ere I had not asked. Perhaps it would not have
seemed important to you. It did to me, and when I had gone all the way
back and she answered my question, I knew why. Where do you suppose she
scrubbed? In the Presbyterian Building! Under his own roof was the
neighbor he sought. Almost they touched elbows, yet were they farther
apart than the poles. Were, but no longer to be. The very next day brought
my friend and his wife in from their Jersey home to East Eleventh Street.
Long years after I found this entry on the register, under date January
20, 1899:

"Mrs. Josefy states that she never had such a happy Christmas since she
came to this country. The children were all so happy, and every one had
been so kind to them."

It was the beginning of better days for the Josefy family. Weary stretches
of hard road there were ahead yet, but they were no longer lonesome. The
ladies' committee that had once so hotly blamed her were her friends to
the last woman, for she had taught them with her splendid pluck what it
should mean to be a mother of Americans. They did not offer to carry her
then any more than before, but they went alongside with words of
neighborly cheer and saw her win over every obstacle. Two years later
finds her still working in the Presbyterian Building earning sixteen
dollars a month and leaving her home at five in the morning. Her oldest
boy is making four dollars and a half a week, and one of the girls is
learning dressmaking. The others are all in school. One may be sure
without asking that they are not laggards there. When the youngest, at
twelve, is wanted by her friends of the mission board to "live out" with
them, the mother refuses to let her go, at the risk of displeasing her
benefactors. The child must go to school and learn a trade. Three years
more, and all but the youngest are employed. Mrs. Josefy has had a long
illness, but she reports that she can help herself. They are now paying
fourteen dollars a month rent. On April 6, 1904, the last entry but one is
made on the register: the family is on dry ground and the "case is
closed."

The last but one. That one was added after a gap of eight years when I
made inquiries for the Josefys the other day. Eight years is a long time
in the Charities Buildings with a heavy burden of human woe and failure.
Perhaps for that very reason they had not forgotten Mrs. Josefy, but they
had lost trace of her. She had left her old home in Eleventh Street, and
all tha