homes with folks, and lamps on the center-tables, and children playin'
games; but we both of us knew that really it only made us feel worse
than ever, because we were so hopelessly out of it all. 'Twas even
harder to see the automobiles, and the gay young folks in them,
laughing and chatting. You see, we were young, and I suspect we wanted
to laugh and chatter. We wanted a good time, too; and, by and by--my
chum began to have it--this good time.

"Well, to make a long story short, we broke partnership one day, and
she went her way, and I mine. I didn't like the company she was
keepin', and I said so. She wouldn't give 'em up, so we quit. I didn't
see her again for 'most two years, then I got a note from her, and I
went. This was just last month. She was in one of them rescue homes.
It was a lovely place; soft rugs, fine pictures, plants, flowers, and
books, a piano, a beautiful room, and everything possible done for
her. Rich women came in their automobiles and carriages to take her
driving, and she was taken to concerts and matinees. She was learnin'
stenography, and they were going to help her to a position just as
soon as she could take it. Everybody was wonderfully good to her, she
said, and showed they wanted to help her in every way. But she said
something else, too. She said:

"'Sadie, if they'd taken one half the pains to show me they cared and
wanted to help long ago when I was an honest, self-respectin',
hard-workin' homesick girl--I wouldn't have been here for them to help
now.' And--well, I never forgot it. That's all. It ain't that I'm
objectin' to the rescue work--it's a fine thing, and they ought to do
it. Only I'm thinkin' there wouldn't be quite so much of it for them
to do--if they'd just show a little of their interest earlier in the
game."