In August, two years ago, the writer was going up the first flight of stairs in this house, when a baby voice was heard pleading: "Pease tum fas'er; oh, pease tum fas'er; I 'ant to do p'ay; I 'ant to doe on steet; pease tum fas'er." On the third floor a tiny boy stood in front of the sink talking to the faucet, from which a tiny stream was flowing into a little tin pail. An infant's voice from one of the rooms told the story. The mother needed water and could not leave the baby. Perhaps this was the tiny nurse of mother and baby, big enough to call a neighbor to do what he could not do. When it is remembered that this stream of water from the faucet represented the water supply for four families, the difficulties of cleanliness under those conditions may be slightly appreciated. In spite of the dirt, the darkness, the unsanitary conditions of this house, the thriftlessness and ignorance of the tenants, there is a spirit of neighborliness in it that puts the critical to blush. Without a doubt the housekeeper, who is a shrewd woman, fosters this spirit of neighborliness. She smiles as she says: "They gets so used to each other they hates to be separated." Neither house nor tenants seem to go below the level established twelve years ago. There is a housekeeper who does mission work of which the world takes no note. She is the woman who in the true sense is an altruist. By her force of character, her hatred of inefficiency, her love of order, she compels the women who become tenants who do not know how to keep house to learn how. The writer knows intimately such a housekeeper. She had charge of a four-story tenement on the lower East Side. The house was of the type known as "double decker." There were four apartments on each floor; the front consisting of a kitchen, living-room and two bedrooms; the back, of one room and two bedrooms. Small windows near the ceiling in kitchen and bedrooms opened on a narrow space between this and the next house, which was an old-fashioned residence. A similar opening in that house enabled the neighbors to look into each other's rooms. Water and refuse were thrown into this space between the two houses, and sometimes into the rooms of neighbors unintentionally. There was war, bitter war, because of this; for the large tenement was occupied by a part of the remnant having social standards left on the lower East Side. There was water in all the kitchens of the large tenement. The halls were absolutely dark, but were free from the nuisances of hallways having sinks. Stairs and halls were covered with light oilcloth, the stairs having brass treads on the edge. Everything was kept as clean as soap, water and muscular strength could keep it.