Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1931-08-28
ROCKVILLE. MARYLAND FRIDAY MORNING, n
No. 60.

he was employed. There were no
children. Peter would have liked 1t,
had there been. With the strange
pride of the frustrated, strong Tessa
would never admit her disappointment.
At fifty, Tessa, with one of those
quick corrosive changes which can
sometimes attack the strong, began to
succumb to cruel form of rhcuma-
tlsm which knotted her joints so that
within period of two years she be-
came practically bedrdden. 1t was
terrible to be forced to behold the slow
disintegratlon of the magnificent body
that had been Tessn's, and with the
physical, there began slowly and
surely to sink into desuetude the men
tai. A companlonable. sweet-natured
and helpful woman began to slump
into querulous, bed-rldden invalid,
half frantic most of the time with
pain; intolerant of 1t, all of the time.
Poor Peter! The spectacle OF Tessa,
slipping into her invalidism was one
which he could only watch with a
sense of helpless despair. More and
more, her predicament became n drain
upon his time and energies.
At fifty-five he had lost the position
of superintendent over the large upper
west side apartment house, and on
smaller pay, and In quarters much
more cramped, was presiding over the
tawdry destinles Of slx-story tene
ment house on the lower east side
This time his living quarters were two
rooms below the level of the sidewalk,
and his monthly stipend less than half
of what 1t had been In the larger
building. And yet In some ways life
was easier The little apartment he
shared with the now completely bed
ridden Tessa, meant fewer hours to
devote to the chores of keeping the
household moving.
And yet. there was about the envl-
ronment of this house something so
depressing that 1t seemed to Peter,
struggling always with the problem Of
keeping afloat the sinking spirits Of
Tessa, as If the rows of days were
simply too drab to face 1t was not
alone his own plight, but day after
day there marched before his troubled
eyes the woes of the poverty-strlcken,
the lame, the halt, the blind, who
dwelt around them. Evictlons, for
reasons Of poverty or sickness, were
not unusual in the house where he
acted in the capacity Of janltor-of-all-
work. Usually this unsavory task fell
to him.
1t was grim, bitter Job, this busl-
ness of being ianltor to the poverty
stricken families OF the building.
Sickness lurked under that roof, crime,
CRIME and sometimes even hunger.
One old woman, as a matter Of fact,
had been found dead in her rear apart
ment of simple complaint easily dag
nosed. Hunger. Little wonder that
Tessa, who had always been sensitive
to pain OF others, lay there not only
drenched In her own misery, but seem
Ing to feel, with the antennae Of her
intuition, the poverty that lay every
where around her.
Babies cried in the tenements at
night. Late unsteady footsteps lurched
upstairs. Women In labor pains cried
out In the agony of bringing more life
Into these lusterless homes. From
time to time there sped in horror
through the dank and narrow house
news of child run over by truck;
the wage earning head OF household
falling from a scaffoldlng; the son of
household turning gangster and fac
ing the death house
Lean mean years filed with terror
OF one sort of another, but through
It all Peter and Tessa clnging fast
to the murky nest Of the two rear
rooms they called home and as time
moved on Peter becoming more and
more obsessed with the fear Of losing
his job through having to give more
and more time 10 the task OF tending
Tessa.
The night that he found a ruin OF Il
woman propped up against the door as
he was about to enter his apartment
proved memorable one. She was
gln-fogged creature with deep ruts OF
suffering and dissipation down the
still white flesh OF her face. A wreck
Of woman with strange sugges-
tlon Of splendOr left to her.
II was while he was picking her up
to carry her out to the curb and turn
her over to the mercles OF the corner
policeman, that recognition came to
Peter. Recognition, and flash Of an
ger so binding that II seemed to him
for moment that here, now nothing
could prevent his digging talons into
the throat Of the creature before him.
Pent up In him, all through the years,
we're passions about TO be released.
Here In his arms derellct, n rem
nant skeleton OF comic opera, was
the object Of his lifetime OF ha-
tired.
Somehow again, once more, II did
not work out that way Peters talons
did not sink In to blemIsh that last
remnant Of the beauty Of IIllda's
throat. He has given her roof, and in
her befogged way she knows that a
jantor, whom at heart she desplses
for being mental has come TO her
succor.
There are two women for Peter to
tend now. The helpless Tessa and the
curious temperamental derelict whom
they have taken into their home
Sometimes she sings and creates the
furOre OF cracked melody and pltlful
dance in the little tenement they all
share together.
Sometimes she rises In wrath and
strikes the old janltor whose humble
lot ahp shares