79 and 1881, the gradual
fall of wages, the long seasons when there was no work, and last, the
fate that overtakes the worker in lead, whether painter or in any other
branch,--first painter's colic, and the long train of symptoms preceding
the paralysis which came at last, the stroke a light one, but leaving
the patient with the "drop hand" and all the other complications,
testifying that the working days were over. Strength enough returned for
an odd job now and then, and the little man accepted his fate cheerily,
and congratulated himself that the bank held a little fund and that thus
the lowering wages could be pieced out. The bank settled this question
by almost immediate failure; a long and expensive illness for the wife
followed; and when it ended furniture and small valuables of every sort
had been pawned, and they left the empty rooms for narrower quarters and
sought for work in which all could share. To add to the complication,
the daughter, who had had good sense enough to take a place as child's
nurse, broke her leg, and became, even when able to walk again, too
disabled to return to this work. She could run the machine, and her
mother was an expert buttonhole-maker and had already learned various
forms of work on cloth, both in cheap coats and pantaloons, and in
jackets and cloaks. The jackets seemed to promise most, for in 1884 each
one brought to the maker sixty cents, buttonholes being $1.50 per
hundred, the presser receiving ten cents each and the finisher six
cents, these amounts being deducted from the price paid on each. To save
this amount the husband learned how to press, and though his crippled
hands can barely grasp the iron, and often his wife must help him place
the cramped fingers in position, he stands there smiling and well
content to add this mite to the fund. For a year their home has been in
a deep basement, where, save at noonday, it is impossible to run the
machines without artificial light. A dark room opens from the one in
which they work, itself dark, unventilated save from the hall, and
chosen as abiding place because it represents but four dollars a month
in rent. Two machines run by mother and daughter stand as near the
window as possible, and close by is the press-board and the pale but
optimistic little man, who looks proudly at each seam as he lays it
open. Jackets are everywhere,--piled on chairs and scattered over the
floor,--waiting the various operations necessary before they