The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1889-08-02
HELEN OF TROY.
BY OLIVE GREEN

IL
Helen of Troy bent over q long table
in the city of nativity and ironed,
lroned, ironed, hour after hour, silently
pushing aside with red and 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 ut you without
in the least comprchending the scope of
her work.
Us 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
labeled and set aside as "Unexplored
Territory"
\ The thoroughfare on which stood the
Rement in which she was born was 81
kind common to our older cities in
ich the proportions had long since
IN lost between the number of in
%bitants, human. canine, feline, and
visible supply of clothing and food
:As had that also between the christian
races, and the degradation and filth.
Z Dukes alley was, in point of fact, the
l'five Points" of thrifty, christian,
modern Troy.
Helen was n child of the alley.
Twenty years before our Story opens
she had been born the child of a thief,
the first offspring Of a marriage with a
predetermined girl as poor and degraded
as herself.
Not a ~parentage calculated to endow
its children with shining virtues by any
known laws of hereditv.
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 inter-
preted 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 q shorter or longer
period their feeble protest against the
hard conditions of their environment,
and gone the silent way.
Only II had survived the struggle,
Rhoda, four Years younger than Helen.
The neighbors had been known to
say, cts lucky Bills folks young 'uns
dies off, for I don't know how they'd
ever raise 'em, m they would not be
good for nothin' if they did raise EN-"
Bills folks" were not held in high
esteem even in Dukes alley.
Don't let 'em lick you, Nell! Let
EN- know ye're as good as any on 'em,"
had been the parental counsel.
Bills idea of good" was not perhaps
that held by his christian and philan-
thropic fellowcitizens in the broader
and less crowded streets heal by.
10 Bill its metes and bounds were
grit-muscle.
In the society of the alley. I'm as
good a man a. he," freely translated
would have been, "He can't lick me-"
Helen's leanings toward goodness"
had been developed solely on this line.
Untaught, defiant, stupid, the one
tender spot in her heart was her love
for Rhoda.
Lay a hand on Rhoda, MIL scratch
yyer- eyes nut, edict frequently
issued against her companions of the
alley, and they knew hat safety lay in
obedience. -
An epidemic swept over the city, and
Dukes alley was decimated.
When the health officer invaded Bills
domicile and carried out its stricken in.
mates, kind Mistress Murphy next
door took Nell and Rhoda into her
W room behind the saloon to stay un-
til their parents return.
But an 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 Dukes alley.
Mistress Murphy told the, orphans
their parents were dead.
Ta5Nell's dull intellect it meant little
beyond a cessation of kicks and blows.
She had not yet grappled with the
problem of the food and clothing sup
ply
AIRS. Murphy solved it for her.
6Ss here yell stay, and yell help me
le@ sloon for the bit of bite aud q
~ made; and as for Rhody, why,
skape onell kape two"
Ait I'm thinkin' what Tlldo wild her
Y al to kape her out B the way, for it's
earthly use she is for the work, and