Amongst the "discontinued pensioners" I visited, I found a young Jewish woman with two children, one eight and one six years old. From the reports I learned that she came to New York five years ago from Russia, had worked some time in an embroidery factory and had been disabled in an accident—lost her right arm.

The report also spoke of a fruitless search made to find her husband, who, the woman claimed, had deserted her in Russia and was now in New York. The investigator claimed that this was all a tissue of lies, that Mrs. Baum's husband was a myth, as the children whom she had questioned admitted never having had a "papa."

A certain Jewish paper in New York publishes daily the pictures of men who desert their families, and other details about them. In the report it was stated that the investigator asked Mrs. Baum for a picture of her husband, but the woman refused it, saying that she did not want to brand the father of her children. The report ended with the remark that the whole thing was a tissue of lies and demanded closer examination. It is interesting to know that the report was made by a new investigator, working in a district formerly entrusted to a woman with whom this investigator was at dagger points, because of some love affair. Later on, the same investigator spoke about Mrs. Baum's severe illness and the temporary removal of the children to an orphan asylum.

The pension was kept up for eighteen more months, then suddenly discontinued. When I read this I tried to think out the reason for the discontinuance. Was the woman placed in a hospital for incurables? Had she fallen? Had she found her husband? The discontinuance dated eight months prior to my reading of the report, and although I knew how many times one can change his abode in New York, still I set out to hunt the woman up. For more than a week I spent every moment I could spare trying to trace her, but without success. In despair, I wrote ten letters, the first three to the addresses I knew and on the rest of them I just inscribed her name and the name of one of the lateral streets of the lower East Side. In the letter I wrote a few words asking for an appointment and giving my address and asking for hers. I hoped that the woman had notified the Post Office of her changed address, and placed not a little confidence in the searching qualities of the New York post office employÉs. To my great astonishment I had a reply the next day, and an address was given of a house I had passed twenty times in my search.

However, to the Montgomery Street house I directed my steps that evening. On the way I was overtaken by a heavy rain and looked more like a wet rat than a man when I knocked at the door. I confess that I thought more of getting dry than of the cause of my errand. Curious, but personal discomfort makes one forget all remote considerations; the whole man is taken possession of by the desire to get his bearings, to right himself—much like the swinging pendulum when an accident has crippled the machine that sets it in motion.

As soon as I entered Mrs. Baum's house and told who I was, I took off my coat, with her permission, and hung it on the back of a chair which I pushed near the kitchen stove, while I seated myself thereon and tried to regain my wits.

The woman was alone. The children were at some kind neighbours. Oh! how painful it was to see her at a little table near the window trying to make bunches of artificial flowers! How she twisted and turned the wires with one hand, with the left, while with the stump of the crippled right she kept the bunch on the table. She had encased the stump of her broken arm in a frame of wood so as to suffer less when working. She used her teeth, her chin, forehead, knees and armpits to help form a bunch, and the work went slowly, slowly. So little did she earn that she did not care to stop when a guest came, though I felt right along that she was consumed with curiosity. She lived in one room, which was kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom for her and the children, and also workroom. It did not take me very long to get dry, but it took less time for my coat to catch fire. Before I had time to put out the fire the whole back was gone. I had a hard time to keep the woman quiet on her chair. A cry of fire would have created a holocaust in that fire-trap.

When all was quiet again, I sent a neighbour's boy to my home to bring me another coat, while I seated myself near the table and began my questioning. But I had no luck. A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a matron who immediately asked me who I was. I answered her very politely that I had business of my own with the lady and was not obliged to answer to strangers.

"Who is that man?" was now the question put to the crippled woman, who was just twisting a rose with her stump.

"I don't know," she said, shrugging her shoulders.

"You don't know?" sarcastically. "You don't know who the man is who sits near you in his shirtsleeves?"

"Madame," I tried to explain, "I came here during the rain, hung my coat on the back of a chair. It caught fire, and here I am." But the matron would not hear my explanation. She slammed the door and went out, cursing, talking loudly and insultingly.

The woman was as pale as death. She looked from me to the door, and back again. It was my turn to ask a question.

"Who is that woman?"

"The investigator of an institution that pays my rent."

So saying, the woman's head sank on the table and she wept bitterly. She did not weep long. Real sorrow is deep and short. There is no time for artistic posing when the knife has pierced the heart.

The broken-down figure rose, brushed away some tears, and asked me:

"And now, sir, tell me, who are you and what do you want?"

She stood before me defiantly, as though to say: "Make it quick, you bird of evil."

"Madame," I began, "I am making a supplementary investigation on behalf of the charities, and I want to look into the reason of your discontinuance."

Hearing this she retreated, laid off her defiance, and sat down. I took out my notebook and started my questioning.

"Have you now an idea where your husband is?"

"Of course I have, and this started the whole trouble," she began with animation.

"How so?" I asked.

"For four years I looked and searched without any result. I hoped and hoped, and the charities helped me also. I did not want to publish his picture in the papers. Then I had that accident in the factory. Great God! what that woman, Mrs. Sol (an investigator) made me suffer! Never did she believe a word I said. Called me beggar, liar, crazy, and all the ugly names in the language. I stood it all because I hoped that one day I would get rid of them. Suddenly, one morning, while going to work, I saw him going into a door on Greene Street. I ran after him and throwing my arms around him, cried: 'Chaim, Chaim.'"

Mrs. Baum sobbed again and repeated her husband's name, as though she again saw him. After a few moments she resumed her narrative.

