravated by a score of steaming wash-tubs in the neighborhood, all fuming with the reek of washing-soda.

I went back quickly to the print-shop to tell Marsali where Henri-Christian was, and having relieved her fears, put on my wide-brimmed hat and announced my intent of going to buy some fish for dinner. Marsali and Jenny, armed respectively with a laundry-fork and a large paddle for clothes-stirring, gave me marked looks—both of them knew exactly how much I disliked doing laundry—but neither said anything.

I could have managed hanging out the washing, perhaps, but soothed my conscience on grounds that fish made an easy supper on laundry day. More importantly, I had to talk to Jamie, well away from the print-shop.

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