Part 25 (1/2)

The two incongruous visitors were already negotiating the muddy thoroughfare between the dilapidated dwellings. Presently these gave place to roughly knocked together structures for two and three families.

The number of children was surprising. Now and again a shrill-voiced woman, who seemed the prototype of her who lived in the shoe, came to admonish her young and stare with hostile eyes at the invaders. Refuse, barrels, cans, pigs, dogs, chickens, were on all sides, with here and 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 factory. They're payin'

grand for overtime.”

Genevieve looked at the thin shoulders and narrow chest of the girl, noted her growing pallor and wondered how long such a physique could withstand the strain of hard work and overtime. She sighed. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face, for the girl reddened and her lips tightened. Without another word she slammed the door in her visitor's face.

Mrs. Brewster-Smith cackled thin laughter.

”That's what you get for interfering,” she jeered, so angry with her hostess for this forced inspection of her source of income that she was ready to sacrifice the comforts of her extended visit to have the satisfaction of airing her resentment.

”Poor soul!” said Genevieve. ”Thirty a month!” Her eyes ran over the rows of crowded shacks. ”The owners must get together and do something here,” she said. ”These conditions are simply vile.”

”It's probably all these people are used to,” Alys snapped, ”And, besides, if they went further into town it'd cost them the trolley both ways, and all the time lost. It's the location they pay for. Mr. Alien told me not two months ago he thought rents could be raised.”

”If you all co-operate,” Genevieve continued her own line of thought, ”you could at least clean the place and make it _safe_ to live in, even if they haven't any comforts.”

Her face brightened. Around the corner came the strong, solid figure of Miss Eliot; behind her trotted a bespectacled young man who carried a pigskin envelope under his arm and whose expression was far from happy.