“I’ll come back in an hour, thank you,” I said.  “Don’t expect me if I am not here in an hour,” and I fled down the stairs.  Before the hour was up I had found, through the guidance of the Irish lady with rheumatism, a clean room in one street and board in another.  This was inconvenient, but safe and comparatively healthy.

My meals were thirty-five cents a day, payable at the end of the week; my room was $1.25 a week, total $3.70 a week.

My first introduction to Chicago tenement life was supper at Mrs. Wood’s.

I could hear the meal sputtering on the kitchen stove as I opened the Wood front door.

Mrs. Wood, combining duties as cook and hostess, called to me to make myself at home in the front parlour.  I seated myself on the sofa, which exuded the familiar acrid odour of the poor.  Opposite me there was a door half open leading into a room where a lamp was lighted.  I could see a young girl and a man talking together.  He was sitting and had his hat on.  She had a halo of blond hair, through which the lamplight was shining, and she stood near the man, who seemed to be teasing her.  Their conversation was low, but there was a familiar cry now and then, half vulgar, half affectionate.

When we had taken our places at the table, Mrs. Wood presented us.

“This is Miss Ida,” she said, pointing to the blonde girl; “she’s been boarding over a year with me, and this,” turning to the young man who sat near by with one arm hanging listlessly over the back of a chair, “this is Miss Ida’s intended.”

The other members of the household were a fox terrier, a canary and “Wood”—­Wood was a man over sixty.  He and Mrs. Wood had the same devoted understanding that I have observed so often among the poor couples of the older generation.  This good little woman occupied herself with the things that no longer satisfy.  She took tender care of her husband, following him to the door with one hand on his shoulder and calling after him as he went on his way:  “Good-by; take care of yourself.”  She had a few pets, her children were married and gone, she had a miniature patch of garden, a trust in the church guild—­which took some time and attention for charitable works, and she did her own cooking and housework.  “And,” she explained to me in the course of our conversation at supper, “I never felt the need of joining these University Settlement Clubs to get into society.”  Wood and his wife were a good sort.  Miss Ida was kind in her inquiries about my plans.

“Have you ever operated a power machine?” she asked.

“Yes,” I responded—­with what pride she little dreamed.  “I’ve run an electric Singer.”

“I guess I can get you a job, then, all right, at my place.  It’s piece-work; you get off at five, but you can make good money.”

I thanked her, not adding that my Chicago career was to be a checkered one, and that I was determined to see how many things I could do that I had never done before.