The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-02-01
oNS WITHOUT
PREACHERS.

Beautiful winters day yesterday,
wasn't it?
Just frost enough in the air 10 make
1t fun to wax.
The wind whistlcd In from the lake.
but what's 4 winters wind when you
are warm and CHEEKY, with a bright fire
waiting for you. and face thai you
love sitting in the shadow till You come
home?
If you are not warm and CHEEKY and
If there Is no fire?
That is a little different?
There is little woman over on WAL
dron street who thought yesterday
bitter day.
She walked the streets all day long,
looking for work.
She didn't get it.
She doesn't look very strong. and
people cannot bother with invalids.
At times, too, when she asked for
work her voice trembled and that did
not make a good impression. People
want CHEEKY women to do their work.
It is little hard, though, to hold
the voice quite steady when you haven't
eaten solid food for week, and it Is
not the easiest thing in the world to
look pleasant when the baby is at home
crying for something to eat.
Little Mrs. Covyeow couldn't tell you
word about the labor question. She
does not know what the word Social
ism means. but she can tell you all
about hunger and despair and the
aching Of q desperate heart. She came
to Chicago from Milwaukee a little
while ago.
Stupid things the poor are.
She might have saved her fare and
staid in Milwaukee, mightn't she? But
then, you see, her husband was In the
Marine hospital here, and she had
silly idea that he might want to see
her poor worn face before he dies there
among strangers and so she came here
to be near him. And here she is, she
and her seven children, all hungry and
all half frozen while you and I sit by
the fire ana laugh at the old, old tales
Of want and human agony and tell each
other that the times never were so good
as now.
Yet she is starving, she and these
children, and today, this very day, the
where she lived Is going to turn the
little family out into the streets.
Where will they go?
Who knows?
Who cares?
The eldest daughter has found work
and when she found it there was such
sound Of happy weeping in the dark
little basement that the woman from
upstairs came running down to see
what had happened.
Two dollars week the girl gets. She
children have milk and bread and coffee
now.
But there are no fires in the house
and no money for the landlord, and out
In the street they must go even with
the best they can do with the ~ a week
that the eldest girl earns.
The little girl sat by the window all
day yesterday watching for her mother
to come home. II can tell the minute
see her. she said, IL she has rot
work" and when she did see her mother
coming she ran and hid her pinched
little face and would not let her mother
see her cry.
And this morning the boy you would
die for complained because the oat-
meal for his breakfast was not cooked
exactly to his taste. And the little girl
who Is your pride and Joy cried because
you had ORANGES instead Of crane fruit
for her breakfast.
How would it be to take that little
girl and that little boy over to Waldron
street and let them talk with those
children over there, those children who
have not eaten decent food in weeks
and who have not known what it is to
be warm since winter begun?-Wini-
fred Black in the American.