Mrs. Bossman, the matron of St. Rose’s Home for Girls, which I reached after a railroad journey of several hours, received me with great cordiality. She was very much in need of a secretary, she said, and, while not able to pay a salary, would be glad to give me a comfortable room with my board and laundry. I promised to move in, bag and baggage, the following morning immediately after breakfast. At our first interview she impressed me so favorably that I failed to notice either the thinness of her lips or the color of her eyes.

On my return the following morning she again greeted me with great cordiality. And even as I accepted her extended hand the color and expression of her eyes, and the thinness of her lips were revealed to me as though by a blaze of light. With this realization there flashed across my memory a remark of the late Mrs. Jefferson Davis.

I had been to the opera—“Faust” with a wonderful caste, Eames and the two de Reski. On my return I went into Mrs. Davis’ bedroom—I was spending the winter in New York under her chaperonage—to tell her about it. She was sitting up in bed reading, and laying her book aside she listened attentively to my praise of Marguerite and Faust, and my criticism of Mephisto. Then I boldly declared:

“Only a tall, thin man, intensely brunette, should attempt to play the devil.”

“A tall, thin, dark man?” Mrs. Davis questioned, shaking her head. Then she took off her spectacles and wiped them. “No, my dear. No. My idea of the devil is a beautiful blonde woman with childishly innocent blue eyes and thin lips. Yes, the devil is a woman. I’m sure of it. Only a woman of the type I describe will conceive, plan, and perpetrate a deed of supremest cruelty and selfishness. I never trust a blonde woman.”

What queer ideas old women have! As if the color of a person’s eyes and hair really had anything to do with the quality of their heart. Then there popped into my mind a lawyer, a member of the New York City bar in good standing, who had gravely cautioned me against trusting a man who “ran-down” his shoes. Evidently queerness was not limited to old women.

But a woman with the intelligence of the widow of the President of the Confederacy—the thousands of persons she had met and known during her eighty years—might not her judgment be of value? All of these thoughts raced through my consciousness during the brief instant that Mrs. Bossman clasped my hand. Vexed by what seemed to me my own trivial mind, I was pleased by her suggestion to take me to my room.

Such a charming room it proved to be! On the second floor and immediately over the main entrance to St. Rose. It was tastefully furnished and spotlesslyspotlessly clean. At the end facing the door there was a broad double window festooned by ivy that looked into the green feathery foliage of a giant elm.

Gratified by my exclamation of pleased surprise, Mrs. Bossman told me that she had selected the room because it was next her own and convenient to the bathroom, shared by herself and Miss Pugh, the assistant matron. Miss Pugh, she explained, was an old friend whom she had induced to give up her former position in a large foundling asylum to come to St. Rose. She, Miss Pugh, was a wonderful disciplinarian, and as chockful of ideas as an egg with meat. With her as her assistant, and me as her secretary, Mrs. Bossman declared that she felt her success assured.

She had been in charge of St. Rose, I then learned, less than two months. Previous to coming there she had, for many years, been at the head of a reformatory.

Chatting about odds and ends, Mrs. Bossman waited while I removed my coat and hat, and brushed my hair a bit. Just as I turned away from the mirror there was a quick rap on the door, and without waiting for a reply in stepped a little woman whose head reminded me sharply of a hickory-nut doll.

“My dear!” she cried, grabbing hold of my hand. “Three educated women!” She indicated herself, Mrs. Bossman, and me. “We can stand against the world.”

Just what call we would have to stand against the world I did not understand. Being ready to do my best as secretary to the matron of St. Rose, I graciously accepted her greeting and the compliments that appeared to belong to it. Walking between the two I passed down the broad stairs and into the private office of the head of the institution.

Confidently expecting to spend the summer in this charming place I glanced about the room that was to be my headquarters. Like every part of the house that I had seen, this room was spotlessly clean and furnished tastefully.

Sprays of ivy moved by the breeze peeked in at the two broad windows that, opening on the street, were shaded from the direct rays of the sun by the low-sweeping limbs of the elm. From the windows my eyes travelled to the walls. I met the gaze of several bewhiskered gentlemen of solemn countenance in clerical garb and black frames.

My secretarial duties, as then outlined to me, would consume about two hours each morning, excepting Sundays. Once I had finished this daily stint my time was to be my own to do with as I preferred.

“Only,” Mrs. Bossman added smilingly, “Miss Pugh and I both hope that you will spend at least a few evenings with us in my private sitting-room.”

Why did Mrs. Davis’ caution against blonde women keep bobbing up in my mind? Ah, why indeed!

Being in my room when the lunch-bell sounded, I was a fraction of a minute late entering the dining-room. A woman whom I had never seen met me and introduced herself as the housekeeper. She gave me as my permanent place a chair at a long table about which there were already seated eighteen women.

