ice and warm and the
free lunch tastes mighty good. They can't afford to go to the
restaurants, even cheap ones, so they go to the saloon and drink that
rotten whiskey that drives them crazy. That is one thing I never saw no
fun in, and I must say for you, Kate, that with all the rotten crowd you
run with, you didn't take to booze nor dope. If you hadn't just
naturally not known the difference between what belonged to you and what
belonged to the other man, you might have been a pretty respectable
member of society. I tell you I am watching Billy mighty close to see
that he don't have too small fingers. By the looks of him now, the way
he is growing, his hands are going to be like hams, and if he ever got
them in another man's pocket, he would never get them out again.

I can't send you no money. I tell you I am absolutely flat strapped. I
hocked my two rings and I even sold my dancing slippers. I ain't paid
Mrs. Smith for Billy's board in most a month, and I know they need the
money. Cheer up, old girl, you only have a short time now. I keep a
trying to think what you can do when you come out, but I don't seem to
light on nothing you would like. Anyway, you know I am thinking of you.

Yours,
_Nan_.

XIV

_Dear Kate_:

I am worried to death. I don't know what to do and my hand don't seem to
get well. I haven't got a cent to my name, I owe Mrs. Smith six weeks'
board money for Billy, and I have been eating off her for three weeks.
She can't afford to feed me, and every mouthfull I take chokes me. I
know they are hard up, cause I caught her crying the other day. Her
husband is awful nice, but he ain't got much sense and his business in
life is teaching not trying to raise vegetables. She says she won't hear
me going back to dancing, but I don't see what else I can do. My hand
don't affect my feet. I was over town the other day and saw my old
dancing partner, Fred Keeney. He said we can get a job at the Cafe
Boulevard and I am crazy to try it. Yet if I could work, I would cut the
whole thing out, cause Mrs. Smith is right when she says that dancing
ain't bad, just the bum crowd you have got to go with. And I am up
against it more than most of the girls, cause nearly all of them have
homes, but everybody seems to know or finds out mighty sudden that I am
your sister, and it ain't up to me then to go in for the heavy
respectable. Gee, Kate you have got a reputation! You must have had a
lot of newspaper adv