nd
there a street watering trough, fed, apparently, by an occasional tap
at the wide-apart hydrants, installed by the factories for protection in
case of fire, as evidenced by the signs staked by the apparatus.

"What do they pay you for these cottages?" Genevieve inquired suddenly.

Mrs. Brewster-Smith, whose curiosity concerning her possessions had
been aroused by the physical evidence of the same, balanced on a rut and
surveyed her tormentor angrily.

"I'm sure I don't know. I've told you before I don't understand such
matters, and I see nothing to be gained by coming here."

Genevieve pushed open a battered gate, walked up to the door and
knocked.

"What are you doing?" her companion called, querulously.

A noise of many pattering feet on bare floors, a strident order for
silence, and the door swung open. A young girl stood in the doorway.
Behind her were a dozen or more children, varying from toddlers to gawky
girls and boys of school age.

Genevieve's eyes widened. "Dear me," she exclaimed, "they aren't all
_yours_!"

The young woman grinned mirthlessly. "I should say not!" she snapped.
"They pays me to look out for 'em--their fathers and mothers in the
factory. Watcha want?"

"What do you pay for a house like this?"

The hired mother's brow wrinkled, and her lips drew back in an ugly
snarl. "They robs us, these landlords does. We gotter be 'longside the
works, so they robs us. What do I pay for this? Thirty a month, and at
that 'tain't fit for no dawg to live in. I could knock up a shack like
this with tar paper, I could.

"And what do we get? I gotter haul the water in a bucket, and cook on an
oil stove, and they hists the price of the ile, 'cause he comes by in
a wagon with it. The landlords is squeezing the life out of us, I tell
ye."

She paused in her tirade to yell at her charges. Then she turned again
to the story of her wrongs.

"And of all the pest holes I ever seen, this is the plum worst. There's
chills an' fever an' typhoid till you can't rest, an' them kids is
abustin' with measles an' mumps an' scarlet fever. That I ain't got 'em
all myself's a miracle."

"You ought to have a district nurse and inspector/' said Genevieve,
amused, in spite of her indignation, at the dark picture presented.

"Distric' nothin'," the other sneered. "There ain't nothin' here but
rent an' taxes--doggone if I don't quit. There's plenty to do this here
mindin' work, an' I bet I could make more at the fac