her's feelings, so she
hung the new coat away and wore the other. But as she walked to church,
she asked her father why every child could not have the same kind of
things. He told her probably there would always be a difference in the
clothing families wore, but in religion and education there was no
reason why all should not have equal chances. "And, Jane dear," he
added, "I think it is a mistake ever to make other people unhappy by
dressing too much."

Jane never dropped her plan to have a fine house in the midst of poor
ones. The back gave her a good deal of trouble as she grew older, and
sometimes she had to lie still in bed for a year at a time. But she
managed to fit for college and to graduate. Then she traveled abroad.
But never for a day had she given up that house she had planned when she
was a child of seven.

Jane started to study medicine but was not strong enough to become a
doctor. So she traveled some more, but she could never find a city where
poor people were not suffering. It saddened her, and she said: "I can't
wait any longer. I must have a few people made happy." So with a girl
friend she went to the big city of Chicago and hired a fine old house
that had been built by a millionaire, a Mr. Hull. This house had a wide
hall, open fireplaces, a lot of windows for the sun to stream through,
and was on Halstead Street. This street is thirty-two miles long, and in
it live people from about every country in the world.

Jane Addams made the house so cheerful and pretty that it was a joy to
peep into it. Miss Addams and her friend asked the people about there
to come in and have coffee and cocoa, read books aloud to them, taught
the poor children to sew and cook, visited the sick, and made them
understand--all these poor, tired, discouraged people--that at Hull
House there were friends who wanted to help them in every way.

By and by there were clubs for boys at Hull House, kindergartens for
children, parties for old folks, and Halstead Street began to look
cleaner, for Miss Addams went up and down those thirty-two miles of
street and made it understood that she was there to help people grow
healthy and clean. All the time, she was helping to nurse the sick and
urging the rich people at their end of the city to come down to Halstead
Street to see how the poor lived. At Hull House an idiot child or a
drunken woman was helped as quickly and willingly as if they had been a
clean member of the royal family.