When I had taken my chair the housekeeper took her seat and introduced me to the other women. As each name was called the owner would glance up at me, nod her head, and then drop her eyes back to her plate of soup. Never a smile, not one word. The soup finished, while they waited for the next course I noticed that three or four women spoke to their next neighbors, always so low that they seemed to whisper.

Was this the effect of the presence of a stranger? I wondered. If so it was up to me to break the ice. Selecting for my first attack a handsome woman with red hair, who sat just across the table from me, I inquired in what capacity she was connected with St. Rose.

She was the “mother” of a cottage, she informed me. All present excepting the housekeeper, the seamstress, and myself were either cottage mothers or their assistants. Yes, they took all their meals in the dining-room. The children ate in their cottages—that is, excepting the large girls serving us. They took their meals in the kitchen with the cook.

By a persistent effort, addressing directly first one woman and then another, I succeeded in arousing quite a buzz of conversation. Suddenly silence. Even sentences already begun broke off half uttered, as though the tongues had become suddenly paralyzed. Puzzled, I glanced around the table. The eyes of every woman, even the housekeeper, were fastened on her plate; more puzzled, I glanced around the room.

Mrs. Bossman and Miss Pugh had entered and were taking their seats at a small table near the door. After this the women seated at the long table opened their lips only for food. At the small table the matron and her assistant conversed in subdued tones. After making two or three remarks in the hope of reviving the conversation I gave up. Judging by their faces, I might as well have tried to make myself entertaining at a table of deaf-mutes. So to the end of the meal—depressed and depressing silence.

After lunch, on my expressing a wish to be made useful, the assistant matron invited me to go with her to one of the cottages. This “mother” was having her afternoon off.

Much to my surprise I found that the attractiveness of St. Rose did not extend beyond the building occupied by the matron and her immediate staff. Desolate is the only word that adequately describes the cottage to which Miss Pugh conducted me. Never a picture on the walls, not a flower, nor a book. Bare walls of a forlorn dingy tint, and dingier floors. Even the bewhiskered gentlemen in their black frames would have been an improvement.

There were thirty-odd little girls in this cottage ranging in age from five to thirteen years. The supper, which was served by the older girls under the supervision of the assistant matron, consisted of canned salmon, bread cut in hunks, and sweet milk. The tables were bare, unpainted, and as dingy as the floors. Indeed they looked to be a piece of the floor. The crockery was of the cheapest, nicked and sticky, and there were no napkins.

Since that day I have visited many tenement homes. I have been in the homes of New York City’s poorest. In none of them did I find less attempt made to humanize the unlovely sordid surroundings. Even in the home of the drunken Irish mother, who had sold every stick of furniture excepting a broken table and the mattress she and her children huddled on, I saw a picture of the Virgin.

St. Rose’s Home for Girls was conducted by a church claiming to follow the teachings of Him who said: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”

On my remarking to one of the older girls that they all took such dainty helpings, she explained that each child had to clean its plate. That was the rule, now, she said. This seemed such a good rule that I told the table, in a way I imagined to be humorous, that Mr. Hoover would be glad to know how much they were helping him. Though they knew all about Mr. Hoover there was no smile, and I noticed that two of the older girls exchanged glances and lifted their eyebrows.

A minute or so later a slight disturbance at a table behind me attracted my attention. The assistant matron was standing over a little girl, forcing her to eat food left on her plate at lunch, and using her forefinger in the operation. It was the longest and boniest forefinger I had ever seen. And that plate of cold spaghetti was about as appetizing as some of the messes dished up to the waitresses at the Hotel Sea Foam.

Now, I belong to a family noted for good health and perfect digestion. So much so that humorous friends declare we can, one and all, digest flint rocks. Yet I do not believe that I could have swallowed, much less digested, that mass of cold, sloppy, bluish spaghetti.

The victim of this economic tyranny was a delicate little girl of about six years. Her cheeks were colorless, her lips were almost as white, and there were dark circles about her eyes. Glancing around my eyes took in the sordid unloveliness of the whole scene—and the little children with meekly bowed heads, forcing down food which I could see few if any relished. A lump rose in my throat, and a mist obscured my sight.

How could any woman! How could Miss Pugh! She was not a blonde. As though feeling my stare the assistant matron relinquished her hold on the girl’s shoulder, and straightening up, faced me.

“This is Mrs. Bossman’s order,” she said. “She found it a most satisfactory disciplinary measure in her reformatory work. You knew she had been in that work, didn’t you?”

