"I want to see the Manager," he answered. "For the last five days I have
been coming here. I have made an application eight days ago and have had
no answer. Now," he said, "I have not applied to charity eight days
before I needed it. It is my last resource. I can't find any work. I'm a
tailor. During the season I have been sick, otherwise I would have saved
up for slack times. My wife has borne me a child two weeks ago and my
landlord threatens to put us out."
He used better English than the average workman and he was so dignified
in his appeal, as if he considered that the charity owed him help when
in distress. I told him that I would try to arrange that he see the
Manager as soon as possible. I, so to speak, cleared the path for him.
He was intercepted by Mr. Lawson, who in his cold voice asked him what
he wanted. The man explained his situation. He did not cry; he did not
whine. In simple words he said what he had to say. Mr. Lawson looked at
him with his piercing grey eyes. He seemed very interested in the man.
His dignity was so impressive, so manly. As he finished his tale Mr.
Lawson put his hand on the man's shoulder and dismissed him with very
kind words, saying that they would attend to it as soon as possible.
The man went away thanking him. I saw Mr. Lawson searching on his desk
and soon he had the man's application. He studied it in all its details.
All of a sudden he said to me: "You saw this man? I'm going to save him.
I am sure that everything he told is true, and I'm going to save him.
Such men should be saved. They are of a better kind and we are going to
save him from the degradation of the waiting room and association with
the derelicts--our regular customers."
"How much are you going to give him?" I asked, and at this moment I
thought very highly of Mr. Lawson. For such is human nature--excuse all
bad acts for a single good one.
"How much are we going to give him?" the gentleman repeated in an
astonished voice that had a tinge of sarcasm in it. "We are not going to
give him _anything_. Such men must be saved from pauperism. If we should
give him something he'd be lost. I want to save him; do you understand,
_save him_. I will give orders not to let him in the hall at all the
next time he comes."
As I went out I had in my mind a new interpretation of Christ's
crucifixion. Pontius Pilate wanted to save humanity by crucifying the
meek one.
"TOO GOOD TO THEM"
One afternoon there was a great commotion in the office. As soon as I
entered I felt that something extraordinary had happened.
"Did you hear the news?" one of the employees asked me. "Something awful
has happened."
"What is it?" I inquired curiously, as I knew that only something very
important could stir these hardened "charity workers."
"Why!" the young lady burst out, with horror in her voice. "Imagine! an
applicant, a mean, dirty applicant, a pauper, an immoral woman probably,
has slapped Mr. Cram's face."
"Did she? Really?" I exclaimed, and not being able to contain my joy I
laughed for the first time since I had crossed the door of the
institution. The lady wondered at my joy.
"What are you laughing for?" she asked. "Do you think it is fun to be
hit and insulted by an applicant? Mr. Cram is there the whole day
listening to their lies. He is one of the best men in the institution,
and along comes a dirty derelict, a pauper, and slaps him in the face.
Do you think it's fun? It shows how mean the poor are, how ungrateful,
impolite, criminal. You should not laugh about such things, Mr. Baer,"
she admonished reproachfully.
"But why did she do it?" I queried. "There must have been a reason. He
must have provoked her badly. Cram insults them all, and who knows what
terrible thing he said to this one!"
"No, no!" the young lady interrupted me, and her face took on an
expression of contempt and every time she pronounced the word applicant,
pauper, or any other characterisation of the poor who apply to charity,
she hissed it out between closed teeth, as though it were disgusting and
vile.
"No," she continued, "there is no reason strong enough to excuse her. To
slap the face of the one to whom you stretch a begging hand. Why, that's
the last rung of the ladder. It simply shows how unworthy they are of
charity. The first requirement of an applicant is to be humble. I know
whose fault it is," she insisted. "I know--" the last sentence conveyed
the intimation that I should question her, and I did so.
"It's Mr. Cram's own fault," she said. "He is _too good to them_--that's
the reason. I told him so," she finished, and sat down to her work.
Cram too good! Great God! If they call him _too good_, what about the
others? What about they themselves? Have I not yet seen it all--is more
horror to follow? All that I had witnessed in the basement presented
itself before me. Cram with the pipe between his teeth, reading an
application and putting his insolent questions, laughing in the
applicant's face, calling them liars, lazy, immoral women, dirty, and
all the rest of it.
