d us into a corner of the
room. On a bunk covered with straw and rags lay a woman with a little
baby near her. Its body was covered with a terrible rash, perfectly
bare, almost hidden within the floor rags. The shy father, himself in
pain, stood near, the personification of helplessness. If only there
were food in the house! The district physician? He would have been
compelled to prescribe food, light, warmth and sanitation for every hut
he visited, if he did not wish his science to prove a mockery. He could
not do that, so he came but rarely. Humanitarianism, thus far your name
is impotency! All that could be done was to leave money and hurry out
into the air.

The next abode might be considered pleasant compared with the previous
one. Two elderly people, not so worn and wan, and not so ragged. The man
was weaving, still having some work at times; his wife, very pleasant
and amiable, was almost ready to praise the good fortune of their home.
"We are better off than our neighbors," she said with some pride. She
pointed to a freshly cut loaf of bread, to the fire in the oven, to a
table and a real bed--a great fortune, indeed. The walls were covered
with some colored prints, representing virtue, patience, endurance to
the end. One picture showed the return of the prodigal son, one the
ejection of Hagar from the house of Abraham. Our hostess could boast of
the luxury of a coffee mill even, and, after she had ground and brewed
the coffee, we were invited to partake of it, which we gratefully did.
Local and general affairs were talked over; the man, quite talkative,
but careful and reticent in his remarks, especially when religious and
political questions were approached. His remarks were kept within
careful lines so as not to offend. Hauptmann said afterwards that he had
noticed such cautiousness in all weavers. No doubt it had grown out of
the great poverty that often brought out diffidence and reticence toward
strangers.

Hauptmann sat on a low stool, and, while we were sipping our coffee, the
woman petted him tenderly on the brow. "Yes, yes, young man, Want, the
awfulness of Want, but we cannot complain." At our departure, she
pointed to a hut nearby and said: "The people in there are nearly
starved." It was not exaggerated. When we entered, we saw a woman in the
dismal gray of the room, surrounded by a number of crying children. Two
or three of the maturer girls, thin and pale and drawn out by the
Procrustean bed of