r in that curious triangle, the
remnant of "Greenwich village," the stronghold still of old New York,
and she went at once to a region as unfamiliar to her conservative feet
as Baxter or Hester, or any other street given over to evil. Far over
toward the North River, in the first floor of a great tenement-house
inhabited by the better class of Irish chiefly, she took two rooms, one
a mere closet where the bed could stand; bestowed in them such furniture
as remained, and at fifty, with no clew left that any friend could
trace, began the fight for bread.

"It might have been better to go to the country," she said. "But you see
I wasn't used to the country, and then any work I could get to do was
right here. I'd always liked to sew, and so had Emeline, and we found we
could get regular work on children's suits, with skirts and such things
in the dull seasons. It was good pay, and we were comfortable till
prices began to fall. We made fifteen dollars a week sometimes, and
could have got ahead if it hadn't been for a little debt of my husband's
that I wanted to pay, for we'd never owed anybody a penny and I couldn't
let even that debt stand against his name. But when it was paid, somehow
I came down with rheumatic fever, and I've never got back my full
strength yet. And the prices kept going down. Emmy is an expert. I never
knew her make a mistake, but working twelve and fourteen hours a
day,--and it's 'most often fourteen,--the most she has made for more
than a year and a half is eighty-five cents a day, and on that we've
managed. I suppose we couldn't if I ever went out, but I've had no shoes
in two years. I patch the ones I got then with one of my husband's old
coats, and keep along, but we never get ahead enough for me to have
shoes, and Emmy too, and she's the one that has to go out. How we live?
It's all in this little book. It's foolish to put it down, and yet I
always somehow liked to see how the money went, even when I had plenty,
and it's second nature to put down every cent. Take last month. It had
twenty-seven working days: $22.95. Out of that we took first the ten
dollars for rent. I've been here eleven years, and they've raised a
dollar on me twice. That leaves $12.95 for provisions and coal and light
and clothes. 'Tisn't much for two people, is it? You wouldn't think it
could be done, would you? Well, it is, and here's the expense for one
week for what we eat:--

Sugar, 23; Tomatoes, 7; Potatoes, 5