NEIGHBORS Stories of Neighborhood House Work in a Great City BY FLORENCE H. TOWNE Head Resident of Erie Neighborhood House O city of broad streets, High skylines, and proud buildings, Green parks, wide bridges, mighty marts of trade, These things are not your treasure On which your permanence shall rest; Firmer foundations you must build upon If you would live. Seek the divinity which dwells in human hearts (Tho' buried deep) Save the great wastage on your crowded streets, And so, vou shall endure. iiiifiiiH»iiHHizim3?lfHtf!2>J!ii;1 ■MHMMMMMM Ill— —WW— **mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Tf, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/neighborsstoriesOOtown NEIGHBORS "M/ss Florence" NEIGHBORS Stories of Neighborhood House Work in a Great City BY FLORENCE H. TOWNE HEAD RESIDENT OF ERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE Published by The Board of Directors of the Erie Neighborhood House COPYRIGHT 1940, BY FLORENCE H. TOWNE PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO, AND CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA K DEDICATED TO OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS, OUR WOMAN'S AUXILIARY AND ALL OTHER FRIENDS OF ERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE WHOSE DEVOTED SERVICE AND GIFTS FOR OUR MAINTENANCE HAVE BROUGHT FROM DAY TO DAY NEW HOPE AND COURAGE AND A NEW WAY OF LIFE TO THESE WHOM WE CALL "NEIGHBORS" ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Grateful acknowledgement is made to Rev. J. W. G. Ward, D. D., Litt. D., Minister of the First Presbyterian Church, Oak Park, Illinois, for his graciousness in reviewing the manuscript of "Neighbors" and his helpful suggestions and criticisms. He and the people of his church have for many years been devoted friends and generous contributors to the work carried on at Erie Neighborhood House. Florence H. Towne FOREWORD IF literature means a vivid portrayal of human nature, with its passions and strivings, then this book, while making no such ambitious claim, is truly literature. It runs the gamut of the emotions from the gay to the grave, from humor to pathos, from comedy to tragedy. Every story is based upon fact. Yet each reveals wise handling and sound psy- chology, put forth in the name of Christ. The results achieved in reclaiming lives from criminality and vice, and in averting disaster by guiding what might be problem young people into useful and honorable di- rections, are beyond computation. From personal knowledge of the work which Erie Neighborhood House is doing, and of the devoted leader who has given more than twenty-five years of her life to these people, we might suggest that a more fitting title for the book would be, "An Angel Amid The Alleys. ,} Her modesty forbidding that, then perhaps that merited honor may be indirectly hers by calling the story of these folk, what her love for God and humanity has made them through the years — "Neighbors.^ We warmly commend this volume to all who are concerned about the underprivileged, and who be- lieve that a fence at the edge of the abyss is better than an ambulance at the foot. J. W. G. Ward CONTENTS i. A Bit of Autobiography .... i ii. "The Swell Picture" .... 4 m. Put Them Out or Keep Them In? . . 7 iv. The H. B. Gang 14 v. The Making of an Elder .... 20 vi. Patsy the Criminal 25 vii. The Dry Dance 33 viii. "The Relief Peoples" .... 38 ix. Light for "The Least of These" . . 46 x. Little Mothers 51 xi. The Picnic 54 xii. The Neighbors March Down Our Alleys 60 xiii. We Investigate Politics .... 67 xiv. Our Young People Make a Decision . . 71 xv. The Perfect Gift 79 xvi. The Neighbors Share .... 84 u Always remember that growth is a slow process and never forget to love unceasingly/' "To prove that people are lovable, love them' "And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also." I John 4:21 A BIT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY FULL forty-five years before the writing of these stories, a child in a suburb of Chicago dreamed of the coming of Christmas. As she listened again to the stories of the singing angels and the wise men's journey, a great love stirred in her heart. She, too, would bring Him a gift, but she had so little that she could call her own. What could she bring so that the Christ would know how very much she loved Him ? Laboriously, patiently, she fashioned a pastey little calendar from pictures cut from a magazine. Lovingly she wrapped it in a piece of blue tissue paper which she had found in an empty shoe box. She had smoothed it out until it looked quite new. Taking the precious package in her hand, she stole out of doors into the snowy yard Christmas eve. There, under the shining stars, she lifted up the gift that she had made for Him. Perhaps if she gently "flip flapped" it up- ward, the angels might descend and carry it the rest of the way to Him whom she loved. But no angels came. The