“Ah?” I replied, as my estimate of Mrs. Jefferson Davis’ judgment bounded upward. Living to be eighty has its compensations. Perhaps in time I may learn to distrust men who do not tread squarely on their heels.

At dinner that evening the talk was more general than it had been at lunch. The entrance of Mrs. Bossman and Miss Pugh resulted in the same frosty atmosphere. Determined not to finish my meal staring at my plate while I shovelled down food, I fired question after question at the woman with red hair. Amused, and I believe not a little encouraged by my daring, she finally took hold and kept her end of the conversation going.

During the balance of that meal we kept up a steady flow of talk, back and forth, across the table. Not another woman said a word. Even the matron and her assistant stopped whispering to each other. As I now recall it, that conversation included the heavens, the earth, and the waters under the earth. As we were leaving, the red-haired woman slipped her hand through my arm and whispered:

“Come over to my cottage to-morrow when you finish your work. I’d like you to see my children. I have forty little girls.”

It was after eleven o’clock the next day when I joined her. Her older girls were at school, and the little tots were playing in a sand-pile in the yard. She, seated on an upturned soap-box under the trees, was making tatting.

Chatting with her I learned that she was Miss Jessup, and had an orphaned niece and nephew dependent on her. Having been a saleswoman in Chicago for years, she had, at length, broken away and come to New York, firm in her faith of “bettering” herself.

“The stores were turnin’ off salespeople instead of takin’ ’em on,” she told me, speaking of her efforts to get a position in New York. “I was ’most on my uppers when I heard about this place. The pay ain’t so bad, and I just love children. Mrs. Bossman is new, you know. I don’t know how long she’ll keep me, but as long as she does”—her jaw squared—“I’m goin’ to see to it that my forty gets a square deal.”

“Among so many I suppose there must be some of the mothers who do not understand the children in their care,” I questioned, with the same object that a fisherman throws out a baited hook.

“No, they’re all right,” she assured me positively. “There isn’t one of them who doesn’t do her best with her cottage. An’ things ain’t as easy for us as it used to be, neither.” Here she glanced around, including the overlooking windows of her own cottage. Then she added: “Mrs. Bossman believes in what she calls lovin’ discipline. She got Miss Pugh here to carry out the discipline.”

“Who carries out the loving?”

She flashed a quick smile at me. She was an attractive woman. In spite of her grammar I believe she sprang from educated people.

“Mrs. Bossman,” she replied. “Yes, she really does try. You watch the back yard this afternoon after the girls come from school. You’ll see Mrs. Bossman walkin’ around with one of the older girls—the girl’s arm around her waist.”

“Mrs. Bossman’s waist?” I asked, incredulous.

“Mrs. Bossman is holdin’ it there. Sometimes she has to hold real hard.” She chuckled. “It’s odd what some folks don’t know. You can buy the love of a man or a woman—that is if you have their price. But you can’t buy the love of a child nor a dog. I know, for I’m one of a large family, and I was brought up in the country. I know children and I know dogs.”

After lunch the assistant matron claimed my services. And her manner was such that if by chance I had lost my memory I would have been sure that she had a right to dispose of my time. Conducting me to a cottage of which the mother was taking her afternoon off, she left me in charge. It being a rainy day the children were forced to remain indoors. And I was surprised to find them so easily entertained, or, I should say, that they entertained themselves. Those who did not devote the time to their dolls had some quiet game which they played alone or with one or two others.

By and by, noticing how each child seemed trying to crouch within herself, or huddled against her neighbor, I realized they must be cold—it being a chilly afternoon. When I proposed a romping game, something to warm them all up, they exchanged glances and shook their heads. Then one of the older girls, taking her stand close beside my chair, explained:

“We used to play lovely games—blindman’s buff, base, and a lot of others that Mrs. Hoskins taught us, but”—she shrugged her shoulders—“Miss Bossman said we made too much noise, and——”

A little girl seated nearer the door reached over and gave the speaker’s apron a sharp pull, at the same time motioning with her head toward the door. Instantly the child who had been talking to me slipped back to her seat on the floor and picked up her doll. For a moment there was profound silence. Though every one of the little people appeared to be intent on her own play, I felt sure that even the littlest tot was holding her breath.

There was a faint rustle—something on the other side of the closed door had moved. The children exchanged glances but made no sound.

“Wouldn’t you like me to tie your doll’s sash?” I asked the littlest tot.

She was standing by the arm of my chair, her doll’s face downward on my knee, when glancing up I found Miss Pugh entering the door. Of course she was smiling. Women of her type smile even when brushing their teeth.

She explained that when “rushing” by she had dropped in to see how I was getting along. At the word “rush” I again saw the older girls exchange glances—children are not so blind as many of their elders imagine. Being in a rush the assistant matron could remain only a few minutes. The little folks took her going as calmly as they had her entrance.

