Ambitious to make shoes!  To grind out all you can above the average five dollars a week, all you may by conscientious, unflagging work during 224 hours out of a month.

Good-night to the working world!  Landlady and friendly co-labourers.

“Il ne faut pas vous gener, mademoiselle; nous sommes toute une famille.”

Upstairs in my room the excitement died quite out of me.  I lay wakeful in the hard, sheetless bed.  It was cold, my window-pane freezing rapidly.  I could not sleep.  On either side, through the thin walls of the house, I could hear my neighbours settling to repose.  Maurice’s room was next to mine.  He whistled a short snatch of a topical song as he undressed.  On the other side slept the landlady’s children; opposite, the packer from Rigger’s.  The girls’ room was downstairs.  When Maurice’s song had reached its close he heaved a profound sigh, and then followed silence, as slumber claimed the sole period of his existence not devoted to work.  The tenement soon passed to stillness complete.

Before six the next morning—­black as night—­the call:  “Mau—­rice!  Mau—­rice!” rang through the hall.  Summons to us all, given through him on whom the exigencies of life fell the heaviest.  Maurice worked by day system—­the rest of us were freed men and women by comparison.

The night before, timid and reluctant to descend the two flights of pitch dark stairs with a heavy water-pitcher in my hand, I had brought up no water!  It is interesting to wonder how scrupulous we would all be if our baths were carried up and down two flights of stairs pitcher by pitcher.  A little water nearly frozen was at hand for my toilet.  By six I was dressed and my bed made; by 6:15 in the kitchen, dense with smoke from the frying breakfast.  Through the haze the figures of my friends declared themselves.  Codfish balls, bread and butter and coffee formed the repast.

Maurice is the first to finish, standing a moment to light his pipe, his hat acock; then he is gone.  The sisters wash at the sink, Mika combing her mass of frowzy dark hair, talking meanwhile.  The sisters’ toilet, summary and limited, is frankly displayed.

At my right the bride consumes five enormous fish balls, as well as much bread.  Her husband, a young, handsome, gentle creature, eats sparingly.  His hand is strapped up at the wrist.

“What’s wrong?”

“Strained tendons.  Doctor says they’d be all right if I could just hold up a little.  They don’t get no chance to rest.”

“But why not ‘hold up’ awhile?” He regards me sympathetically as one who says to an equal, a fellow:  “You know why!—­for the same reason that you yourself will work sick or well.”

“On fait ce que l’on peut!”

("One does one’s best!”)

When the young couple had left the room our landlady said: 

“The little woman eats well, doesn’t she!  She needs no tonic!  All day long she sits in my parlour and rocks—­and rocks.”