shelter.

Even on such a day, sizzling work had to be done, as in winter.
There were glowing furnaces to be stoked, liquid metals to be
poured; but such tasks found seasoned men standing to them; and
in all the city probably no brave soul challenged the heat more
gamely than Mrs. Adams did, when, in a corner of her small and
fiery kitchen, where all day long her hired African immune cooked
fiercely, she pressed her husband's evening clothes with a hot
iron. No doubt she risked her life, but she risked it cheerfully
in so good and necessary a service for him. She would have given
her life for him at any time, and both his and her own for her
children.

Unconscious of her own heroism, she was surprised to find herself
rather faint when she finished her ironing. However, she took
heart to believe that the clothes looked better, in spite of one
or two scorched places; and she carried them upstairs to her
husband's room before increasing blindness forced her to grope
for the nearest chair. Then, trying to rise and walk, without
having sufficiently recovered, she had to sit down again; but
after a little while she was able to get upon her feet; and,
keeping her hand against the wall, moved successfully to the door
of her own room. Here she wavered; might have gone down, had she
not been stimulated by the thought of how much depended upon
her;--she made a final great effort, and floundered across the
room to her bureau, where she kept some simple restoratives.
They served her need, or her faith in them did; and she returned
to her work.