I returned a few minutes before seven, just in time to hear the children singing the last stanza of "Beulah Land" as I passed up-stairs to the dormitory on the third floor. An old woman sat outside the door, crocheting a shawl in such light as she could get from a blue-shaded night-lamp that hung in the middle of the great whitewashed room within. She looked up from her work long enough to challenge me with a shrewd, impertinent look of inquiry, demanded to know if I had any lead-pencils about my person, and, receiving a polite negative, allowed me to pass.
I was not the first arrival. In the dim light I could make out, here and there, a bulging surface in the row of gray-blanketed cots, while in the quiet I could hear the deep breathing of the sleepers. For they all seemed to be asleep, save one who tossed from one side to the other and sighed wearily. The latter was not far away from my own cot, and before I had finished undressing she was sitting up looking at me.
"I'd give anything for a drink of water," she said softly.
"Why, is there no water?" I whispered.
The words were not out of my mouth before there was a thumping upon the floor outside, and the voice of the beldame spoke sharply:
"No talking, girls!"
The thirsty girl dropped back to her pillow, and I crept under the blanket. Later on I learned that each must have her drink of water before entering the dormitory, because, once there, it was an iron-clad rule that we should not leave until after the rising-bell had rung at six the next morning. I also learned, later on, that had there not been also an iron-clad rule against carrying lead-pencils into the dormitory, the snowy-white walls were like as not to be scrawled with obscenities during the night hours.
All sorts of girls seeking a night's refuge drifted into this working-girls' home. Most of them were "ne'er-do-weels"; some of them were girls of lax morality, though very few were essentially "bad." When, however, they did happen to be "bad," they were very bad indeed. And these lead-pencil inscriptions they left behind them were the frightful testimony of their innate depravity.
Fortunately for me, I was quite ignorant on this first night of what the character of the girls under the gray blankets might in all possibility have been, and I settled myself to go to sleep with the thought that a working-girls' home was not half bad, after all.
A little while later there was a fresh burst of childish voices and the clatter of shoes on the stairs. It was the orphans marching up to bed singing "Happy Day!" The music stopped when they reached the dormitory door, which they entered silently, two by two. Their undressing was but the matter of a few moments, so methodical and precise was every movement. The small aprons and petticoats were folded across the foot of each cot, and, on top, the long black stockings laid neatly. Each pair of copper-toed shoes was placed in exactly the same spot under the foot of each cot, and each little body, after wriggling itself into a gray flannellet nightgown, dropped to its knees and bowed its head upon the blanket in silent prayer.