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.