"They won't sell five any cheaper than one."
"And every family in this house could take care of five," she went on. "That would make a ton."
I began to see what she meant and as I thought of it I didn't see why it wasn't a practical scheme.
"I believe that's a good idea," I said. "And if there were more women like you in the world I don't believe there'd be any trusts at all."
"Nonsense," she said. "You leave it to me now and I'll see the other women in the house. They are the ones who'll appreciate a good saving like that."
She saw them and after a good deal of talk they agreed, so I told Ruth to tell them to save out of next Saturday night's pay a dollar and a half apiece. I was a bit afraid that if I didn't get the cash when the coal was delivered I might get stuck on the deal. The next Monday I ordered the coal and asked to have it delivered late in the day. When I came home I found the wagon waiting and it created about as much excitement on the street as an ambulance. I guess it was the first time in the history of Little Italy that a coal team had ever stopped before a tenement. The driver had brought baskets with him and I filled up one and took it to a store nearby and weighed into it eighty pounds of coal. With that for my guide I gathered the other men of the families about me and made them carry the coal in while I measured it out. The driver who at first was inclined to object to the whole proceeding was content to let things go on when he found himself relieved of all the carrying. We emptied the wagon in no time and the other men insisted upon carrying up my coal for me. I collected every cent of my money and incidentally established myself on a firm footing with every family in the house. Several other tenements later adopted the plan but the idea didn't take hold the way you'd have thought it would. I guess it was because there weren't any more Ruths around there to oversee the job. Then, too, while these people are far-sighted in a good many ways, they are short-sighted in others. Neither the wholesale nor co-operative plans appeal to them. For one thing they are suspicious and for another they don't like to spend any more than they have to day by day. Later on through Ruth's influence we carried our scheme a little farther with just the people in the house and bought flour and sugar that way but it was made possible only through their absolute trust in her. We always insisted on carrying out every such little operation on a cash basis and they never failed us.
Ruth's influence had been gradually spreading through the neighborhood. She had found time to meet the other families in the house and through them had met a dozen more. The first floor was occupied by Michele, an Italian laborer, his wife, his wife's sister and two children. On the second floor there was Giuseppe, the young sculptor, and his father and mother. The father was an invalid and the lad supported the three. On the third floor lived a fruit peddler, his wife and his wife's mother—rather a commonplace family, while the fourth floor was occupied by Pietro, a young fellow who sold cut flowers on the street and hoped some day to have a garden of his own. He had two children and a grandmother to care for.
It certainly afforded a contrast to visit those other flats and then Ruth's. Right here is where her superior intelligence came in, of course. The foreign-born women do not so quickly adapt themselves to the standards of this country as the men do. Most of them as I learned, come from the country districts of Italy where they live very rudely. Once here they make their new quarters little better than their old. The younger ones however who are going to school are doing better. But taken by and large it was difficult to persuade them that cleanliness offered any especial advantages. It wasn't as though they minded the dirt and were chained to it by circumstances from which they couldn't escape—as I used to think. They simply didn't object to it. So long as they were warm and had food enough they were content. They didn't suffer in any way that they themselves could see.
But when Ruth first went into their quarters she was horrified. She thought that at length she was face to face with all the misery and squalor of the slums of which she had read. I remember her chalk-white face as she met me at the door upon my return home one night. She nearly drove the color out of my own cheeks for I thought surely that something had happened to the boy. But it wasn't that; she had heard that the baby on the first floor was ill and had gone down there to see if there was anything she might do for it. Until then she had seen nothing but the outside of the other doors from the hall and they looked no different from our own. But once inside—well I guess that's where the two hundred years if not the four hundred years back of us native Americans counts.
"Why, Billy," she cried, "it was awful. I'll never get that picture out of mind if I live to be a hundred."