“A woman came down from the second floor, and said that there were some people on the fifth that needed help. She asked me if I came from the Charity Building,” said the Doctor, in disgust. “I can stand a great deal, but I cannot stand being mistaken for a philanthropist.”
“You ought to be more on your guard,” I suggested. “You really put yourself into positions where it is difficult to discriminate.”
“I climbed the stairs to the very top of the house, and knocked at the only door I saw. ‘Herein!’ called somebody. Then I found myself in a room full of children. No, they are not Mrs. Ebstein’s. She rents a little hole in the wall from the woman, a German, who lives in this room. The only passage to the inner apartment is through the outer one.
“They opened Mrs. Ebstein’s door, and there sat two children—”
“How old,” I asked.
“About twenty. Oh, they are grown up and married. They looked like Babes in the Wood, but they are man and wife. The woman is a little thing with her hair in two braids down her back. The man was sitting with his arms on the table. He had been resting his head on his hands; he looked up when I entered, and was dazed at first, then embarrassed. He is a nice, honest German boy who ought to be at home in the Vaterland with his grandmother.”
“What did they come here for?” I interrupted.
“To starve,” said the Doctor. “America is like a great almshouse with no endowment. She opens her arms to the poor of all nations, and says: ‘Come here and die.’ Luckily we have room enough to bury them all in.”
“How did you begin to talk with them?” I asked. “What is the best way of beginning? Do you suppose these people resent being intruded upon as we should?”
“I simply held out my hand,” answered the Doctor, and said: ‘Is this Mrs. Ebstein?’ I spoke in German. The little woman burst out crying. She had been crying before. Then I said: ‘Somebody told me that you are in trouble. What can I do for you?’ She only pulled her husband’s sleeve and said: ‘Heinrich, Heinrich! Komm mal, sprich!’