The young woman grinned mirthlessly. "I should say not!" she snapped. "They pays me to look out for 'em—their fathers and mothers in the factory. Watcha want?"
"What do you pay for a house like this?"
The hired mother's brow wrinkled, and her lips drew back in an ugly snarl. "They robs us, these landlords does. We gotter be 'longside the works, so they robs us. What do I pay for this? Thirty a month, and at that 'tain't fit for no dawg to live in. I could knock up a shack like this with tar paper, I could.
"And what do we get? I gotter haul the water in a bucket, and cook on an oil stove, and they hists the price of the ile, 'cause he comes by in a wagon with it. The landlords is squeezing the life out of us, I tell ye."
She paused in her tirade to yell at her charges. Then she turned again to the story of her wrongs.
"And of all the pest holes I ever seen, this is the plum worst. There's chills an' fever an' typhoid till you can't rest, an' them kids is abustin' with measles an' mumps an' scarlet fever. That I ain't got 'em all myself's a miracle."
"You ought to have a district nurse and inspector/' said Geneviève, amused, in spite of her indignation, at the dark picture presented.
"Distric' nothin'," the other sneered. "There ain't nothin' here but rent an' taxes—doggone if I don't quit. There's plenty to do this here mindin' work, an' I bet I could make more at the factory. They're payin' grand for overtime."
Geneviève looked at the thin shoulders and narrow chest of the girl, noted her growing pallor and wondered how long such a physique could withstand the strain of hard work and overtime. She sighed. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face, for the girl reddened and her lips tightened. Without another word she slammed the door in her visitor's face.
Mrs. Brewster-Smith cackled thin laughter.