Chapter V


The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be
a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district,
a pretty girl.

None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins.
The philosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor,
puzzled over it.

When a child, playing and fighting with gamins in the street,
dirt disguised her. Attired in tatters and grime, she went unseen.

There came a time, however, when the young men of the vicinity
said: "Dat Johnson goil is a puty good looker." About this period
her brother remarked to her: "Mag, I'll tell yeh dis! See?
Yeh've edder got teh go teh hell or go teh work!" Whereupon she
went to work, having the feminine aversion of going to hell.

By a chance, she got a position in an establishment where they
made collars and cuffs. She received a stool and a machine in a
room where sat twenty girls of various shades of yellow discontent.
She perched on the stool and treadled at her machine all day,
turning out collars, the name of whose brand could be noted for its
irrelevancy to anything in connection with collars. At night she
returned home to her mother.

Jimmie grew large enough to take the vague position of head of
the family. As incumbent of that office, he stumbled up-stairs