"What happened next?" I asked the young lady. She had evidently felt
that I was not in sympathy with Cram's misfortune, for she answered very
brusquely:
"He had her arrested," and did not want to talk further. In vain I tried
to obtain details. Further than that she would not go.
I felt that Cram must have outdone himself to have provoked one of those
crushed souls to such an action. To tell the truth I had great
admiration for the woman who had done it. It gave me greater hope in the
redemption of humanity. I wanted to know all the details but could not
get them in the office. Cram himself was looked upon as a martyr. Once
when passing me he said: "You remember what I told you the other day?
They are a bad lot--and to think that I am a red hot Socialist. I hope
this will cure you of your soft heart," he added, as he walked away.
It took me three days before I learned the woman's address. I decided
to go and see her. One evening I walked up five flights of stairs of a
dingy tenement house. I knocked at the door and was soon allowed to
enter. As it was very cold the gas was frozen. The room where I sat, the
kitchen, was lighted by a candle stuck in an empty bottle. There was no
fire in the stove. I did not see the children, but heard their voices
from the adjoining room. "Mamma, bread. Mamma, who's there?" the little
ones queried. I told the woman frankly the object of my visit, without
telling her that I was employed by the charities. I only said that I had
learned through a friend what had happened and was interested to know
all about it from her own words. The children were continually
disturbing us with their questions and the rooms were so cold that I
could hardly stand it. I advised making a fire. Of course there was no
coal. I gave her some money to go down and buy some, also some bread and
butter and sugar. We were friends in a few minutes and she did not feel
very ill at ease. When I gave her the few cents I had not yet seen her
face, on account of the semi-darkness. Only her voice was so
well-modulated that a few words sufficed to indicate the personality of
the woman. Two big, sparkling eyes shone out from under her brows. She
told the children that she was going to buy bread and coal and they
clapped their little hands in joy, and as she closed the door one of
them asked: "Did the gentleman give you money? Is he from the
charities?"
"No," I answered, "I'm just a friend," and taking the candle I went into
the adjoining room where they were in bed covered with all the pillows
and clothes that the house afforded. There were two children. I gave
them some chocolate that I had bought for my own children, and soon we
became great friends.
"Have you any children?" the older child, about six years of age, asked
me suddenly.
"Yes--I have."
"How many?"
"Three," I told him.
"Have they always had what to eat?" the younger one, about five years
old, inquired.
"No," I said, in a voice choked with shame.
"No?" they both wondered, "and they have a papa. Mamma said all the
children who have papas have what to eat!" said the older one. "Yes,"
philosophised the younger, "but he gives away to other children. He's a
bad papa. Our papa was not a bad papa. He gave everything to his
children. That's the kind of papa we had."
The mother soon returned with her purchases, the coalman behind her.
Soon there was a fire in the stove. The tea kettle was set on the fire.
The children were given bread, and the house became very friendly. As my
eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness I remarked that the rooms
were kept very clean and orderly. Everything had its place. Some little
pictures on the walls were placed with taste. One would never have
suspected the actual want of bread on seeing the house. The quietness of
the children soon told me that they were sleeping. I waited until the
tea was ready. I casually learned that she was a country-woman of mine,
coming from Roumania and also from the same town. I even remembered some
of her relatives who were known as wealthy, as wealth goes in that
country. I lit another candle. The tea was ready. We sat opposite one
another to drink the beverage. The fact that we were from the same
country had given rise to a feeling of friendship between us. Instead of
talking about herself she inquired about my family and remembered my
mother, brothers and grandfather.
I had almost forgotten the object of my visit, so busily were we engaged
in questioning one another about relatives and acquaintances. All the
misery she had suffered had not stamped out her dignity. Good breeding
spoke from every line of her face, from every curve of her body. She
must have been about thirty years old. She spoke of her poverty as of a
misfortune that might happen to any one. She was not ashamed of it, as
of a vice, as most of the poor are--as they are made to feel once they
come under the influence of charity; and this made my mission a very
easy one. As I write these lines her beautiful modulated voice still
rings in my ears. Till late into the night we sat opposite each other.
