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Show LIFE ON THE ROOF, A Sleeping Place in the Hot Season A YARD FOfl DBYINS CLOTHES. What the Roof of New York Tane-meuts Tane-meuts in to the Dwelled Witbiu. The baby seemed to bo ranking" for the ede of tbo roof as fust aa very rapid loco-motiou loco-motiou ou iu bunds and knees could carry it tliare. "No, uol Come bore pet," said tho mother caliidy, and the infant baited aud then turned and sat down. What a place lor a baby that was on tho roof of a six story tenement house in Baxter street, the tallest house in the neighborhood, with a view somewhat recalling a sceuo ou tho Rhode Ieland const, with here and there a black roof to represent the inky bowlders, here and tbero a puff of steam to suggest the clouds of spray mado by the conflict of the waves aud rocks, aud all around the white and pale blue expanse of the upper air. "Areu't you afraid to let your baby play around heroi" I inquired of the mother, she and the infant aud I being the only ones up there, and I not ouly feeling tho polite necessity neces-sity of sayiug something, but being really curious to know bow a mother could let a baby out of her arms iu such a place. "Why should I be afraidf" she inquired; "I was as good as born and brought up here on this roof, unci no harm came to me of it." "Roofs aren't to the poor what they aro to tho rich," sho continued, seeiug tho look of inquiry in my fnce, in all probability. "I was born In this bouse, and when I was a littlo weo thing my mother, God rest her soul, UEed to bring me here for the fresh air in fino weatirer aud the cool breeze in the summer. When I was a littlo girl 'twas here that I came after school to play at store and houso and with my doll and little playmates. When I got big enough to be allowed to sit up a littlo late at night here I still camo, to see tho lads and young girls at their merriment, merri-ment, dancing and courting and flirting and singing and entertaining one another. And do you know it was a feather in tho cap of o boy or girl to be here, and is yet for tho matter mat-ter of that, for you'll never find tbo wayward way-ward or tho wild up bore once they have yielded to the life of the streets. USTB on the roof. And when I got to bo a cash girl, and latc-r yet, when I went really to work to help my widowed mother, taking a place in a factory, fac-tory, it waa still hero that I came for most of my play and good company. Ah, that may seem strongs or rery dull to you, but that is the best of my recollections, for everything good that ever camo to me, outside out-side of money aud tho comforts of tha church, camo to me here on this self same roof. "Twos here that I learned to dance, to the music of the accordion that him who is now my husband could play better than any boy in tho ward. Night after night, in all tho fino weather, John would come up hero and play for the girls of the house, and our friends of tho neighborhood, aud when there wero boys enough wo would dance with them, and when there were not each girl would take another an-other and bo partners. It is just tho same now. Any night, eight months in tho year, youll find somo of them here, dancing and sparking, and tho old folks sitting about, keeping half on oyo on the young ones, whom they pretend not to see nt all, though for that matter, when you have children they aro seldom off your mind, in sight or out You'd think, may be, they'd bo afraid, dancing on the edge of the sky like this. Not a bit; I never gave a thought to the danger, and I don't sunposo they do. "I wonder if you understand what a tenement tene-ment roof really ia For instance, it's all the yard wo have, and it's divided up so that it rightly belongs to one floor that's two families fami-lies each day in tho week, excepting Sunday, Sun-day, for them to hang up their wash. Wall, somo practically never uses it, for the good reason that all they wash they can hang in tho open windows of tho kitchen. Some use it only about once a month, and some hang tbo whole air full of linen each week. But it belongs to a different floor every different day, and no one would think of using it for clothes on any day but their own without asking permission. Each family puts np and takes away their own clotheslines each day, and, mind you, even then tho soot of tho city's smoke gathers on them that fast that tbey must bo wiped before clothes are hung on them. pot plants in boses. "Then, again, do you see those boxes of earth around the edge younder? Tboy also belong to tho different tenants, and in the summer ono vies with the other to seo who'll keep their's tho greenest. Some never bave any luck in growing things, and tho best of tho boxes don't amount to much, owing to tbo heat of tho sun above and tha tin below drying up tho littlo earth there is in thorn, but it is pretty much all that many a tenement tene-ment child sees of tho country the first few years. I was 13 years old before I ever saw more than tbo City Hall park and the Battery Bat-tery park, and then, when I went up into Westchester county to my uncle, who has a farm, I had enough to do to tell all those who wanted to know what tho country was really like, "Then here's whoro many of tho men In tho tenement sleep all through tho hot weather, Yes, it is tho biggest and tho best bedroom we have when tho sweltering heat comes, and tho women would bo glad to make uso of it for the samo purposo if it was considered con-sidered right for them to do so. Ou such nights tho windows aro thrown open back and front, and tho women and children that aro too young to bo trusted mako tho best of what draught thero is, while tho men with a pillow and a blanket, or sometimes with nothing at all but their regular clothes and an old coat rolled up under their heads, turn In on tho roof, until it's that thick with men that an old soldier onco told me it reminded him of tho dead in tho trenches on a battle- Held where ho was in tho war. But boforo there's any goes to bod at all, every one in tho houso sits up there to cool off, and I really think in all the year thoso are tho happiest hap-piest hours wo poor people ever spend. "They even had a death on th& roof a few doora below, lost summer. It waa a poor old German gentleman, and ho was very low and sinking whoa they brought him up, thinking it would revivo him, which it did, poor man; but it was in tho other world ho felt it. Nothing bad liko that over camo to this roof, and 1 nra glul of It, for some would always be thinking ol it, and tho place would not bo the nanio after. But we've had a Uttleof everything else, I'm thinking, and to me it's tho best placo there is and the one where I have lived tho host hours of my life, child, girl and woman." 2few York Cor. Provi-aenco Provi-aenco JourniiL |