Four Years in the Underbrush: Adventures as a Working Woman in New YorkAnonymous
History
Four Years in the Underbrush: Adventures as a Working Woman in New York
Anonymous
Women employees -- New York (State) -- New York
Had he spoken to the man in the entrance office? Yes, and been sent to
the social service department. That meant trouble—the straightening out
of some tangle or, perhaps, breaking the news of a death.
Those of us workers in earshot stopped what we had been doing to listen.
When the man gave his name, LaCastro, I realized that it was my task,
and stepped forward.
Did he know that his mother had taken Francisco home? I asked. A wan
smile and a flicker of light in his lustreless eyes as he told me he was
glad to hear that. The friend who had gone out from the New York
Hospital ahead of him had come back to tell him that his wife and all
his children had been taken to Bellevue.
Yes, that was some time ago, soon after he came to himself in the
hospital. He wasn’t feeling very well when he left home that morning,
and later when he fainted at his work the boss had him taken direct to
the New York Hospital. Would I please tell him in which ward he would
find his wife and four children.
I read him a part of Francisco’s history, giving the date of each death.
After a brief silence he asked if—if he might see them? Would he find
them in the morgue? Feeling sure that he would be allowed, I started
back to telephone, to find out if he must go around to the Twenty-ninth
Street entrance.
He called me back. There was a flicker of the same light in his eyes
that had shown when told that his mother had taken Francisco. Where was
his baby? His wife was about to be confined. There must be a baby.
That meant going more deeply into the case. After telephoning back and
forth I was told:
“Lived less than two hours.” On giving him this additional blow I turned
again to telephone the morgue.
“LaCastro?” the voice at the other end of the wire questioned. A short
wait followed. “LaCastro, mother and baby, buried together, and four
children. Yes, all buried the same day.”
The expression of that man, not his face alone, but the whole man,
remains stamped on my memory as typical of the tenement-dweller before
the war—his meek acceptance of conditions, his humility as he thanked
me. Sometimes I have wondered if Lazarus may not have thanked the dogs
that licked his sores with the same expression, Lazarus starving, with
feasting and plenty surrounding him.
Another hunt on which Miss Wadley sent me had a somewhat different
ending. In this case the missing person was a baby of about eleven
months. The mother, after seeing her husband and five older children
taken to hospitals with influenza, had finally succumbed herself. Now,
after being in Bellevue some twelve hours, she missed her baby. What had
become of her baby? It was up to me to find out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account