XIV
THE  MOTHER  OF THE TENEMENTS

HELIOTROPE, carnation pink, new-mown
hay, and other fragrances, telling of lux¬
ury, ease, and worldliness, have many
admirers, but the homelier smell, the fragrance of
soapsuds, also has its partisans, and if you, as I,
are one of them, let us tell others the story of the'
Madonna of the Washtub.

Once in a while a poet, whose soul, tired from
soaring in Parnassian heights, gets closer to the
ground will sing an epic of the lowly, humbler folk
that finds an echo in the hearts of millions. But
far too little has been sung and rhymed about the
lady of the shawl and apron—our mother of the
tenement. And these, our mothers, strive their
way along, the monotone of it alone a sacrifice,
without a murmur or a sound of grumbling, with
no reward but that of work well done.

I shall never cease refuting those superficial men
and women who picture to you my own people, the
lesser and the humble, as growling, grumbling mal¬
contents. Were they that, I, for one, would not
always be ready to fight for them with word of

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