I found her in another small room; but, small as the room was, there were two beds in it, which were covered with match-boxes. A small table and two old chairs completed the furniture. She was seated making match-boxes as I entered, and I saw her hands moving with that dreadfully automatic movement that has so often made me shudder.
She looked up at me, but on she went. I spoke to her of her son, told her my business, and ultimately sat down and watched her. Poor old woman! She was fifty-six, she told me. She might have been any age over seventy. She was a widow. She had lived in that room thirteen years, having come to it soon after her husband's death. Whilst I was speaking to her she got up from her boxes, took a small saucepan off the miserable fire, and out of it took some boiled rice, put it in an old saucer, sat down, and ate it. It was her dinner.
Afterwards she put the remaining rice in a saucer, covered it with another, and placed it in front of the fire. I soon saw why. A lanky boy of nearly fourteen came in from school, and she pointed to the saucer. He took it, and swallowed the rice, and looked at me. I looked at the boy, and read the history of his life in his face and body. He had been born in that room; that was his bed in the corner covered with match-boxes. The old woman was his mother. Three and sixpence every week had she paid for that room. Nearly three days of the week she had worked for interminable hours to earn the money that paid for the shelter for herself and the boy.
I will not describe the boy. Was he a boy at all? All his life he had lived, moved, and had his being in that room; had fed as I saw him feed, and had breathed the air I was breathing.
He went back to school, and I talked to his mother. She owed no rent; she had received no parish help. She never went to church or chapel. She wanted nothing from anybody. That little room had become her world, and her only recreation was taking her boxes to the factory. Grimy and yellow were the old hands that kept on with the boxes. I offered her a holiday and rest. There was the rent to be paid. I would pay the rent. She had no clothes suitable. Mrs. Holmes would send her the clothes. There was the boy to be seen to. I would arrange for him. No; she would not go. Her last word was that she did not wish or care to leave her home. Neither did she. And though years have passed since my first visit to that one-roomed house, out of it the old woman has not passed, excepting on her usual errand. And fresh air, clean sheets, and relaxation meant nothing to her.