The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-13
Young Americans in Forest Of sIabs..LlttIe Bohemia

hernia" with William D. Howells found
on that coast a number of pleasant in
lets in which it was delightful to tarry,
for the vague people who stood on the
shore did a number of charmingly I'M
conventional things in an altogether
attractive manner. Those pieces of
the real Bohemia which immigration
has apportioned to the different cities
of America are seldom troubled by
cOnventionality, but since an uncon-
Ventional fact is never quite so at
tractiVe as an unconventional fancy, a
bit of transplanted Bohemia is not half
so inviting as the Bohemia that has
been invented.
A stroll through st. Paul's real Bo-
hernia invites many surprises. If you
talk to the oldest woman in the settle
ment-and you have to do it by means
of an interpreter, for though she is
over eighty and has been in this coun-
try forty years, she does not speak a
word of English-you will find that her
adopted country interests her very lit
tie; that she repudiates it's customs,
its ways, its inventions. She knows
not the name of sanitation; cleanliness
concerns her comparatively little, and
she will not eat white bread. Her
greatest pride is a white knitted coun-
terpane, yellow with age and frayed,
which was the most precious article
in an old oak chest which she took
with her to her husbands hut when
she was married almost seventy years
ago in tiny village not many miles
from Prague.
But if you meet a crowd of young
school boys returning from school to
the settlement you will find, If you lis
ten to their conversation, that it is
divided pretty evenly between what
teacher" said and did and the proud
standing of st. Paul in the American
association.
And this is not the only proof that
evolution is very rapid in this real Bo-
hernia.
When Prosperity Comes to Bohemian
When a Bohemian becomes prosper
Gus in st. Paul he does not move away
from his poorer countrymen. He builds
a superior house and fences in his
premises. Sometimes it is a brick
house, and the man who occupies such
house is, naturally, one of the great |
men of the colony. The mother of
fifteen children who takes in washing
to supplement the scanty income that |
her slow witted husband earns, comes |
to the brick-house man." as he is
called, for advice. He advises as to |
the investment of savings-for in real
Bohemia money is frequently boarded |
And always before the eyes of the b.
hemlan who would progress is the en-
couraging sight of the brick house
But in st. PauPs Little Bohemia brick
houses are few. They can be num-
bered on the fingers of one hand, and
there will be two fingers and thumb
to spare. The very poorest family
does not live in a house at all, but in a
cave. The upper end of Little b.
hemla is bounded by a creek that flows
into the Mississippi river, and about
a block up from the mouth of this
creek man has dug out in the soft
sandstone medium sized room. He
has lived there all this summer with
his wife and three children, but his
neighbors say that this winter he is
contemplating removing to a hut |
When this moving shall have been &C
complished, the cave man will have
taken one step up.
But there are too many huts in Lit
tie Bohemia and too many children
Perhaps there is no place in ST. Paul
that so nearly resembles a slum as do |
some or the places in this foreign COL
ony. TWO families are often crowded |
INTO one hut, and because of this |
crowdlng there is a bad sanitary con-
dition and often immortality. one
might pick a dozen houses in Little |
Bohenla and half a dozen in Little |
Poland, Which lies beyond, and have a |
collection rivaling the slums of New
York. But. because honeycombed in
with those houses are to be found the
self-respecting poor and the moder-
ately prosperous, the condition is not
hopeless. Moreover, in the summer,
at least, the children always have sun
light and fresh air.
A Sixteen-Year- Old Mother
The youngest mother in st. Paul is a
Bohemian. and lives in Little Bohemia. |
She will be sixteen in October and is
the mother of two children, the older
close to three years of age She lives |
with her mother. who has five children.
In hut of three rooms. This young |
mother, whose face resembles the |
painting of the Countess Potock. has
enjoyed perhaps two days of pure hap |
plness In her young life, the first when |
she made her first communion on her |
tenth birthday and walked in process |
sion with many other girls. who, like
her, wore white dresses, long white |
wells and white wreaths, and then, on |
the other day when. not yet thirteen, |
she put on the veil and wreath once |