She let the chance of proposing this impossibility go by; and after a
little silence Dr. Morrell seemed to revert, in her interest, to the
economical situation in Hatboro'.
"You know that most of the hands in the hat-shops are from the farms
around; and some of them own property here in the village. I know the owner
of three small houses who's always worked in the shops. You couldn't very
well offer help to a landed proprietor like that?"
"No," said Annie, abashed in view of him.
"I suppose you ought to go to a factory town like Fall River, if you really
wanted to deal with overwork and squalor."
"I'm beginning to think there's no such thing anywhere," she said
desperately.
The doctor's eyes twinkled sympathetically. "I don't know whether Benson
earned his three houses altogether in the hat-shops. He 'likes a good
horse,' as he says; and he likes to trade it for a better; I know that from
experience. But he's a great friend of mine. Well, then, there are more
women than men in the shops, and they earn more. I suppose that's rather
disappointing too."
"It is, rather."
"But, on the other hand, the work only lasts eight months of the year, and
that cuts wages down to an average of a dollar a day."
"Ah!" cried Annie. "There's some hope in _that_! What do they do when
the work stops?"
"Oh, they go back to their country-seats."
"All?"
"Perhaps not all."
"I _thought_ so!"
"Well, you'd better look round among those that stay."
Even among these she looked in vain for destitution; she could find that in
satisfactory degree only in straggling veterans of the great army of tramps
which once overran country places in the summer.
She would have preferred not to see or know the objects of her charity, and
because she preferred this she forced herself to face their distasteful
misery. Mrs. Bolton had orders to send no one from the door who asked for
food or work, but to call Annie and let her judge the case. She knew that
it was folly, and she was afraid it was worse, but she could not send the
homeless creatures away as hungry or poor as they came. They filled her
gentlewoman's soul with loathing; but if she kept beyond the range of the
powerful corporeal odour that enveloped them, she could experience the
luxury of pity for them. The filthy rags that caricatured them, their sick
or sodden faces, always frowsed with a week's beard, represented typical
poverty to her, and accused her comfortable state with a poignant contrast;
and she consoled herself as far as she could with the superstition that in
meeting them she was fulfilling a duty sacred in proportion to the disgust
she felt in the encounter.