hand didn't
heal none and I didn't see where I was doing any better being a private
dancing teacher for a lot of fool women who really think no better than
a lot of the girls I had to go with, but who only know how to say it
better. Here I was working harder for six a week and at the same kind of
work, than I would be if I was dancing at thirty, so I told the woman I
must go. I spent all my money with the doctor and I didn't know what to
do, as I didn't want to go back to my room. Mrs. Smith was awful nice
and told me to come with her. I did and I am there now. My hand is a
little better but I still can't do much work and have to keep it tied
up. I can't wash dishes, nor do nothing where it will get wet.

Billy has learned his letters and he knows a lot of stories, especially
Bible stories out of a book that is full of pictures. He is awful funny.
He was showing me the book the other day, and he come to an old man with
long whiskers and I said, "Who is that old guy, Billy?" and he looked at
me so shocked and said, "Why, aunt Nannie, where have you been? That is
Moses," and he told me all about him and the Israelites which is another
name for Jews. I said if he has got anything to do with Jews, I orter
know something about them, cause there ain't much else in New York, yet
they ain't much in my line, as I just naturally hit the Irish.

Do you remember Rosie O'Grady who got married about three years ago?
Well, she is only twenty years old now. She has got a kid and supporting
it herself. That fellow she married was a coke fiend, and she fired him,
and she is doing real well. Her brother is a driver at McCreey's, and
between them they hire a little flat down on 20th Street and her mother
takes care of the baby and they are real happy. I went down to see her
the other night. A lot of women live there who scrub offices or go out
washing or do any kind of day work they can get. Most every one of them
support a drunken husband. One woman next door to Rosie has both her
husband and her brother on her hands, and her brother has been full for
three months and that poor woman goes out washing to give these
good-for-nothing men their food. I'd let their stomachs grow to their
back bone before I'd feed them. You see an awful lot of drink down
around Eighth Avenue, and it seems like it is done by the men that most
need the money. Yet I suppose when they are out on the wagon all day in
the cold and the wet, that a saloon looks awful n