File:Beauty for ashes (1914) (14597503797).jpg

Identifier: beautyforashes01baco (find matches)
Title: Beauty for ashes
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Bacon, Albion Fellows, 1865-1933
Subjects: Working class Tenement houses Poor
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Text Appearing Before Image:
ards, our
stamina, our philosophy, the habitual slum dweller
let bad enough alone, and new recruits, after a strug-
gle, followed the line of least resistance.
As to making these places homelike, it was a
bitter joke. The best of them were cheerless and
dismal; the worst of them were sties, where none of
us would have housed a pet animal.
Once in a while we had a case, above the average,
whose outcome encouraged the whole circle. A girl
of a better class was given into my care, having been
brought in touch with Miss Rein through the truancy
of her little brother. She was an attractive girl,
with a sweet face framed in soft shining hair, and
a pretty modest manner. Her father was a labour-
ing man, who made good wages, but drank sometimes,a
nd she kept house for him and her little brother of
ten. She was fifteen when I first visited her, and
ambitious to be a good housekeeper, though sorely
in need of lessons. The matter of her brother's trou-
ble at school was soon settled by a visit to his teacher.
Text Appearing After Image:

No. 1. The best of them were cheerless and dismall.


CLUTCH OF THE THORNS 59

Luckily, she lived near enough for me to visit often,
and for her to visit me. She came timidly, at first,
to get bulbs or roses from my garden rows, or recipes
for gingerbread, and rarely, for books. For five
years I watched her blooming into womanhood, fear-
ful at times of threatening influences, of which we
talked together plainly. It was a relief when she
married a sensible working man, who took good care
of her and looked after the brother.
We had some cases where alleviation seemed all
there was left to give. One of my old friends lived
in a shed, at the rear of a neat cottage. It would
have been a good coal shed; it made a poor home.
It was neither ceiled nor stripped, and the icy wind
blew in, sifting the snow on to her pillow. She, poor
little old lady, was weak from illness, largely due
to exposure. Yet she kept the tiny room neat and
spotless, and her stove shining.
It was a long tale she told, gasping for breath
with asthma. She had been wealthy once, but death,
misfortune, loss, even robbery, had left her nothing
but her stove, her clock, her rocking chair and her
featherbed.
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