tic heart,
stifling it with the burden of its misery.

No, it is not good to delve into the dark pages of such folks' lives
too closely, unless armored with impenetrable callousness. But one
cannot help wondering whence all those living tragedies come. Look at
the men. For the most part strong, able creatures, apparently capable
of fighting the lusty battle of life with undiminished ardor. Look at
the women. They are for the most part thinking women, healthy,
capable. And yet--well, nine-tenths of them are not so cut off from
their home cities, their friends and relatives, without some more than
ordinary reason.

It is a sad sight to see the women plunged headlong into the fight for
existence in such places, to witness the cruel iron thrust upon them
its searing brand, to watch all the natural softness of their sex
harden to the necessary degree for a successful issue to the battle,
to witness their frequent unsexing and ultimate degradation. Such
results are common enough when a woman enters the lists. It is so
often a mere question of time. And when the end is achieved, how
awful, how revolting, but how natural.

How Birdie Mason came to find herself the one woman on Suffering
Creek--leaving out the later advent of Scipio's wife--it is not for us
to ask. Whatever her little tragedy it is hers alone, and does not
concern us. All that we need think of is her future, and the pity that
so well-favored a woman has not found her lot cast in places where her
womanhood has its best chances. However, she is there, living the life
of all such hired "helps," drudging from morning till night in one
long round of sordid labor, in an atmosphere stinking with the fetid
breath of debased humanity.

But as yet the life has made no inroads upon her moral health. Her
sunny good nature sets her singing over the most grinding labors. Her
smiling face, and ready tongue, give her an air of happiness and joy
of life which seems well-nigh invincible. And her popularity contrives
her many thrilling moments and advantages which she is too much a
woman and a child to deny herself.

Her day's work ends with the after supper "wash up," a dreary routine
which might well crush the most ardent spirit. Yet she bends over her
tubs full of crockery dreaming her sunny dreams, building her little
castles to the clink of enameled tin cups, weaving her romances to the
clatter of cutlery, smiling upon the mentally conjured faces of her
boys amidst the