had been so cocksure of himself
he had lost them. He couldn't make up his mind to stoop to blacking
boots and cleaning spittoons. He had always lived with aristocrats. He
felt himself one to his finger tips.

There was but one thing he could do that seemed to be needed up here.
He could handle tobacco. He could stem the leaf. He had learned that
at Arlington in helping Ben superintend the curing of the weed for the
servants' use.

He made the rounds of the factories only to find that the larger part
of this work was done in tenement homes. He spent a day finding one of
these workshops.

They offered to take him in as a boarder and give him sixty cents a day.
He could have a pallet beside the six children in the other room and a
place to put his trunk. Sixty cents a day would pay his room rent and
give him barely enough food to keep body and soul together.

He hurried back to his boarding house, threw the little trunk on his
back and trudged to the tobacco tenement. When he arrived no one stopped
work. The mother waved her hand to the rear. He placed his trunk in a
dark corner, came out and settled to the task of stemming tobacco.

He did his work with a skill and ease that fascinated the children. He
took time to show them how to grip the leaf to best advantage and rip
the stem with a quick movement that left scarcely a trace of the weed
clinging to it. He worked with a swinging movement of his body and began
to sing in soft, low tones.

The wizened eyes brightened, and when he stopped one of them whispered:

"More, black man. Sing some more!"

He sang one more song and choked. His eye caught the look of mortal
weariness in the tired face of the little girl of six and his voice
wouldn't work.

"Goddermighty!" he muttered, "dese here babies ought not ter be wukkin
lak dis!"

When lunch time came the six children begged Sam to live in the place
and take his meals with them.

Their mother joined in the plea and offered to board him for thirty
cents a day. This would leave him a few cents to spend outside. He
couldn't yet figure on clothes. It didn't seem right to have to pay for
such things. Anyhow he had enough to last him awhile.

He decided to accept the offer and live as a boarder with the family.
The lunch was discouraging. A piece of cold bread and a glass of water
from the hydrant. Sam volunteered to bring the water.

The hydrant was the only water supply for the six hundred people whose
houses touc