File:Beauty for ashes (1914) (14780872421).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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tings,drunken husbands and dirt. When a womans pridemade her refer to her husband as sick, even whilehe was sleeping ojff a spree in the corner of that veryroom, it was not wise to deny that he was sufferingfrom liver trouble. He probably was. And we hadto respect and conserve such pride, for it was thebasis of the desired re-establishment. For similar reasons, we hesitated to speak of soapin some families, where a word would make a lather.Much less could one slip a bar of it into a bundleof magazines and leave it on the table. When onesfriendship is as fragile as a shell tumbler, to speakof washing will almost break it. In some cases welonged for a visiting housekeeper, to utter whatnearly choked us. But there were more cases wherethe struggle for cleanliness was pathetic — nay, itwas heroic. Our visitors almost always reported alack of water in the dwellings of the poor. City wa-ter we never found, even though the mains were inthe street in front of the houses. Cisterns were their
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cu ^ o pC o zn OJ pC > ^ ^ c3 (3J s C/2 O ^ *a ^ 0) C/2 C2 C3 o ^ *^ C o O 4^ o > J^ (D s c3 CLUTCH OF THE THORNS 55 only water supply, and often these were dry or fullof trash. It was discouraging to solicit washings for a poorwoman who had no other way to earn a living, andthen have her lose them because she hadnt enoughwater to wash them white; because, as she said, Wehave to be sparin of the water, cuz so many fam-blies uses outen the cistern. I asked one of the women where she got her water,for I saw no supply, Why, I jes steals it, honey,wherever I kin, she said; but folks dont like tohave us take it, they has sech a hard time to git thecistern filled when its gone. We who had the Ohio River on tap could hardlytake in the situation. Yet we found many familieswhose floors were scoured, their children scrubbed,and their clothing washed white, with water carriedfrom a distance. Some carried drinking water ablock, others two blocks. In those cases where the struggle with dirt

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