“They’re having their dinner!” exclaimed Gladys. “It’s just a little past noon. That’s one way of disposing of the dishwashing problem. I’ll store up that idea for use the next time it’s my turn to cook supper at a meeting. What a large family that woman has, though. I wonder if they are all her husbands?”
“Gracious no,” said Katherine. “These people aren’t poly—poly—you know what I mean, even if they are foreigners. Those men are boarders. Every family has some. Let’s go into that big house over there and ask if there are any babies the mothers would like to leave with us while they go washing.”
They picked their way across the muddy road toward a large building which opened right on to the sidewalk. The hall door stood open and they went in. There were more than a dozen doors leading from the hall on the first floor. “Gracious, what a number of people live here!” said Gladys, putting her arm through Katherine’s.
While they stood there, trying to make up their minds at which door to knock, one was opened and a barefooted woman came out, carrying a pan of dishwater, which she threw out on the sidewalk. At the same time another door opened and out came another woman, who stopped short when she saw the first one, and began to talk in a harsh foreign tongue. The second woman replied angrily and the girls could see that they were quarreling. Before long they were shaking fists in front of each other’s noses and shouting at the tops of their voices. Doors everywhere flew open and the hall was soon filled with excited women who took sides with one or the other and shook fists at each other while the girls huddled under the stairway, expecting to be set upon and beaten. The quarrel was waxing more violent, when the girls spied a door at the end of a hallway which had been opened to let in some of the shouting women. As quickly and as quietly as they could they darted down this passageway and out of the door which brought them into the back yard of the place. Terrified, they fled up the street and stood on the corner, discouraged and irresolute. Hinpoha was for going home right away. But Katherine talked her out of it.
“Let’s go up to the Neighborhood Mission on the hill and ask them for something to do,” suggested Katherine, when the rest inquired what they should do next. So they turned their footsteps toward the white building at the end of the street.
“If you really want to do something,” said the mission worker to whom they explained their errand, “come down here next Saturday morning and help take care of the children that are left with us. Two of the nurses will be away and we will be short-handed.”
The Winnebagos were charmed with the idea. “Oh, may we each take one home for the day?” begged Katherine, “if we promise to bring them back all right?”
Permission was granted for the next Saturday and Katherine was jubilant over the good beginning of their work. “I thought it best that we each take one home and take care of it by ourselves,” she explained. “We’ll have such fun telling experiences and comparing notes afterward.”
Promptly at nine o’clock the next Saturday morning the four Winnebagos, Katherine, Gladys, Hinpoha and Sahwah, presented themselves at the Neighborhood Mission and drove away ten minutes later in Gladys’ automobile, each with a youngster in tow.
At eight that night there was a lively experience meeting in the House of the Open Door. “Oh, girls, you never saw such a dirty baby as the one I had,” cried Gladys, with a little shiver of disgust at the remembrance.