She evidently heard only my acknowledgment that I was a Jew, and with the feeling that I was her brother she gained confidence that I would not take her children away from her.
"If you are a Jew," she continued, "you will not take my children away, and I will tell you the whole truth."
"Go ahead," I encouraged her, and she told me the following:
"Since my husband died three years ago, the charities have given me two dollars a week and paid my rent. Every year, in the winter, they have sent me coal and clothing for the children. This year they have a new investigator and she does not like me."
"The investigator does not like you?" I repeated. "Why?"
The woman looked away for a few moments, then she shrugged her shoulders and said: "I don't know why. She does not like me and that's all, so they sent me only a half ton of coal at the beginning of the winter and no clothes for the children. Every day I went to the office and asked and begged for coal and clothes, but the investigator does not like me—she does not like me—and she works against me. So what could I do? To go and buy shoes and coal I need money, and I haven't any. From the two dollars a week I get we hardly have enough for bread—dry bread." And as the poor woman pronounced the last word the smallest of the children repeated it in tones that would have melted a heart of stone. His hungry eyes appealed to the mother for the staff of life. "Bread," the older child repeated. "Mamma, give me bread. I am hungry—give me bread."
The mother cried. The children were still asking for bread and the mother was still crying when a young lady, whom I recognised as an investigator from the charities, entered without even knocking at the door. Mrs. S. jumped up from her chair, very confused.
"Who is that man?" the investigator asked without even a greeting as she entered. The woman did not know what to do, what to answer.