turalization then," he went
on, "of course you're both Americans. And you both speak English," and
he entered this also on the language column.

"What does your husband work at?" was the boy's next query.

"He's a gardener, sah."

"Odd jobs?"

"Oh, no, sah, in the big nu'sery here."

"On regular wages, then?"

"Yas, sah, nine dollahs a week."

"I don't have to put down how much he earns," the boy explained, "only
to state whether he is paying wages, or being paid wages, or working on
his own account.--But you must find it hard to get along on nine a
week."

"Ah make mo 'n he does," the woman explained.

"You do? How?"

"Washin', sah. An' Ah take a lot o' fine washin', laces an' things like
that, which the ladies want jes' as carefully done! Ah make as high as
twelve an' sometimes fifteen dollahs a week."

"That helps a lot," said Hamilton, as he noted down the facts that the
woman was a laundress, and that she worked on her own account, typified
by the letters "O.A." in the wage column.

"You both read and write--or, wait a bit, I think you said you couldn't
write, and that you have to get the neighbors' children to help you."

"Ah can read pretty well," the woman replied, "but Ah never had enough
schoolin' to write much; mah mother was ill all the time, an' Ah had to
stay home. But Steve, he writes beautiful, an' he makes out all mah
bills an' things like that."

"I think there's only one question more," the boy said, delighted to
find that after all, even in the house of a negro laundress who did not
know how to write, the information could be so easily secured. After
jotting down a "Yes" and a "No" respectively for Husband and Wife in the
columns for literacy, he continued, "And that question is, whether this
house is owned by you or whether you rent it."

"We're only rentin' it, sah. Steve wants to buy it an' put a mo'gage on,
but Ah don't know anythin' about mo'gages an' Ah won't buy until Ah can
pay the whole price right down. Don' yo' think Ah'm right?"

"Well, Lily," answered the lad, as he folded up his portfolio and
prepared to go to the next house, "it would hardly do for one of Uncle
Sam's census men to come between a husband and a wife on the question
of their buying of their own home, would it?"

"Ah reckon not, sah. Is that all, sah?"

"Yes, Lily, that's all, and I'm very much obliged."

"It wasn't so awful bad," said the woman, with a sigh of relief.

"It's easy enough to answer