"For years that poverty continued. I used to see Karl pretty near
every day until I fell and hurt my head and broke my leg in two places
and was kept in the hospital many months. Barbara had to go out to
work then, washing clothes for richer folks, and we couldn't offer to
help dear old Karl as we would. So we just pretended that we didn't
know anything about the poverty that was making him look so haggard
and old. Karl would have died from the worry, I believe, if it had not
been for the children. They kept him young and cheered him up. He
might not have had anything but dry bread to eat for days, but he
would come down the street laughing like a great big boy, a crowd of
children tugging at his coat and crying 'Daddy Marx! Daddy Marx!
Daddy Marx!' at the top of their little voices.

"He used to come and see me at the hospital sometimes. No matter how
tired and worried he might be--and I could tell that pretty well by
looking at his face when he didn't know that I was looking--he always
was cheerful with me. He wanted to cheer me up, you see, so he told me
all the encouraging news about the movement--though there wasn't very
much that was encouraging--and then he would crack jokes and tell
stories that made me laugh so loud that all the other patients in the
room would get to laughing too.

"I told him one day about a little German lad in a bed at the lower
end of the ward. Poor little chap, he had been operated on several
times, but there was no hope. He was bound to die, the nurse told me.
When I told Karl the tears came into his eyes and he kept on moaning,
'Poor little chap! So young! Poor little chap!' He went down and
talked with him for an hour or more, and I could hear the boy's
laughter ring through the long hospital ward. We'd never heard him
laugh before, for no one ever came to see him, poor lonesome little
fellow.

"Karl always used to spend some of his time with the little chap after
that. He would bring books and read to him in his mother tongue, or
tell him wonderful stories. The poor little chap was so happy to see
him and always used to kiss 'Uncle Nick,' as Karl taught the boy to
call him. And when the little fellow died, Karl wept just as though
the lad had been his own kin, and insisted upon following him to the
grave."

"Ah, that was great and noble, Hans! How he must have felt the great
universal heart-ache!"

"I used to go to the German Communist Club to hear Karl lecture. That
was years