Poor -- New York (State) -- New York; Social settlements
For thirteen years the church had been faithful to its promise and paid the
rent. Nobody questioned the mother as to how her children were getting on,
or what was being done to make them self-supporting. The younger were two
boys. When they were large enough to play on the street, the mother put
them in an institution and paid a small sum for them. The girl went to work
with the mother as soon as she could. The elder boy came home at fourteen
and became a wage-earner. He was troublesome, most difficult to manage, was
out of work more time than he was employed, and yet he would not when
unemployed even keep the fire, that the house might be comfortable when his
mother and sister came home. They always left the house in order when they
went to work, but found it littered when they returned. The boy had no
sense of moral responsibility for his own support. His temper was wholly
untrained. At the time the family history was connected, the youngest boy
was to come home, and naturally his return was dreaded. The mother and
daughter met the problem unaided as to advice or suggestion. Apparently the
church would continue to pay the rent without question, though there were
three, and would soon be four, wage-earners in the family.
When these facts were discovered, the church committee was asked to advance
money enough to pay for the girl's lessons at a school where dress-cutting
was taught, and to notify the widow that her rent would no longer be paid.
The girl accepted the offer at once. She proved a great success, and to-day
is earning a salary as a designer equal to that of many college professors.
She educated her younger brother in a profession, and has entirely
forgotten the days when the church helped her. Her social affiliations are
in another part of the city, and she bows, or forgets to bow, when she
meets those who may remember it, as they would, to her credit. Had the
church retained its claim on her through its financial aid, she would not
be where she is to-day. Her development came when the church made another
future possible to her by refusing to pauperize the family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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