"I am very thankful to you for your kindness to my children and myself. It was a big surprise to us, as it is three weeks since we had a good substantial meal. I have given birth to a girl baby and buried her a day after she was born. I was laid up two weeks and not able to work, nor could I provide the necessary things for her burial, but the children of the neighborhood made up a collection for it. You can see what a hard struggle I have had to fight. If you could possibly get me some sewing to do, so as to make my rent, it would be a relief to my heart." One Christmas, when I was able to do the work of distribution personally, I entered a home on the fifth floor of a big tenement. There was a small living room and kitchen combined and a windowless bedroom not much more than a cupboard in size. A mother and five children lived there. There was no fire in the stove. The cupboard door was off its hinges and it certainly was not needed, for there was not even a loaf of bread in the house. The only occupant of the room when I entered, was a little girl of about eight years. She sat at the table with her doll. It had neither legs nor arms and, having lost its wig, there was a terrible looking cavity in its head. She was trying to cover its far from handsome body with a piece of red flannel. I was glad to know that a beautifully dressed doll would be hers when the Christmas parcels were opened. The mother when visited a year before had said to us in her broken English, "No happy Christmas till he come home," pointing to the picture on the wall of the father who was in prison. Is it a wonder that her face looked hopeless, and the tears fell fast when we asked her how long that day would be in coming, and she had to answer "Twenty years."