I may be permitted to remark, that I trust other housekeepers, whose pavements are washed on cold mornings—­and their name, I had almost said, is legion—­are as innocent as I was in the above case, and that the wrong to pedestrians lies at the door of thoughtless servants.  But is it not our duty to see the wrong has no further repetition?

It has been remarked that the residence of a truly humane man may be known by the ashes before his door on a slippery morning.  If this be so, what are we to think of those who coolly supply a sheet of ice to the side walk?

CHAPTER XII.

Regard for the poor.

We sometimes get, by chance, as it were, glimpses of life altogether new, yet full of instruction.  I once had such a glimpse, and, at the time, put it upon record as a lesson for myself as well as others.  Its introduction into this series of “Confessions” will be quite in place.

“How many children have you?” I asked of a poor woman, one day, who, with her tray of fish on her head, stopped at my door with the hope of finding a customer.

“Four,” she replied.

“All young?”

“Yes ma’am.  The oldest is but seven years of age.”

“Have you a husband?” I enquired.

The woman replied in a changed voice: 

“Yes, ma’am.  But he isn’t much help to me.  Like a great many other men, he drinks too much.  If it wasn’t for that, you wouldn’t find me crying fish about the streets in the spring, and berries through the summer, to get bread for my children.  He could support us all comfortably, if he was only sober; for he has a good trade, and is a good workman.  He used to earn ten and sometimes twelve dollars a week.”

“How much do you make towards supporting your family?” I asked.

“Nearly all they get to live on, and that isn’t much,” she said bitterly.  “My husband sometimes pays the rent, and sometimes he doesn’t even do that.  I have made as high as four dollars in a week, but oftener two or three is the most I get.”

“How in the world can you support yourself, husband, and four children on three dollars a week?”

“I have to do it,” was her simple reply.  “There are women who would be glad to get three dollars a week, and think themselves well off.”

“But how do you live on so small a sum?”

“We have to deny ourselves almost every little comfort, and confine ourselves down to the mere necessaries of life.  After those who can afford to pay good prices for their marketing have been supplied, we come in for a part of what remains.  I often get meat enough for a few cents to last me for several days.  And its the same way with vegetables.  After the markets are over, the butchers and country people, whom we know, let us have lots of things for almost nothing, sooner than take them home.  In this way we make our slender means go a great deal