The story of this club has been told at this length because it has proved what can be done in broadening the life of women of natural intelligence living under tenement-house conditions; how the family can have a common interest, to which each contributes, a center that can create social opportunity for the friends of every member and the members of every family. This club has been able to do much to lighten the burdens in the time of financial crisis for people who could only have been helped through such a medium. It was the help of a friend always. For years it has been able to distribute Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners; but it grows more cautious every year, for it has made discoveries of the abuses of the Christmas dinner-giving. Through the children it has been possible to reach other children who needed Christmas cheer, but who would not take it from ever so kind-hearted a public. The long years of working together has cemented friendships that are the inheritances of the children, and sons and daughters have intermarried. Baby after baby finds its godmother in the club. There have been mortifying failures, but there have been positive successes in the eleven years. The club has proved conclusively that the working-men's wives can be determining factors in arousing and demanding better environment for their homes; that the wife and mother who keeps in touch with life commands greater influence in and outside her home, where all that she learns is used to make that home better; that she keeps her place in her family best when she makes herself the companion of her husband and children; when she, as far as she may, is herself the source of their social life, and contributes to their mental interests by sharing with them all the educational opportunity that life gives her. CHAPTER VII. WITHIN THE WALLS OF HOME.