The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-08-10
HELEN OF TROY.

the city of her nativity and ironed, ironed,
ironed; hour after hour, all day long, silent
ly pushing aside with red aud swollen
hands the polished white cuffs which found
their way to every part of the civilized
world.
For the modern Helen was a ''Troy
Laundry Girl"
Had you told her that the work done by
her hands was actually sent not only to
every part of her own land, but to Europe
and the islands of the sea, she would have
stared duly at you without in the least
comprehending the scope of her work.
For in the curriculum of the school in
which her education had been shaped, the
only geography known was that OF the
streets.
The whole world outside of Troy was
labelled and set aside as "Unexplored Ter
ritory."
The ~thoroughfare on which stood the
tenement in which she was born, was of
that order common to our older cities, in
which the proportion had long since been
lost between the number of inhabitants,
human, canine and feline, and the visible
supply of clothing and food-as had that
also between Christian graces, and the
degradation and filth.
Dukes Alley was, in point of fact, the
"Five Points" of thrifty. Christian, mod
ern Troy.
Helen was a child ofthe Alley. Twenty
years before our story opens she had been
born the child of a thief, the first offspring
of a marriage with a feeble minded girl,
poor and degraded as herself.
Not a parentage calculated to endow its
children with shining virtues by any known
laws of heredity.
For ten years she had fought and
scratched and sworn her way through life
in Dukes Alley, and 'held her own with
the best of Them" which, interpreted by
the outer world, would have read, "the
worst of them"
In the ten years, almost as many little
brothers and sisters had successfully come,
walled out for a shorter or longer periods
their feeble protest against the hard con
ditions of their environment, and gone the
silent way.
Only one had survived the struggle;
Rhoda, four years younger than Helen.
The neighbors had been known to say,
otis lucky Bills folks's young 'nns dies
of, for don't know how they'd ever raise
EN-, n they wouldn't be good for nothin'
If they did raise EN-"
''Bill's folks were not held in high es-
TEEN ever in Dukes Alley.
"Don't let any on EN- lick We, Nell.
Let 'em know ye're as good as any on
EN-" had been the parental counsel.
Bills ideas of goodness" was not. per-
haps, that held by his Christian and phil
anthropic fellow citizens in the broader
and less crowded streets near by. To Bill
its metes and bounds were, grit-muscle.
In the society of the Alley, I'm as good a
man as he, - freely translated would have
been, "He can't lick me-"
Helen's leanings towards goodness"
had been been developed solely on this
line. Untaught, defiant, stupid, the one
tender spot in her heart was her love for
Rhoda.
clay a hand on Rhody, m IN scratch
yer eyes out" was an edict frequently is
sued against her companions of the alley,
and they knew that safety lay in obedience
An epidemic swept over the city, and
Dukes Alley was decimated. When the
health officers invaded Bills domicile and
carried out its stricken inmates, kind Mis-
tress Murphy next door took Nell and
Rhoda into her room behind the saloon, to
stay until their parents return. But all
adversary ''better" than Bill had at last
tested strength With him, and he was forced
to yield. What could be expected of Bills
wife but that she should do now what she
had unquestioningly done through all her
welded life, follow Bill. So they never
came back to the tenement in Duke's AL
ley.
Mistress Murphy told the orphans that
JHClT pdTtnlS htit ttau. ~ ANcii uo'i
intellect it meant little beyond a cessation
of kicks and blows. She had not yet Crap
pied with the problem of the food and
clothing supply.
Mistress Murphy solved it for her.
'sIt's here yen stay and yen help me in
the saloon for the bite and sup ven made;
and as for Rhody. why what'H kape one'I
kape two. But I'm thinkin' what IN do
wild her at all to kape her out of the way,
for it's no earthly use she is for the work,
and she'll be in the way in the saloon. Its
thinkin' | am III iist sind her around to
the public school to kape her out of the
way
School for Rhodyl
Nell seized upon the idea greedily. as
something which in q dim, mysterious
manner was to differentiate Rhoda from
the denizens of the alley, and give her a
place among the children whom in her
envy she had jeered at as 'big-bugs. She,
Nell, was TO continue, unquestioningly, a
part of the life of the alley; but Rhoda
was to take her place in the world outside.
The heart of poor, depraved Nell swelled,
not with envy, but with pride.
Three years more passed. In school
Rhnda easily outranked the children of her