or old-womanish appearance, due more to their
grotesque rags than to anything in the children themselves, betrays their
race even without their chatter. Be there ever so many children of other
nationalities nearer by--the wood-gatherers are nearly all Italians. There
are still a lot of girls among them who drag as big loads as their
brothers, but since the sewing machine found its way, with the sweater's
mortgage, into the Italian slums also, little Antonia has been robbed to a
large extent even of this poor freedom, and has taken her place among the
wage-earners when not on the school-bench. Once taken, the place is hers
to keep for good. Sickness, unless it be mortal, is no excuse from the
drudgery of the tenement. When, recently, one little Italian girl, hardly
yet in her teens, stayed away from her class in the Mott Street Industrial
School so long that her teacher went to her home to look her up, she found
the child in a high fever, in bed, sewing on coats, with swollen eyes,
though barely able to sit up.

But neither poverty nor hard knocks has power to discourage the child of
Italy. His nickname he pockets with a grin that has in it no thought of
the dagger and the revenge that come to solace his after years. Only the
prospect of immediate punishment eclipses his spirits for the moment.
While the teacher of the sick little girl was telling me her pitiful story
in the Mott Street school, a characteristic group appeared on the
stairway. Three little Italian culprits in the grasp of Nellie, the tall
and slender Irish girl who was the mentor of her class for the day. They
had been arrested "fur fightin'" she briefly explained as she dragged them
by the collar toward the principal, who just then appeared to inquire the
cause of the rumpus, and thrust them forward to receive sentence. The
three, none of whom was over eight years old, evidently felt that they
were in the power of an enemy from whom no mercy was to be expected, and
made no appeal for any. One scowled defiance. He was evidently the injured
party.

"He hit-a me a clip on de jaw," he said in his defence, in the dialect of
Mott Street with a slight touch of "the Bend." The aggressor, a heavy
browed little ruffian, hung back with a dreary howl, knuckling his eyes
with a pair of fists that were nearly black. The third and youngest was in
a state of bewilderment that was most ludicrous. He only knew that he had
received a kick on the back and had struck out in