“It can be done though,” Villard replied. “There are plenty of carpenters and builders to be had. What kind of tenements do you propose?”
“I have not fully decided. At first I thought of having single cottages for every family, with a tiny plot of land for each. But sometimes I wonder if some of the plans for model tenement houses would not be more feasible. What do you think?”
“There are advantages in both,” said Burnham. “It is doubtful if many of the operatives would appreciate a whole house, or take good care of one. On the other hand, the best tenement house system in the world has its drawbacks.”
“In a country-place where there is room enough, as there is here,” advised Villard, “it seems to me that the single cottage system is the better. Each family can then have a certain privacy, impossible to the tenement house system. They can soon be educated up to caring for their places, and, I think, will soon come to take pride in them. They may not pay, at first; but they will serve a higher purpose. I have thought it would be a fine thing,—in the Utopia of which I have often dreamed,—if, connected with such a factory as this, could be built some substantial, inexpensive cottages which could be sold to the working-men with families, on very easy terms. Let them occupy them as tenants, for instance, until their rentals amount to a certain sum—say two hundred dollars,—unless they have been fortunate enough to have saved that amount, which they can pay down, and then let them take a deed of the place and give us a mortgage. Pardon me, Miss Shepard, I am only supposing a case.”
“And quite a supposable one,” said Salome, her eyes glowing. “Why can’t it be done?”
“Doubtful if any of them would burden themselves with a debt like that,” demurred Burnham.
“I think they would,” Villard responded. “The desire for a home of one’s own is an instinct which is implanted in every human breast. If the steadier, more sensible men of the mills could be induced to try it, it would soon become the ambition of all the younger ones to own their homes. I am sure the overseers, at least, would like to try it. So many of our operatives live in a hand-to-mouth fashion, never saving anything. Let them see that what they pay for rent will be credited to them; that they are actually saving that money, and they will, for the most part, gladly fall in with the scheme. And when a man begins to save up money, and to feel that he is worth something, his self-respect increases and ambition makes a man of him. I tell you, I believe the thing could be done here, and the condition of our working-men be vastly improved by it.”
“We will, at least, make the experiment,” said Salome earnestly. “At first a wild dream came to me of building model tenement houses and practically giving them the rent. But I soon came to see that it would be better for them to pay what they could afford for improved conditions.”
“That would be far wiser,” said Villard. “To make them objects of charity would be to lower their condition in the long run.”
“Then I have a plan for the girls,” Salome went on. “So many of them live in those dreadful boardinghouses. I’ve been into one, and I wonder how any girl can keep her self-respect and live there. I am going to build a large building, which shall have plenty of light, airy bedrooms, prettily and inexpensively furnished; so that a girl may feel that she has a cosy little spot somewhere on earth of her very own. I am going to have model bath-rooms and a large, cheerful dining-room. There will be a matron to the establishment who will be like a mother to the girls; not one who will care nothing whether her girls are sober and respectable, or miserable and besotted, so long as they pay. This woman will win the confidence of the girls, and lead them into habits of personal cleanliness and common sense; she will take an interest in their little personal affairs, and advise them kindly and judiciously. In short, she will make a home for them in the truest sense of the word.”