r other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian
before her. And, most wondrous of all, she was a "live wire." He had
gone to her abasing himself; he came away as her employer, subtly
cheered, encouraged, and lifted to new heights of vivid enterprise.

"Sally Heffer!" he kept repeating. "Isn't she a marvel! And, miracle of
miracles, she is going to swing the great work with me!"

And so the Stove Circle was founded with Sally Heffer, Michael Dunan,
Oscar Heming, Nathan Latsky, Salvatore Giotto, and Jacob Izon. Its
members met together a fortnight later on a cold wintry night. The
stove was red-hot, the circle drew about it on their kitchen chairs, and
Joe spent the first meeting in going over his plans for the paper. There
were many invaluable practical comments--especially on how to get news
and what news to get--and each member was delegated to see to one
department. Latsky and Giotto took immigration, Dunan took politics and
the Irish, Heming took the East Side, Izon, foreign news, and Sally
Heffer took workwomen. Thereafter each one in his way visited labor
unions, clubs, and societies and got each group to pledge itself to send
in news. They helped, too, to get subscriptions--both among their
friends and in the unions. In this way Joe founded his paper. He never
repeated the personal struggle of that first week, for he now had an
enthusiastic following to spread the work for him--men and a woman,
every one of whom had access to large bodies of people and was an
authority in his own world.

But that wonderful week was never forgotten by Joe. Each day he had
risen early and gone forth and worked till late at night, making a
canvass in good earnest. House after house he penetrated, knocking at
doors, inquiring for a mythical Mrs. (or Mr.) Parsons (this to hush the
almost universal fear that he had come to collect the rent or the
instalment on the furniture or clothes of the family). In this way he
started conversation. He found first that the immediate neighborhood
knew him already. And he found many other things. He found rooms tidy,
exquisite in their cleanliness and good taste of arrangement; and then
other rooms slovenly and filthy. He found young wives just risen from
bed, chewing gum and reading the department-store advertisements in the
paper, their hair in curl-papers. He found fat women hanging out of
windows, their dishes unwashed, their beds unmade, their floors unswept.
He found men