To the Italian, poverty does not possess a sting. I believe it stings a Jew—being poor.
During the congestion in the tenements I got my best views of the national characteristics of the various peoples among whom I worked. Though a horribly uncomfortable period for the tenement-dweller, it was intensely interesting to me. It was as though after hearing a piece of music correctly played you again listened to it with both pedals down.
CHAPTER XXI
FORCING THE GOOSE TO LAY MORE DOLLARS
“Twelve persons and two dogs living in three small rooms, and one of those a dark kitchen. How packed with sound—humanity and sound!” That is, provided greed be an inalienable attribute of humanity.
It was greed, and greed alone, that forced those twelve persons and two dogs to live in such well-nigh insupportable conditions. The story as told me was like this:
At the time that Congress declared that a state of war existed between this country and Germany, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bruno, both American born, and their four children, lived in the flat in which I afterward found them. At that time their flat consisted of a dark kitchen, a front room with two windows looking on Second Avenue, and two twilight bedrooms, each with a window looking on a by-courtesy court no wider than a well.
One of these twilight bedrooms was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Bruno, the other by their grown daughter and her schoolgirl sister. The two sons, one at work and the other at school, slept on a couch-bed in the front room.
“We was thinking about getting a flat with more room,” Mrs. Bruno explained to me. “Both my boy and girl was making good wages. When I told them I’d found a place, they both told me they was thinking of marryin’. No use movin’ and havin’ an extra room on your hands when your boy and girl marry.”
Both did marry and both young husbands enlisted. As a consequence when they were called to camp both young wives came to live with Mr. and Mrs. Bruno. In time both young wives gave birth to a baby.
All went well until the owner of the flat-house determined to get higher rents. Five dollars a month was the raise charged the Bruno family. Though the old man grumbled he paid the raise.