The Nine-Tenths

viation for home use), pulled his gray hat over his bushy hair,

Mr.

while I'm gone, make 'em stand in line, and each wait his turn. Bu

at Joe like

ce your hopes too high. I don't like to be too gl

ng the tragic bookkeeper a

in the brilliant morning sunshi

mused, "is the

oop, a two-year-old girl in her arm

lo,

im a little doubtful

" asked Joe o

ir

w o

wo

rling! What

's An

after

ur

if I gave her a p

mind some c

shrieked

ing pocket and produce

d it up and s

the man

nk y

our only o

me! No, I've bur

this h

n'-" Mrs. Cassidy

e a gri

our ren

shrugged he

n poor p

t Mr. Cass

m work. Slave like a nigger and th

d of work

-he's a 'lo

ployed you have a h

and five cents for Annie. We couldn't let that go; it's buryin'-money, and there ain't a Cassidy isn't going to have as swell a

ke emph

ork, through no fault of his own, he ought

to give i

now what they

they do i

and when a man's out he gets so-and-so-mu

it? Who listen

ngs to a union

ur

hings. If they knew them, they'd get together and make t

ures in the schools every Tuesday and Thursday night. But Tim don't

laug

t I mean. Listen. I'm a neigh

ron beds, she up and went to Macy's and bought one herself. What yer doi

ghed he

he press in

ght it was an earth

as ab

ou know

ff your l

re wrong-I'

dy was hug

at black, thin one-he's creepy, Mr. Joe. But your moth

hed tra

neighborhood knows al

," laughed M

one thing you

t's

my news

abou

per do y

entioned a dai

ents a week, isn't it? Will you spend t

ou

, and what the poor ought to do to get more out of l

, clearly printed. There was something homely and inviting about it

cute?" s

st such people as you, a

much

onths, once a week, and let Tim read it out loud. Say,

she w

mself, and bore her down to the press-room, Mrs. Cassidy following, a

ich shows, it must be confessed, that Joe was considerable of a po

corner, that, quite accidentally,

" said Joe, "but I

id Michael, easily, "b

ne," said Joe, hand

n," said Michael,

t up to

re on me," mu

ght, mirrory place, whose tiled floor was covere

ers, Do

r light

ar

Michael poun

, the times

o, Mic

h, and the poor too p

ook thi

it over, and bu

piel it out? Did you say

join you

sparkling eyes, his open face, his fiery, musical

Have a press there and an office. Run in and see my mother.

ay the Stov

her club-my ad

m o

blunt, biting, deep-ches

e get

l-necked, with fierce bristling mustache, and clothes much too

low, cigar store, whose gas-blazing atmosphere reeked wit

s your

lack hair, and untidy spade beard, and big round glasse

dogs-clear Havana-

me. Give me te

ed to be) shrugged his shoulders-"I'

; one, a fine and fiery Jew, handsome, dark, young; the other, a large and gentle Italian, with pallid featur

red?" a

quietly, "I come fr

t myself," said Joe. "But

?" asked t

I run a radi

ame of it?" a

ine-Te

interested in Izon, the facts of whose life he soon came to know. Izon was a designer, working at Marrin's, the shirtwaist manufacturer; he made thirty dollar

examined the

said Izon. "You must le

three to the

blazing gas in the crowded room, with its cheap, frail, shiny furniture, its crayons on the wall, its crockery and cheap clocks, and with the noise of the city's night rising all

out yoursel

out the palm

o learn. Come over here, and education no good. Nobody want Italian educated man. So worked on Italian paper-go round and see

ied Joe. "Then

o lau

mmigrants-they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I get after the bums and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill

e m

othing but the saloons and the women to spenda the money. Company own everything-store

ere did

Little. Have to feed and work for wife and three children. I try and try. Hod-ca

are you

gnorant-not-not social. Down-stairs live a Calabria man, makes ice-cream-got f

ed Joe. "Why

o lau

Italians read English. I make

*

he had felt unprepared, throbbingly incapable; but this evening as he finished his work and was on the way home it seemed that beyond his own volition he suddenl

young woman who was responsible for sending him here. He had a vivid mental image of her tragic loveliness, of how she had stepped back and forth before him and suddenly put her hands to her face and wept, of how she had divined his sufferin

read of light beneath the rear door, he a

rprising him, a defini

me

ere as clear windows allowing one to peer in. And she was dressed in a white shirtwaist and the same brown skirt, and over a hook, behind her, hung the same brown coat. Yet Joe was shocked. This was not the Sally Heffer of his dreams-but rather a refreshing, forceful, dynamic young woman, brimming over with the joy of life. And even in that f

she began to stare, her eyes lit wi

-Bla

ithin him; he felt common and homely again; he

said, "I

e and more incredulous, an

brings y

here-Wes

here

med to searc

me," he

led str

t ni

es

asped it ... her hand seemed almost froz

I couldn't help it.... But you ... do you

hed awk

I've done"-he hand

"and it's ve

n-excitement, exultation-and held th

... oh!... for the worki

erly read. Then she glanced back a moment and s

. Sit down. You don't

iled

up." And he sank down, and let h

d then suddenl

al is-it's ju

he thrill of a cr

ing-girl in New Yo

do

oked at him, more

e doing. I must pinch

d to be

his end of the beam was down, hers up. But subtly in her voice he felt

, "just how you cam

t his ease with her, as if she were a man, and in the pleasu

s, it's up to me to help you win. I'm going to turn into

ughed

s-after tramping up three miles of stairs and

t all y

don't un

" cried Sally, cl

mly; he was del

rking here?

