Part 34 (2/2)
”I s'picioned it was a subscription they want; but it sounds like a good thing, and I'd like to know about it.”
”Won't you come with me to-day? We'll talk with Mrs. Harris, the head worker, and she'll tell you all about it.”
”Well--I don't know--” looking at her plants. ”I'd ought--”
”Oh, please come, Miss Doane. You haven't anything to do, have you?”
”I don't know as I have anything _particular_, though sence I got these babies, my days is as full as a wine cup. But if you want me--”
”That's right; I knew you would! Come right away--I must get to my cla.s.s.”
Drusilla wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n and went into the house. Soon she was ready and they were being whirled swiftly toward the East Side, a part of New York that Drusilla had never visited. She was interested in the women as they sat upon the tenement steps, and in the many, many children playing in the streets. Spring was in the air, although it could hardly be recognized here except by the people loitering in the streets in order to get away from the crowded homes.
”What a lot of people!” said Drusilla. ”Where do they all come from-- and the children! I never saw so many children in my life.”
”Oh, but you should see it in July and August,” Daphne laughed. ”Then it _is_ crowded, and the people sleep on the fire-escapes and even on the sidewalks in some of the smaller streets. It is so hot in their stuffy rooms.”
Soon they drew up before the door of the Settlement, and were received in the parlor by the head worker. Daphne left Drusilla, to go to her sewing-cla.s.s, and Mrs. Harris conducted Drusilla over the Settlement. She was shown the kindergarten, the club rooms where the boys and girls of the neighborhood danced in the evening, the clinic, the public baths, and the play yard. Then she asked to be taken to see Daphne with her sewing-cla.s.s, as she could not get over the idea that it was a joke of some kind for Daphne to teach sewing, knowing that the girl knew nothing about the work. They found Daphne absorbed in cutting out very full trousers and middy blouses by the aid of a paper pattern, while eight girls were basting and st.i.tching them.
Drusilla watched them for a while.
”Is this all the sewing-cla.s.s you have?” she asked.
”It is all we have at present,” Mrs. Harris answered.
”Do the girls in the neighborhood, the grown girls, learn it?”
”No; they all work, and have only their evenings.”
”Why don't you have an evening cla.s.s?”
”We have thought of that, but it is hard to get a girl like Daphne to come down in the evening.”
Drusilla watched Daphne frowning over the intricacies of the pattern.
”Now I think it is nice of Daphne,” she said, ”to want to come here and help them girls learn to sew; but it seems to me that she'd be doin' a good deal more good to the girls if she hired a woman, some one who needed the work and knowed dressmaking, to come and really learn the girls to make their dresses. Learn 'em from the start, from cuttin' out the cloth to sewin' up the seams and makin' the last b.u.t.tonhole. Them girls don't want to learn how to make them big pants and that s.h.i.+rt; they want to make their clothes--something pretty they can wear. I think a lot of Daphne, but she'd be doin' more good if she hired some one who knowed her business instead of tryin' to do somethin' she don't know nothin' about. Quite likely it does _her_ good, but so far as I can see it don't do the girls much good.”
The head worker flushed, as did Daphne.
”We like to interest the girls from homes like Miss Thornton's to come down and help the people less fortunate than themselves.”
”Yes, that's good too; interest them. I saw Daphne pay five dollars for a box of candy the other day, and it's bad for her complexion.
Instead of buying them things let her hire some one, I say. She can come just the same, but let a dressmaker or a sewing woman learn 'em to sew; not a girl who ain't even sewed a b.u.t.ton on her own clothes or made a pocket handkerchief. And then she'd be helpin' the dressmaker too, who might need the money. If you had some sensible sewing learnt you might git some of the girls who work days to come in evenings and learn, but no girl is goin' to waste her time fiddlin' around with things like that, that they ain't goin' to use, or don't have no need of.”
”But they do need them. They are gymnasium suits.”
”What's gymnasium suits?”
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