The Washington times., 1911-05-13

that the baby on the first foo
H. was i'll and had gone down ther
to see IL there was anything sh
might do for it. Until then she had see
nothing but the outside of the othe
doors from the. hall. and they looked t
different from our own.
But once inside-well, l guess .hat',
where the 200 years. if not the 400 years
back of US native Americans counts.
why, Billy" she cried, lit was aw
fuL III never get that picture out o.
mind II live to be a hundred"
What's the matter?" l asked.
why, the poor little thing"
What poor little thing?' Interrupt.
'MicheleS baby. 1t lay there in dirty
rags, with its pinched white face star,
ing up at me as though just begging fol
clean bed"
What's the matter with ttT'
Matter with it? It's wonder II ism:
dead and buried. The district nurse
came In while l was there and told me-
she shuddered = that they'd beer
feeding II on macaroni cooked In greasy
gravy. And it isn't six months old yet :
No wonder 1t looked white" / said
remembering how we had discussed fol
week the wisdom of giving Dick the
coddIed white of an egg at that age
Why, the conditions down there are
terrible" cried Ruth. Michele must be
very, very poor. The floor wasn'i
wash washed, ~ gon thc couldn't see out of the win
She held up her hands. unable to find
words
That does sound bad" said.
Its criminal BilIy-we can't allow a
family in the same house with US to
suffer like that, can we?'
shook my head
Then go down and see what you can
90. | guess we can squeeze out so cents
Tor them, can't we, Billy?'
i guess you could squeeze 50 cents
out of stone for a sick baby" said.
The upshot of ii was that I went
down and saw Michele. AS Ruth had
clean, but they didn't impress me as be-
Ing In so bad a condition as she had de-
scribed them. Perhaps my work in the
dirt.
found Michele a healthy, temperate.
able-bodied man, and l learned that he
was earning as muclf as l. Not only
that, but the women took in garments
to hnish and picked up the matter Gf
two or three dollars week extra.
There were tive in the family, but
they were far from being in want. Ia
fact, Michele had a good bank account.
They had all they wanted to eat, were
warm and really prosperous.
There was absolutely no need of the
dirt. 1t was there because they didn't
mind 1t. A five-cent cake of soap would
nave Uldue IHe TOOIlS CltdI d whistle
and there were two wtxlen 90 do the
scrubbing. / didn't leave my so cents.
but | came back upstairs with a Is.ter
appreciation, II that were possible, Of
what such a woman as Ruth means to
q man.
Even the baby began to get better as
soon as the district nurse drove into the
parents head few facts about sensible
infant feeding.
| don't want to make ont that life is
all beer and skittles for the tenement
dwellers. 1t isn't. But ] ran across
any number of such cases as this.
bad as they appeared on the surfaB.
Taking into account the number OF
people who were gathered together here
In small area, | didn't see among the
temperate and able-bodied ami worse
examples of hard luck than 1 saw
among my former associates.
In fact, Of sheer abstract hard luck
didn't see as much. In 70 per cent OF
own making-either the man was a
drunkard or the women slovenly, or thc
whole family was just naturally vicious.
Ignorance may excuse some of thts,
but not all of 1t. Perhaps I'm not what
you'd call sympathetic, but I've heard
lot Of men talk about these people in
way that sounds to me like twaddle.
never ran across a family down here
Bonnington's wife endured for years
without wh1mper.
bennington was a clerk with a big IN
surance company. He lived four houses
was earning about $500 a year when
he died.
He left five children and he never had
money enough even to insure in bis
own company. He didn't leave d cent
When Helen bennington CAM back
from the grave 1t was to face the PROB
lem of supporting, unaided, either by
experience or relatives, fve children
ranging from twelve to one.
She was a shy, retiring little body
who had sapped her strength in just
bringing the children into the world and
caring for them in the privacy of her
home.
She had neither the temperament nor
the training to face the world. But she
She sold out of the house what
things she could spare, secured cheap
rooms on the outskirts Of the neigh
borhood, and announced that she would
do sewing.
What 1t cost her to come back among
her old friends and do that is a par
ticularly choice type or agony that it
would be impossible for a tenement
widow to appreciate
And this q same self-respect which
both Helens education and her en-
vtronment forced her to maintain, ham
dicapped her in other. ways You
from your table; you couldn't give her
old clothes or old shoes or money. 1t
wasn't her fault because this was so;
It wasn't your fault.
When her children were sick she
couldn't send them off to the public
wards of the hospitals. In the first
place half the hospitals wouldn't take
them as charity patents, simply be-
cause she maintained a certain dignity,
and In the second place the idea, by
education, was so repugnant to her that
It never entered her head to try.
So she stayed at home and sewed
from daylight until she couldn't hold
open her eyes at night. That's where
She not only sewed her fingers to the
bone, but while doing it she suffered
a very fine kind of torture wondering
what would happen to the hve IL she
broke down. Asylums and homes and
hospitals don't imply any great dis
grace to most of the tenement dwellers,
but to woman Of that type they
mean hell
God knows how she did it, but she
kept the five alive and clothed and in
school until the boy was about fifteen
and went to work.
When I hear of the lone widows of
the tenements. who are apt to be very
husky, and who work out with no
great mental struggle and who have
set the children to work as soon as
they are able to walk. l feel like
getting up in my seat and telling about
Helen Bonnington-a plain middle
classer.
And she was no exception either.
seem to have rambled off a bit
kere, but this was only one of many
(which seemed to me to be all in favor
1of neighbOrS.