“Mr. Wheeler,” I said, “I see conditions, and I take charge.” He left for his work in the United States Treasury, and I went to the street and hired a force of cleaners, whitewash men, scrubbers, sweepers, etc., and called up Mrs. Claude Myers, the wife of a Presbyterian minister, and two other fully consecrated women who were not afraid of work. I asked them to come at once and bring with them buckets, scrub brushes, rags, soap, etc., while I put in a supply of chemicals for the vermin.
Those women helped to burn the bedding and to send away some as trash. They helped me clean the beds; the whitewashers even entered into the spirit of it, and every crack was filled with plaster of paris; they went over the walls three times with lime and carbolic acid. The Health Bureau in the Municipal Building gave me a preparation used on floors in jails and in hospitals for contagious diseases. Some redeemed men came to our help, and by Saturday night we turned over a clean house.
Every one of us cleaners was obliged to go to the Turkish bath and have our clothing brushed and fumigated before we could go to our own homes.
On Saturday evening I told Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Gordon that besides the good men and women who had helped us for the cause for five days, we had spent twenty-five dollars. Never will I forget the dismay of those two good men. “What! Twenty-five dollars! Where do you think we will get that?” I answered, “Fortunately I belong to a church that lives and works by faith, and to-morrow, being Sunday, I shall tell the Sunday school of the Luther Memorial Church, and we'll see about that twenty-five dollars.”
The next morning I went to the pastor, Rev. J. G. Butler, D.D., and he secured permission from the superintendent of the Sunday school for me to speak three minutes. The superintendent hated innovations, but I can say a lot in three minutes, especially when I state the needs of the lost men of the community. After the school was dismissed nearly every teacher and grown student gave me something, and in less than five minutes I had twenty-seven dollars.
Sunday night I told what the Lord had done for us, and I began to ask all persons present to contribute sheets and pillow-cases. I did this so much and so often that season that a little four-year-old girl of Mrs. Claude Myers upset the gravity of an entire meeting by saying out loud one Sunday evening, “There comes Mrs. Sheets and Pillow-cases again.” Well, before winter was over we had about fifty clean, well-equipped beds for which, when they had it, men gladly paid ten cents per night. If they did not have it, the beds were given as long as they lasted; but, after the beds were filled, often fifty men slept on the floor with only the boards under them and no covers.
We had no heat in the dormitories, but one day Mrs. Richard Butler, a wealthy woman of the city, was ordered by the Spirit to visit the Mission. She came by Mr. Gordon's office in her carriage and he took her through our building. She saw our first need was heat. She sent immediately to a hardware store and ordered a large stove for the third floor with a drum for the fourth story, and through her kindness the men were given heat, but not until after two deaths, caused by cold, hunger and wet clothing, had about broken our hearts.
I remember a young, fair-haired man from Virginia, evidently well born and bred, coming in one night, slightly under the influence of liquor. It was a rainy, snowy night; his clothing was wet and he was suffering from a severe cold. When the meeting was over he started to go up stairs, which had nearly a zero temperature. I begged him to stay by the fire and sleep on a bench, if needed, but he petulantly refused. He was dead by nine o'clock next morning. I had wept all the way home, for I feared just what happened.
Mrs. Butler's stove put an end to that. She furnished coal for the entire winter.
Now that we had beds and heat, I saw we could not keep the beds clean without bathing facilities. So at our next Board meeting I said, “Brethren, we need a good shower-bath with warm and cold water so that men soiled and weary can have the comfort of a warm bath.” All the members of the Board demurred on account of the expense. Then I said, “Brethren, if I make myself responsible for the eighty-five dollars needed and you are in no way held for it, may I have the bath put in at once?” Of course, they wanted the bath, as they saw how much it was needed, and gave cordial consent. I purchased a rubber stamp, and on the outside of our first circulars which we issued I stamped the words, “I have made myself personally responsible for the cost of a shower-bath. Help a little.” And with my own contributions the bath was paid for as per contract.