The Sturdy Oak Part 25

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.

"h.e.l.lo!" called Miss Eliot. "So you did come. I'm glad of it. Let me present Mr. Gla.s.s to you. The department lent him to me for the day. And what do you think of it, now that you can see it?"

"Glad to meet you," said Genevieve, nodding to the health officer. "What do I think of it? What does Mr. Gla.s.s think? That's more important. Oh, let me present you--this is Mrs. Brewster-Smith."

Miss Eliot's face showed no surprise, though her eyes twinkled, but Mr.

Gla.s.s was frankly taken aback.

"Mrs. Brewster--Smith----Brewster--Smith," he stammered. "Oh--er--" he gripped his pigskin folio as if about to search its contents to verify the name. "The--er--the owner?" he inquired.

Alys stiffened. "My dear husband left me this property. I have never before seen it."

"I'm very glad," beamed Mr. Gla.s.s, "to see that we shall have your co-operation in our efforts to do something definite for this section--and measures must be taken quickly. As you see, there is no sanitation, no trenching, no mosquito-extermination plant. Malaria and typhoid are prevalent; it's all very bad, very bad, indeed. And you'd hardly believe, Mrs. Brewster-Smith, what difficulties we are having with the owners as a cla.s.s. The five biggest have formed an a.s.sociation.

I suppose you've heard about it. They must have made an effort to interest you "--he stopped short, remembering that her name appeared on the lists of the "Protective League."

"Really"--Alys had recovered her hauteur and the aloofness becoming the situation--"I know nothing whatever about what measures my agents have thought it advisable to take."

Mr. Gla.s.s choked and glanced uneasily at Miss Eliot.

That lady grinned, almost the grin of a gamin. "You needn't look at _me_, Mr. Gla.s.s. I don't represent Mrs. Brewster-Smith."

"Oh, I know, I know," Mr. Gla.s.s hastened to exonerate his companion.

"I believe Miss Eliot declined the honor," Genevieve's voice was heard.

"I did," the agent affirmed. She laughed shortly. "Otherwise you would hardly find me here in my present capacity. One does not 'run with the hare and hunt with the hounds,' you know."

Alys lost her temper. It seemed to her she was ruthlessly being forced to shoulder responsibilities she had been taught to shirk as a sacred feminine right. Therefore, feeling injured, she voiced her innocence.

"Your husband, my dear Genevieve, has been good enough to administer my little estate. Whatever he has done, or now plans to do, meets with _my_ entire approval."

The thrust went home in more directions than one. Miss Eliot turned her frank gaze upon the speaker, while she slowly nodded her head as if studying a perfect specimen of a noxious species. Mr. Gla.s.s gasped.

There was political material in the statement. He looked anxiously at the wife of the gentleman implicated, but in her was no fear and no manner of trembling. Instead, the light of battle shone in her eyes.

"My dear Alys," she said, "my husband has told you that he is too busy a man to give your affairs his personal attention. He can only advise you and turn the executive side over to another. His experience does not extend to the stock market or to real estate. It is an imposition to throw your burdens upon him. If you derive benefits from ownership, you must educate yourself to accept your duty to society."

"Indeed!" flared Alys, furious at this public arraignment. "May I ask if you intend to continue this insulting att.i.tude?" "If you mean, do I expect hereafter to be a live woman and not a parasite--I do."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith turned on her heel and walked away, teetering over the ruts and holes of the path.

Genevieve looked distressed. "I'm sorry," she breathed, "I'm ashamed, but it _had_ to come out. I--I couldn't stand it any longer. I--beg everybody's pardon. I'm sure, it was awfully bad manners of me. Oh, dear--" she faltered, half turned, and, with a gesture of appeal toward Mrs. Brewster-Smith's slowly retreating back, moved as if to follow.

"I wouldn't go after her," said E. Eliot. "Of course, you haven't had experience. You don't know how much self-restraint you've got to build up, but you're here now, and I'm sure Mr. Gla.s.s understands. _He's_ got to come up against all sorts of exasperations on _his_ job, too. He won't take any stock in Mrs. Brewster-Smith's trying to tie your husband up to these wretched conditions.

"He's looking forward to seeing an honest, public-spirited district attorney get into office--even if your husband doesn't yet see that women have anything to say about it. They may heckle him in order to force him to come out on his intentions about the graft, and the eight-hour day, and the enforcement of the law, but they don't doubt his honesty. When he know's what's what, I guess the public can trust him to do the right thing. Only he's got to be shown."

As she talked, giving Genevieve time to recover from her upheaval, the three investigators were plowing their way up and down byways equally depressing and insanitary. Silence ensued. Occasionally an expression of commiseration or condemnation escaped one or another of the party.

Suddenly a raucous whistle tore the air, followed by another and another, declaring the armistice of the noon hour. Iron gates in the surrounding wall were opened, a stream of men and women poured out, grimed, sweat-streaked and voluble. The two women and their escort paused and watched the oncoming swarm of humanity.