Once upon a time this place bore the evil name of Hell's Half Acre.
To a low-browed, unpainted, unadorned, uninviting three-roomed shack Mrs. Barton took her way, with the bundle of precious household articles on her back, with Star following. They passed along narrow, winding alleys, with frightful looking fences bulging out, or leaning in; past foul mud holes; past filthy doorsteps, where brawling children, like her own, screamed at her, or taunted her, or spoke friendly to her; through sticky mire, over rickety board walks, over stepping stones at watery places, and on, over everything and through everything that had a squalid and sickly hue she went—with Star following—and with one unswerving gait, or changed expression of her leathery face, to the door of her own abode.
The door squeaked with the pain of lassitude as she shoved it open. She entered the kitchen—Star following. Dropping the sack on a dilapidated chair, she began lifting the contents therefrom, as the children gathered around, in all stages of filthiness, to see the operation. A toddling three-year-old grasped a spoon, as soon as he saw it come forth, and resorted to the ashes in the grate as material by which to test its usefulness. Another child took up a knife and began hacking at a table leg; another took up a cup and ran out to procure some water; while another took up a small battered tin pail to fetch in a little coal to replenish the dying fire.
The children ranged in age from one to nineteen, the eldest—Michael—being away earning money for his own keep, so that she had a short dozen mouths to fill for the nonce.
After completing the task of unburdening the sack, Mrs. Barton delivered the youngest child unto Star to tend while she set about to cook a meal. Her bill of fare was meager and simple, withal. It consisted wholly of fried potatoes, dough-bread hurryingly mixed, and coffee. After the fare was spread upon the table, ten greedy youngsters and their mother sat down to dine, while Star stood off, waiting to take potluck with the leavings. Unselfish child, as she was, she deferred always first to the appeasement of the hunger of the others. The savory provender lay heaped in a lusterless dish in the center of the table, and the coffee stood hot in a tin pot on a corner of the stove, while the bread was broken into fragments, as per age of child and capacity, and laid by each place. As plates and cups and saucers, knives and forks, were not sufficient to go around, the younger children fought and scratched and pulled as to whose turn should come "next" in being served. Some being ferociously hungry, and impatient over delays, dipped into the platter with their hands, clapping the contents to their mouths, like monkeys, and ate their bread with such an eager determination to get filled up that they almost choked. Some drank the coffee out of the pot, and spluttered and cried and slobbered with such wild frenzy that they were called she-wolves by their mother sitting by eating sparingly but as contentedly and as heartily as if her young hopefuls were angels instead of brats.
"Where's your pap?" asked the mother, directing her question to any, or all, of them, so indifferently was the question pronounced.
"Went to the city," answered the eldest.
"Naw he didn't," said the ten-year-old, after taking a swallow of the faintly discolored water called coffee.
"When did he go?" again questioned the mother, after the lapse of a few minutes.
"Soon after you left," answered the fourteen-year-old, indifferent as to where he went, "and took his overcoat with him."