of some of them as they appear in a partial record of fragments of two days’ experience in Chicago. I was working as a hand-truckman in a factory far out on Blue Island Avenue. My wages were $1.50 a day, and I was paying for board and lodging, in a tenement across the way, $4.25 a week. As one result, I was saving money and would soon be able to leave the job and write up my notes, while widening my acquaintance with the town before looking for other work. Already I had a little knowledge of the city. For two weeks after entering it I had been among its unemployed and had suffered some and had seen the real suffering among others of my class, before I found occupation in a West-side factory. It was during those two weeks that I came to know a widow, with whom this tale is first concerned. I met her early in December; it was now nearing the end of January, and we factory hands were marking with delight the lengthening of the days, for we were beginning to have a little daylight left when work was over. At last one afternoon the setting sun came pouring through the kitchen window while we were washing up for supper at Mrs. Schultz’s boarding-house. That was because it was Saturday, and we had quit at five o’clock, being given, as was the custom in the factory, a half hour on Saturday afternoons. The usual week’s end excitement was running high among the men. Gibes and louder talk than common were rife, as black hands and faces came white from soap and successive basins of hot water. Some of the men were going in the evening to a “show,” others to a “fancy-dress ball,” and a few were saying nothing. We scattered widely after supper, leaving the house to the family, which must have been a welcome change to them, for generally, through the week, we all foregathered in the sitting-room at night and romped with the children and played cards until bed-time.