"What is the name of the rag pedlar?" I asked the woman.
"Goldberg," she informed me. "A bad woman, without a mother's heart. Don't go to her. She'll tell you a lot of bad things about the poor widow. Don't go to her, Mister. Oh! that such beings should be alive at all!" she muttered in Yiddish.
"I have to," I assured her, and after inquiring the floor where Mrs. Goldberg lived I walked up the three flights. I knocked at the door.
"Come in," came the answer. Mrs. Goldberg opened the door, and as I entered the cheerful aspect of a tidy kitchen and the singing of the boiling pots on the stove greeted me invitingly. Mrs. Goldberg bade me enter their "front room," furnished pretentiously. I sat down at her invitation, and contrary to all rules on such occasions I waited for her to start the discussion--I hardly knew what to say. I did not have to wait long. Mrs. Goldberg immediately asked me if I was an agent from the Gerry Society.
"But what have you against that poor woman? Why do you want her children taken away? Are you not a mother? Have you no feeling? What is it? Have you a personal grievance against the woman?" I said in the tone to invite confidences.
"But just because I am a mother," she snapped back angrily, her eyes flashing. "Come here," she said, making a sign for me to follow her. I followed her into a third room. A boy of about six years was in a bed. His face was burning with fever. Around his neck he had bandages, and on a small table were a dozen bottles of medicine.
"Well, what has that to do with it?" I queried.
"This is my only child," she explained. I did not understand what connection there was between her sick child and the desire to put the children of the other mother away. I told her so, energetically, almost insolently.
"You see," she explained, "her children are always running around half naked and barefooted, even in the coldest weather. They are always sick, but she does not care, because when this is so she runs to all the charitable societies and gets help and medicine. The children play in the hall the whole day, and whenever her child has a sore throat three or four other children catch it. Last year two children caught diphtheria in this house. Both children died. When my child gets sick _I have to pay for medicine and the doctor and everything_. If she can't take care of her children, let her not have any--that's all. Each one for himself," she added; "I have to take care of my children."