What's the Matter with Ireland?
Book Excerpt
Out of a sagging pocket in her creased mackintosh she took a clothes brush. She slipped her skirt from under her coat and with her blue-cold hand passed the flat brush back and forth over the muddy hem.
"If I had a bit o' black for my shoes now--with your clothes I could get me a housemaid's job easy," Her muffler covered the fact that she had no shirtwaist. Then she added encouragingly: "You'd better get a job quick. There's only one blanket on these beds and clothes run down using them for covers at night."
Opposite us a gray-cheeked mother was wrapping a black petticoat about the legs of a small child. She tucked the little girl in the narrow bed they were both to sleep in, and babbled softly to the drowsy child:
"No place yet. My heart do be falling out o' me. Well, I'm not to blame because it's you that keeps me from getting it. You--" she