When supper-time came the older girls whose turn it was to prepare the meal, went about their task without any reminder from me. After setting the tables and drawing up the food from the kitchen on the dumb-waiter, they announced that supper was served. When the others came trooping in they seated the little ones and helped them put on their bibs.

Then, after whispering among themselves, one—perhaps the oldest—called my attention to a plate of cold food, and pointed out the little girl who had failed to eat it at lunch.

Without a word I took the plate and emptied it into the garbage-bucket. For a moment there was not a sound, not a movement. Then all eyes turned and stared at me. Then they stared at each other. A little girl chuckled and rapped softly on the table with her spoon. The next instant every little girl was chuckling and beating softly on the table with her spoon.

It was a subdued demonstration. Every one of these little people understood just what had happened. Also they realized that something unpleasant might happen if it were found out.

Late that afternoon I learned that my room was to be changed—from the cheerful surroundings of the building in which the matron lived to the dingy desolation of the cottage in which I had spent that afternoon. This information was not given me by either the matron or her assistant. I was told by the girl who was to change with me. She had come to St. Rose, so she explained, for the purpose of training for an institutional worker, and had been helping Mrs. Hoskins, for whom I had substituted that afternoon. She didn’t like it, and neither did I.

After supper Mrs. Bossman smilingly informed me that I had managed the children so charmingly that she had decided to change me to that cottage. She was sure I would be of great assistance to the mother, so much more useful to St. Rose. It really did seem a pity, she went on, to waste my genius for managing children—yes, it was nothing short of genius—on her small correspondence.

Glad to be thrown more closely with the children, and sincerely wishing to be of use to the institution, I agreed to the change. Though conscious that several of the workers had watched us closely during Mrs. Bossman’s explanation, I did not dream that any of them excepting, perhaps, the girl was interested.

On going to my room with the intention of packing and being ready to move to the cottage the first thing in the morning, I found Miss Jessup waiting for me. Her face was pale, and I noticed for the first time that her mouth had a very stern expression.

“Did you come here to take Mrs. Hoskins’ job?” she demanded as soon as the door closed behind me.

“Mrs. Hoskins!” I exclaimed, so surprised that for a moment my memory failed me. “Who on earth is Mrs. Hoskins?”

Her mouth became more stern.

“The mother whose place you took this afternoon. You never met her because she won’t take her meals here. She takes ’em with the children—eats with ’em same as she would with her own. She got the idea that it makes the children feel more like home, havin’ her eat at the table with ’em. There ain’t no doubt about it givin’ ’em better manners, though Mrs. Bossman says it’s not good discipline.”

Miss Jessup then assured me that Mrs. Hoskins was the best mother at St. Rose. She was a widow and had lost her husband and two children before she was thirty. Ever since, for more than twenty years, she had been mothering motherless girls at St. Rose. The children under her care were the best trained, received the highest marks in their school, both in deportment and studies, and they were, one and all, devoted to their “mother.”

But Mrs. Hoskins had not co-operated as cordially in carrying out Mrs. Bossman’s theories as that lady wished. One of these theories was forcing a child to eat all food left on its plate at the previous meal. She also objected to the children doing all the housework. She thought some work too heavy even for the older girls.

Mrs. Bossman intended, according to Miss Jessup, to have me act as Mrs. Hoskins’ assistant for a couple of weeks, or as long as it might take for me to learn the ropes. Then she would discharge Mrs. Hoskins and install me as “mother.”

“I ain’t sayin’ you wouldn’t make a good mother,” Miss Jessup wound up. “I dunno but what I believe you would make a first-class one. What I aims at is to get you to wait. I’ll be movin’ on soon—goin’ back to Chicago. If you would wait and take my cottage. I don’t want to see Mrs. Hoskins turned out. It would break her heart. That’s a fact. None of us wants her turned out. I’ll go at the end of the month if—if you want me to.”

“May the Lord love you, woman!” I exclaimed, more moved than I cared to show. “I don’t want either Mrs. Hoskins’ job or yours. I wouldn’t have either as a gracious gift.”

“What you goin’ to do? You’ve got to move into her cottage in the mornin’. When the time comes—when Mrs. Bossman discharges Mrs. Hoskins——”

“She’ll never discharge her on my account,” I interrupted. “As for what I am going to do—how I’m going to get out of it, I haven’t the slightest idea. But you let me sleep on it—you’ll know in the morning.”

The next morning when I went down to breakfast I took my bag with me. After the meal, the matron not having made her appearance, I bade her assistant good-by. Beyond saying that Mrs. Bossman’s methods did not appeal to me a statement seemed unnecessary.