Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-11-30

from the same necessity that charity be-
gan at home and that self-sacrifice such as
she at that moment exemplified was moth
ing less sinful than suicide. The tears that
trickled down the burrows in her cheeks
while 1 preached didn't hinder me doing
what / considered my duty as a reasonable
heather. She was too tired to talk back,
and after supper she left me still peacocking
over the part had played in raising a
Christian missionary from the depths Of
willful self-destruction.
The next day 1 had note from the mis-
sionary, and, to this land of plenty, can you
believe what it told me?-that for six weeks
she had been unable to get scrap of work
to do whereby she earns her daily bread
and that for three weeks her allowance of
bread for herself and child had grown so
wretchedly insufficient that to keep from
going mad sitting still in enforced idIeness,
hungry, she had gone up the canal and in
helping souls as near starvation as was her
body had sought the fourth dimension of
her needs that undergraduates in others
makes possible at times.
The First Meeting.
The Sunday school she thus started held
its first meetings couple of logs under
the Aqueduct bridge. The class some days
numbered sixty Think of that many chill
dren Communicating with mules on the canal!
Soon the wife of canal man who, deter
mined to educate her children. had taken
a couple of rooms in an old frame building
just to one side under the bridge, invited the
missionary to hold meetings in the yard in
front of her living room. This yard. that
was nothing more than a piece of dirt, with
a fence around it. was speedily made to
bloom with a few flowers and shine with
cleanliness, and here all summer long, while
you, or You, or gayer ones than you, were
rafting over the bridge above in pursuit of
pleasure, realized chiefly in headache next
morning, this half-fed missionary was in
itiating her band of small social outcasts
into the divine worship of sorrow" and
proving its sublime form with the cruel facts
of her own life.
The Sunday exercises were supplemented
by two meetings during the week, when
the children were taught to read and sew.
These lessons speedily became the bright
est thing IN canll life, and every boat car
rying children tired to arrange it's trips to
make the most of this civilizing influence.
There was one exception. however. One
woman declined all Invitations to have her
four children come into the yard for les
sens with he rest.
mo, indeed" said she, as she stood in
her marine castle. her tousled head out the
window, framed in dilapidated sunbon-
net, pipe between her teeth-"no indeed !;
/ amt goin' to let no children of mine go
into that woman's. yard, l amt come to
that. thank you, 'sociatin' with them as
has landlord standin' at their door every
montn-no, indeedi'
Thus, you see, caste obtains even in ca
raj life, and according to its canons those
who live on rented property do not rank in
the social swim with those who own their
homes. While canal men pay S15 per trip
for their boat, this is not for the privilege
of residence, but for the wear and tear of
the commercial use 1t serves The home Is
thrown in. and when the boats are tied up
during the winter the families may live on
in them without charge.
Room Finally Secured.
When the weather grew cold this fall, a
man who owns string of mills in the vi
cinity of the canal, grateful to the mis-
sionary for the influence her presence ex-
ercised upon the hardened sinners sur
rounding him, offered her room in de-
serted mill that fronts on the towpath
nearly opposite Georgetown University
Thither we were bound, and after we had
gotten within stones throw of the build
ing, while / WIS not at all hilarious being
80 far removed from civilization into the
bosom of canal life. / did not realize the
full horror OF the situation until a nanny
goat came bounding up to greet US. had