E-text prepared by David Edwards and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 32534-h.htm or 32534-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32534/pg32534-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32534/32534-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/neighborslifesto00riis NEIGHBORS * * * * * THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO * * * * * [Illustration: "LITTLE LOUISA'S FINGERS WERE NIMBLER THAN HER MOTHER'S. SHE WAS ONLY EIGHT, BUT SHE SOON LEARNED TO TIE A PLUME."] NEIGHBORS Life Stories of the Other Half by JACOB A. RIIS Author of "How the Other Half Lives," "The Making of an American," "Children of the Tenements," "Hero Tales of the Far North," Etc. New York The Macmillan Company 1914 All rights reserved Copyright, 1914, By the Macmillan Company. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1914. Reprinted December, 1914. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE These stories have come to me from many sources--some from my own experience, others from settlement workers, still others from the records of organized charity, that are never dry, as some think, but alive with vital human interest and with the faithful striving to help the brother so that it counts. They have this in common, that they are true. For good reasons, names and places are changed, but they all happened as told here. I could not have invented them had I tried; I should not have tried if I could. For it is as pictures from the life in which they and we, you and I, are partners, that I wish them to make their appeal to the neighbor who lives but around the corner and does not know it. JACOB A. RIIS. CONTENTS PAGE THE ANSWER OF LUDLOW STREET 1 KIN 11 THE WARS OF THE RILEYS 16 LIFE'S BEST GIFT 31 DRIVEN FROM HOME 42 THE PROBLEM OF THE WIDOW SALVINI 48 PETER 63 KATE'S CHOICE 70 THE MOTHER'S HEAVEN 82 WHERE HE FOUND HIS NEIGHBOR 86