, but most days three of us sew together here, and Jinny
keeps right along. We'll do better yet when Mame gets a bit older."

As she spoke the door opened and a woman with an enormous bundle of
overalls entered and sat down on the nearest chair with a gasp.

"Them stairs is killin'," she said. "It's lucky I've not to climb 'em
often."

Something crept forward as the bundle slid to the floor, and busied
itself with the string that bound it.

"Here you, Jinny," said the woman, "don't you be foolin'. What do you
want anyhow?"

The something shook back a mat of thick hair and rose to its feet,--a
tiny child who in size seemed no more than three, but whose countenance
indicated the experience of three hundred.

"It's the string I want," the small voice said. "Me an' Mame was goin'
to play with it."

"There's small time for play," said the mother; "there'll be two pair
more in a minute or two, an' you're to see how Mame does one an' do it
good too, or I'll find out why not."

Mame had come forward and stood holding to the one thin garment which
but partly covered Jinny's little bones. She too looked out from a wild
thatch of black hair, and with the same expression of deep experience,
the pallid, hungry little faces lighting suddenly as some cheap cakes
were produced. Both of them sat down on the floor and ate their portion
silently.

"Mame's seven and Jinny's going on six," said the mother, "but Jinny's
the smartest. She could sew on buttons when she wasn't but much over
four. I had five then, but the Lord's took 'em all but these two. I
couldn't get on if it wasn't for Mame."

Mame looked up but said no word, and as I left the room settled herself
with her back against the wall, Jinny at her side, laying the coveted
string near at hand for use if any minute for play arrived. In the next
room, half-lighted like the last, and if possible even dirtier, a Jewish
tailor sat at work on a coat, and by him on the floor a child of five
picking threads from another.

"Netta is good help," he said after a word or two. "So fast as I finish,
she pick all the threads. She care not to go away--she stay by me always
to help."

"Is she the only one?"

"But one that sells papers. Last year is five, but mother and dree are
gone with fever. It is many that die. What will you? It is the will of
God."

On the floor below two children of seven and eight were found also
sewing on buttons--in this case for four women who had thei