Mrs. Stedman was her name, and her husband had been a glass blower. He
earned good wages--five dollars a day in the busy season. But he
worked in front of a huge tank of white-hot glass and that was hard on
a man. And once on a hot day he had gone suddenly dizzy, and fallen
upon a mass of hot slag, and been frightfully burned in the face. They
had carried him to the hospital and taken out one eye. And then,
because of his family and the end of the season being near, he had
gone to work too soon, and his wound had gone bad, and in the end he
had died of blood-poisoning.

"That was two years ago," said Mrs. Stedman. "And I got no damages.
We've barely got along--this year's been worse than ever. It's the
panic, they say. It seemed as if everything was shutting down."

"It must be very hard on people here," said Samuel.

"I've got three children--all girls," said Mrs. Stedman, "and only one
old enough to work. That's Sophie--she's in the cotton mill, and that
only started again last month. And they say it may run on half time
all the year. I do sewing and whatever I can to help, but there's
never enough."

Samuel forgot his own troubles in talking with this woman. His family
had been poor on the farm, but they had never known such poverty as
this. And here were whole streets full of people living the same sort
of life; hanging over the abyss of destruction, and with no prospect
save to struggle forever. Mrs. Stedman talked casually about her
friends and neighbors, and new glimpses came to make the boy catch his
breath. Next door was Mrs. Prosser, whose husband was dying of cancer;