Everything that I had witnessed in the last few months passed before my
mental vision. Every evil became accentuated, for I felt that the woman
before me must have been shamefully insulted. A refined, even educated,
woman of her temperament would not commit violence if she were decently
treated. Without her story I knew that she was right, but the poison of
mistrust had touched my heart also. I wanted to know, to question, to
bruise, to delve into her heart. And with all the ability I had acquired
as an investigator I brought her round to tell me her story; not merely
how she came to hit Cram, but from the very beginning, since she
married.
At first she refused, but I used such arguments that she at last
acquiesced. With one of her children, who could not sleep on account of
a headache, in her arms, in the half dark room, she told me her story of
woe, simply and with dignity, and if here and there was a note of pathos
or a tear she restrained it and went on bravely to the end. And this was
her story:
"Eight years ago, in Roumania, I married the man of my choice. He was a
dentist. Soon after our marriage a terrible persecution against the Jews
started. Jews were killed on the slightest pretext and their murderers
were never brought to justice. The parents of the murdered, fearing
vengeance, never tried to prosecute the criminals. It went so far that
killing a Jew became a kind of sport. We quit that cursed land and came
here. My husband, not knowing English, could not pass the State Board
examination and worked clandestinely until he was trapped by the County
Medical Association. He paid his fine and was let go free, but he was
afraid to work, and to hire out to others in this line is so poorly paid
that he could not even think of it. Soon the little money we had was
gone and to earn our bread he went to work in a tailor's factory as
presser. A child was born. Not accustomed to manual work, and angry at
what he considered his degradation, he fell sick. When he got better he
took to drink. Oh! those nights when he came home unable to stand on his
feet and crying. I would talk to him the next day--cry--and threaten to
leave him. He would promise to reform and the next pay day he would come
home drunk again.
"A second child was soon born. One day, at work, he spat blood. They
brought him home. He went to bed and when the youngest child was six
weeks old he died of consumption. This was five years ago. I was unable
to do anything to earn my living. Some friends helped me out for a while
but soon I was forgotten. On account of my small children I could not go
out to work. I also knew no trade. A few months afterwards I applied to
the charities for help. They wanted to take my children away to an
orphanage. This I could not bear. They are my children--I cannot
separate from them. Finally they agreed to pension me--two dollars and
my rent. From such a small sum we could not live. I learned to do some
work in the artificial flower business. I took work home, and in the
season, working until midnight, I would average about three dollars a
week. The investigator reported that I worked. One day she met me on the
street. I had just put on a new dress I had bought. The next week my
pension did not come. I went to the office and inquired.
"If you earn enough money to buy dresses you don't need charity," was
their answer. I explained to them that my other dress was torn, that my
new dress cost only two dollars, as I had made it myself, and offered to
prove to them that I did not earn more than three dollars a week. My
pension was resumed, but ever since the investigator has treated me very
badly. She has forced me to move every two or three months. Here it was
too dear, there too high, there too good, and so on. Last month she came
to me at ten o'clock one night. As I was already in bed I did not let
her in. She insisted and threatened that she would cut me off. This
enraged me still further and I did not open the door for her. She stood
in the hall more than half an hour, then she again knocked at the door,
cursed and went away. The next week was rent week. I received no money,
and the landlord, who knew that the charities pay my rent, came and told
me that unless he received his cheque in two days he would put me out.
"I went to the charities to ask why they did not send the money. I was
directed to a little room, on the door of which is written:
'Investigator.' Mr. Cram came in, and seating himself before me began
the most insolent questioning one could imagine. How much did I spend at
the grocery? How much at the butcher? How much for dresses? Then he
began to question me about my friends. I told him that no friends came
to my house. 'So,' he said, with an insolent twinkle in his eyes, 'and
who is the gentleman who was in your room the night you did not open the
door to Miss ----?' I felt my blood rush to my head. It was too much. I
struck him in the face and would have killed him if I had had my way.
They arrested me; the Judge freed me, and here I am."
As she finished, the words of the employé of the office who told me the
story rang again in my ears:
"It's Cram's own fault, he is too good to them."
Great God! I felt so little when I went away. Here was a real heroine.
"Could you give me any money for my little ones?" she asked. Not a trace
of the beggar in her attitude or voice. I humbly gave her what I could
and considered myself happy to have shaken hands with a real human
being.