"He looked at me, with strange eyes, as though he saw me for the first time. Meanwhile a crowd had collected. I still kept calling 'Chaim! don't you know me? Your wife, Leah?' 'What wife Leah?' he asked. 'Are you crazy?' Ah! my own husband; the father of my children, did not want to recognise me. The crowd grew. I kept at him. A policeman arrived and forced me to let him go. He quickly entered the door and I ran to the charities and told them my story and gave them the street and house number. I was told to come the next day, when some one would be sent with me—a special man they had for such errands. What a day and what a night I passed! The next morning, bright and early, I was at the office. A young man accompanied me and I led the way to the house. We entered and the man asked the bookkeeper if a Mr. Baum was not working there. He looked in all the books and could find no such name. On my advice the young man asked permission to visit the shop. We were allowed to go up. We looked—he was not there. Yet I was certain that I had seen him enter."

The investigator again treated me to such epithets as "crazy woman, liar, etc." Coming down, I begged the bookkeeper to look over the names of all the employÉs again. I thought perhaps he was working as a driver, clerk—or at some other job. To get rid of me he asked, 'How does he look?' I had his picture with me and I showed it to the man. He grew pale, and exclaimed: 'That's our boss, Mr. Ap.' All at once he realised what he had said and bent his head over his books. I was thunderstruck. Here he was, the boss of all this and his wife and children starving and begging. So that's the kind of a man he is? The investigator asked the bookkeeper:

"'Is Mr. Ap. here?'

"'No.'

"'When do you expect him?'

"'He is gone to Europe.'

"'When did he go?' I jumped up.

"'I don't know,' he answered, and we could get no more information from him. I cried and pleaded—it did not help.

"We returned to the office, where the Manager was told of all that had happened. He listened very patiently and then said: 'Give me the picture—we will attend to that now. Meanwhile, you keep quiet.' Some additional money was given to me and they said that I must not go to the factory. They would watch the place and if it was true that he had gone to Europe we would have to wait his return."

The woman's chest heaved, and cold sweat appeared on her brow and face and arms, as though her whole body were on the rack. She rested a few minutes, drank some water and resumed.

"I waited. True, I could not keep away from the place. Several times I walked past in the hope of getting a glimpse of him. I knew that if I could meet him quietly and talk to him he might relent. I might show him his children. Perhaps he had not recognised me. I had changed so much in the years that had passed since we had last seen one another.

"He was not to be seen, however. Yes, he has grown rich—very rich—he did not want me any longer. He has changed his name—perhaps he has married another woman. All these thoughts came to me. My God!" The woman sobbed again.

"For weeks and weeks my only occupation was to go from home to the charities, from there to Greene Street and back. The Manager of the office at the charities spoke to me several times and asked me details about our former life and condition when we married. I told him all. The truth as ever. One day as I walked down from the elevated on First Street and Third Avenue I saw him again, but this time he was not alone. A woman leaned on his arm. What I suffered! What I endured! I did not approach him. I feared he might again go away. I ran to the office, and told them that he was back. Again I was counselled to keep still. They would attend to it. The next and the third day I asked the Manager whether he had any results. 'No, he had not seen him.' Then on the fourth day he called me into his private room and told me that Mr. Ap. denied that he had ever married me.

"'Have you a marriage certificate?' he asked.

"I had none. We were married only religiously by a rabbi and had no certificate.

"'But,' I said, 'I have his children.'

"'He does not recognise them. He says he knew you in Russia, true enough, but that he never married you. When I told him your situation he agreed to give you enough money to go back to Russia.'

"You understand?" the woman exclaimed. "Send me away from here."

"Of course, I refused and asked the Manager to help me force him to recognise me and his children. I grew bitter, and wept and cried. He quieted me down and told me to go home. That he would see that all would be well.

"The next day and the next passed without result. The Manager was very gentle, very nice. Then on the following day, no, on the next after that, he told me that Mr. Ap. had agreed to give me one thousand dollars if I would go back to Russia immediately. Of course, I did not want to accept. He was my husband, the father of my children. He had to admit that, though I had no certificate. I looked about to find a man from our village, a man who knew him, a man who knew we were married. I found none. Then I went back to the office and asked for the photograph. But the Manager would not return it. Mr. Ap. had taken it. I cried, I menaced, but could not get my picture back. Not only did they not help me to legally force him to recognise me, to support me, but they took away the only weapon I had—the picture.

"The Manager kept on urging me to take the one thousand dollars and go to Russia. 'It's kind enough of him to do that. After all, I believe him more than you, and he says that he never married you.'

"So he told me, to my face, a week after that I was 'discontinued.' 'What is that?' I asked. 'Take the one thousand dollars and go away.'

"I was put out in the street in the dead of winter. My children almost froze. I ran to Greene Street. They would not let me in. I went to the charities. The Manager just told me: 'People that can get one thousand dollars need no charity.'

"Finally, a society paid my rent and I was again under a roof, but I was afraid to say anything about my husband, and when they asked me I answered that he was dead. How could I say otherwise? I had nothing to prove my case. My one piece of evidence was taken away. He had changed his name. I had no letters, no certificate. Now I will have more trouble, through you, with that woman who saw you."

"And what do you intend to do now?" I asked.

"I have my plans. I expect some one from my village who knows him and who knows that we were married. I am saving every cent I can for the steamship agency to buy a ticket."

She bent down over her work again. Meanwhile my coat was brought. I took leave, promised to look into the matter and went out.

In a few minutes I was in Greene Street. I looked up the number. Above the door hung a big sign, announcing the business of the firm, and on the door, near the knob, was nailed another little sign, with black letters on white enamel:

"Member of organised charity."

All was now clear why the woman was not helped in her fight, and why she was coerced through the "discontinuance." I remembered the Manager's answer:

"Who is supporting this institution? The poor or the rich?"

And of course they had to work for the ones that were supporting them.