to be in Newark-I was

t-Trimmer

d n

o organize th

rimly. "I wouldn't lik

ff

ed in her

: 'You won't get it. Mind your own business.' So I said, quietly: 'All right, Mr. Plump, we'll take a whole holiday. We won't show up Monday.' Then he said to me, 'Sally Heffer, go to hell!' He was the first man to say such a thing to my face. Well, one of the girls found me in the hall drying my eyes, and when she got the fa

chuc

t! Gr

for sticking up for the Jews. Did I care? Ten years ago every time the men got a raise through their union, the girls had their sa

trimmi

ay hat, and then looked a

titch through those holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It kills eyes. What do you think?"

d he had a wild impulse

do you g

fte

's department in the paper. Will

don't k

, "I'm willing t

voice loosed

laine. I'll do it! But

said Joe, "an

shook

nd meet my mother!" He

man stuff. It is the women"-she repeated the phrase slowly-"it is t

od-

into the open

hake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance for other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian before her. And, most wondrous of all,

she a marvel! And, miracle of miracles, sh

cal comments-especially on how to get news and what news to get-and each member was delegated to see to one department. Latsky and Giotto took immigration, Dunan took politics and the Irish, Heming took the East Side, Izon, foreign news, and Sally Heffer took workwomen. Thereafter each one in his way visited labor unions, clubs, and societies and got each group to pledge its

slovenly and filthy. He found young wives just risen from bed, chewing gum and reading the department-store advertisements in the paper, their hair in curl-papers. He found fat women hanging out of windows, their dishes unwashed, their beds unmade, their floors unswept. He found men sick in bed, and managed to sit down at their side and give them an interesting twenty minutes. He found other men, out of work, smoking and reading. He found one Italian family making "willow plumes" in two narrow rooms-one a bedroom, the other a kitchen-every one at work, twisting the strands of feathers to make a swaying plume-every one, includi

, hustled him out to work, and we've done well ever since.

mbitious,

e my hands f

ibed The N

his plant and meet his mother. Even the strange specimen

re's many stuck-up women I know

dramatic scene after scene, destiny after destiny-squalor, ignorance, crime, neatness, ambition, thrift, respectability. He never forgot the shabby dar

I make is two hundred and fifty dollars a year-le

er on the

acts, vital eleme

d; that many families spent about twenty-five cents a day for food; that few clothes were bought, and these mainly from the instalment man and second hand at that; that many were recipients of help; and that recreation and education were everywhere reduced to the lowest terms. That is, boys and girls were hustled to work at twelve by giving their age

using can be obtained at less than

health in a diet

urns up, coats and shoes w

or experimenting with new food combinations, or in making or mendi

ng, were between the upper and nether m

t; the children foraging the streets for kindling-wood; the family in bed to keep warm; the wife whose husband had pawned her wedding-ring for drink, and who had bought a ten-cent brass one, "to keep the respect of her children"; the man working for ten dollars a week, who once had owned his own saloon, but, so he said, "it was impossible to make money out of a saloon unless I put in gambling-machines or wo

y and mutual helpfulness-the poor aiding the poorer; the exquisite de

and came home late at night too tired almost to undre

never dreamed of such poverty! I

fe of humanity. He began to sense the fact that he was in the center of a human whirlpool, in the center of beauty and ugliness, love and bitterness, misery an

e kept thinking, "

luxury, pleasure, and ease, so down-town offered the rivals of intemperance, gri

w touch them off?"

scenes-the gas-lit interiors-everywhere human b

had distributed twelve hundred copies of the paper. He now felt that he could delay no longer in bringing out the next num

his wife, drag her about the floor, blacken her eyes, break a rib. The next day the task is taken up again-the man is fed, the children clothed, the food marketed, the floor scrubbed, the dress sewn. And then as the family grows there come hard times. The man is out of work-he wants to work but cannot. Rent and the butcher and grocer must be paid, but there are no wages brought home. The woman takes in washing. She goes through the streets to the more prosperous and drags home a basket of soiled clothes. The burden of life grows heavier-the husband becomes accustomed to the changed relationships. Very often he ceases to be a wage-earner and loafs about saloons. From then on the woman wrestles with worlds of trouble-unimaginable difficulties. Truly, running a state may be easier than running a family. And yet the woman toils on; she does not complain; she sets three meals each day before husband and children; she sees that they have clothes; she gives the man his drink money; she endures his cruelty; she plans ambitiously for her children. Or possibly the man begins to work again, and then one day is killed in an accident.

l was a bit too pessimistic. But he had to write it-had to ease his soul. He set

planet comes from the mothers and fathers

Joe entered into th