I shall always remember with great pleasure once meeting the Rev. Dr. Tuckerman in Tremont Street, in 1835. He hurried towards me, his countenance beaming with a delight which only such a benevolent heart as his could give to the human countenance, saying: “O Brother May, I have a precious fact for you Abolitionists. Never in all my intercourse with the poor, or indeed with any class of my fellow-beings, have I met with a brighter instance of true, self-sacrificing Christian benevolence than lately in the case of a poor _colored_ woman. Two colored women, not related, have been living for several years on the same floor in a tenement-house, each having only a common room and a small bedroom. Each of them was getting a living for herself and a young child by washing and day-labor. They had managed to subsist, earning about enough to meet current expenses. Several months ago one of them was taken very sick with inflammatory rheumatism. All was done for her relief that medical skill could do, but without avail. She grew worse rather than better, until she became utterly helpless. The overseers of the poor made the customary provision for her, and benevolent individuals helped her privately. But it came to be a case for an infirmary. The overseers and others thought best to remove her to the almshouse. When this decision was made known to her she became much distressed. The thought of going to the poorhouse--of becoming a public pauper--was dreadful to her. We tried to reconcile her to what seemed to us the best provision that could be made for her, not only by assuring her that she would be kindly cared for, but by reminding her that she had been brought to her condition, as we believed, by no fault of her own, and by such considerations as our blessed religion suggests. But she could not be comforted. We left her, trusting that private reflection would in a few days bring her to acquiesce in what seemed to be inevitable. In due time I called again to learn if she was prepared for her removal to the almshouse. I found her not in her own but in her generous-hearted neighbor’s room. Thither had been removed all her little furniture. So deep was that neighbor’s sympathy with her feeling of shame and humiliation at becoming a public pauper,--an inmate of the almshouse,--that she had determined to take upon herself the care and support of this sick, infirm, helpless woman, and had subjected herself to all the inconvenience of an over-crowded room, as well as the great additional labor and care which she had thus assumed.”