“I've got three children—all girls,” said Mrs. Stedman, “and only one old enough to work. That's Sophie—she's in the cotton mill, and that only started again last month. And they say it may run on half time all the year. I do sewing and whatever I can to help, but there's never enough.”
Samuel forgot his own troubles in talking with this woman. His family had been poor on the farm, but they had never known such poverty as this. And here were whole streets full of people living the same sort of life; hanging over the abyss of destruction, and with no prospect save to struggle forever. Mrs. Stedman talked casually about her friends and neighbors, and new glimpses came to make the boy catch his breath. Next door was Mrs. Prosser, whose husband was dying of cancer; he had been two years dying, and they had five small children. And on the other side were the Rapinskys, a Polish family; they had been strong in the possession of three grown sons, and had even bought a phonograph. And now not one of them had done a stroke of work for three months.
To have been robbed and put in jail seemed a mere incident in comparison with such bitter and I lifelong suffering; and Samuel was ashamed of having made so much fuss. He had stated, with some trepidation, that he was just out of jail; but Mrs. Stedman had not seemed to mind that. Her husband had been in jail once, during the big glass strike, and for nothing more than begging another man not to take his job.
It was arranged that Samuel was to pay her thirty-five cents for his supper and bed and breakfast, and if he wished to stay longer she would board him for four dollars a week, or he might have the room alone for a dollar.
The two young children came in from school; they were frail and undersized little girls, with clothing that was neatly but pitifully patched. And shortly after them came Sophie.
Samuel gave a start of dismay when he saw her. He had been told that she worked in the cotton mill and was the mainstay of the family; and he had pictured a sturdy young woman, such as he had seen at home. Instead, here was a frail slip of a child scarcely larger than the others. Sophie was thirteen, as he learned afterwards; but she did not look to be ten by his standards. She was grave and deliberate in her movements, and she gazed at the stranger with a pair of very big brown eyes.
“This is Samuel Prescott,” said her mother. “He is going to spend the night, and maybe board with us.”
“How do you do?” said Sophie, and took off the shawl from her head and sat down in a corner. The boy thought that this was shyness upon her part, but later on he realized that it was lassitude. The child rested her head upon her hand every chance that she got, and she never did anything that she did not have to.
The next morning, bright and early, Samuel was on hand at the saloon, greatly to the amusement of his friend Finnegan. He got down on his hands and knees and gave the place such a scrubbing as it had never had before since it was built. And in return Finnegan invited him to some breakfast, which Samuel finally accepted, because it would enable him to take less from the Stedmans.
Professor Stewart had not specified any hour in his invitation. He lived in the aristocratic district across the bridge and Samuel presented himself at his door a little before eight.