mine. While she was acting naughtily one day, thus hindering her mother
with the household duties, I bribed her to be good, by promising to go
down-town for some particularly nice candy made by a man who sold it
every day at a certain street corner, displaying it on a tray suspended
from his neck and always handling it with the whitest of cotton gloves.
When I reached the place, he had not yet arrived. Desirous of not
disappointing my little friend and having learned where the man
lived--in a tent on a lot near by--I immediately repaired to the place
designated. There I found a disreputable-looking middle-aged woman and
a forlorn little girl about twelve years old. The girl was in tears.

Upon my inquiring what was the matter, the woman immediately berated
the child in my presence. Turning to me, she said that this girl was
one on whom they recently had taken pity, and had hired to do chores.

As there was but one tent, I questioned also as to sleeping
accommodations. It contained a full-sized bed and one narrow cot,
between which was suspended a thin calico curtain. The cooking, eating,
etc., were done out of doors.

The poor little one continued to cry bitterly. With aching heart I laid
my hand on her bowed head and bade her to be a good girl and try her
best to please and obey her employers, then inquired of her whether she
had ever attended Sunday-school or knew anything about Jesus. She did
not reply. This caused the woman to accuse her of sulkiness, at which
the girl looked up with swollen eyes, full of tears. Oh that look! It
astonished and puzzled me at the time. Hatred? Yes, and despair, and
misery, and yearning. There was a volume in that look, which I could
not then interpret. Beyond words, it troubled me.