t the difficulties of the time when
families are out of town. In the second place, I have done what I
could to employ my tenants in slack seasons. I carefully set aside any
work they can do for times of scarcity, and I try so to equalize in
this small circle the irregularity of work, which must be more or less
pernicious, and which the childishness of the poor makes doubly so.
They have {36} strangely little power of looking forward; a result is
to them as nothing if it will not be perceptible until next quarter!"

This plan of equalizing work by saving our odd jobs for dull seasons is
one way of helping. Another is to seek lists of unskilled and seasonal
occupations that do not overlap. Some work is naturally winter work,
and some naturally belongs to the summer season. The ice companies in
Baltimore employ their workers in winter by combining the coal business
with the ice business, and, on this principle, a list could be drawn up
for each community of occupations that do not overlap. No list can be
given here, because the conditions of work vary in different parts of
the country.

When we furnish work ourselves we must be careful not to confound the
employer with the friend. "A visitor was interested in a woman who
needed work very much, and herself employed her," writes the secretary
of the Boston Associated Charities, Miss Z. D. Smith. "Once or twice
it happened that the woman had to go to court in the morning, and came
at ten instead of eight, or again the visitor {37} let her off early,
but she always paid her for the whole day. The visitor was advised
that in the long run it was unwise not to pay her by the hour, as was
the custom, but she was not convinced until, having got work for her
among her neighbors, they complained that she came at ten instead of
eight, and expected pay for the whole day, and they would not employ
her longer. The relief the visitor gave, disguised as pay, defeated
her efforts to help the woman to self-support." [9]

Bad habits as a cause of unemployment will be considered in the next
chapter. As to the man who loses his work through bad temper, it is
well to bear in mind that there are many degrees of badness of temper,
and the bad temper that comes from worry or ill health must be
carefully distinguished from innate ugliness. Lack of references,
another cause of unemployment, does not always mean a bad record.
Unskilled workers are often personally unknown to their employ