pastey little calendar fell at her feet. It was cold waiting in the snow when one had broken shoes. The child picked up her gift and carried it back into the house. Carefully she hid it away at the back of a bureau drawer. Winter gave place to Spring. The child watched as the first crocus pushed up through the snow. She liked to swing high under the trees, and feel the soft breezes blow through her hair. She loved the fragrance that emanated from the 2 NEIGHBORS rows of red raspberry bushes in the garden, as their fruit ripened under the warm summer sun. In the twilight of the summer evenings, after supper, when the children of the neighborhood gathered out in front to play "Run, sheep, run," she loved to hide in the tall damp grass and listen to the calls of the tree toads and the Katydids. She made up happy little songs which she sang at her play. One must sing to express the joy in one's heart. God seemed very near. Vaguely she dreamed of perhaps some day going to Africa as a missionary, or as an alternative she might just marry a minister and help his people. She must some way find an outward expression for that love for Him that sang ever in her heart. On the Easter after her eleventh birthday she made her confession of faith standing in the front of the Congregational Church in the little village where she was born. "You are a member of the church now," they told her. "You will be known as a follower of Christ. " There were strange stirrings in her heart. She felt sudden tears in her eyes. She hurried home and found some snow drops and blue flowers pushing up through the snow. She gathered them and brought them to her mother. Easter came early that year. The years have passed. The child has long been a woman grown. For over a score of years she has chosen to make her home among the neighbors on Erie street. There, tumble down frame cottages crowd up against each other, two and three on a lot. In summer, the children swarm out into the streets and rat-infested, garbage strewn alleys. The hot sun beats mercilessly down on the dirty pavements and the children who play there. When one craves a bath, one opens the water hydrant down the street. The joyous shouts of the children can be heard blocks away. It is a noisy, dirty, crowded street, plentifully sprinkled with taverns and so called "candy stores," but up and down these streets live the neighbors — A BIT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 Italian, Polish, Armenian, and a dozen other nationalities. Most of the neighbors are on Relief. A few are fortunate enough to have W. P. A. jobs. A very small minority have found private employment. Here, day by day, is fought out the struggle for existence. It is because of the neighbors that the child, a woman grown, has come to live on Erie street. Love for Him is the great driving force that makes no task seem impossible. It takes the weariness out of the endless procession of days and nights and fills them full to overflowing with joy. II THE SWELL PICTURE' TINY and Ruby lived just across the street from the Neighborhood House. Their dresses were always worn unironed and their shoes, far too large for their feet, were generally tied on with bits of rag. It was, how- ever, their patient, quiet, little smiles that made me want to know more about the family. One day when they were playing on our side of the street, I decided it was a good time to get better acquainted. Hand in hand we crossed over to where the mother was leaning out of the third floor window. "May I come and see you?" I called, looking up. Her disheveled head disappeared from the window without a word. I guessed that the withdrawal might possibly mean I was welcome. Perhaps she was "picking up the room" preparatory to my visit. Guided by Tiny and Ruby, I climbed the rather insecure stairway that ran up along the outside of the building as far as the second floor. From there on, we groped our way up the inner-stairway to the third floor in utter and complete darkness, although the sun was shining gloriously outside. The children accustomed to the dark stairway ran up ahead of me and pushed open the kitchen door. "Ma," they called, "The teacher's come." Just as I had expected, it was a desolate home. No wonder the children spent most of their time on the street. The mother, spare, toothless and barefooted, passed her hand swiftly over the seat of the only chair in the room and swept "THE SWELL PICTURE" 5 to the floor the greasy crumbs that had rested there. She gave the seat an extra bit of polishing with her soiled apron before she pushed the chair toward me. "Tiny's been eating her lunch there," she apologized. "Pa broke up our table. He's an awful nervous man, pa is." Mother seemed fairly nervous herself. She stuttered badly and her poor lean shoulders twitched convulsively as she moved about the room trying to make it look a little more pre- sentable. A neighbor had told me that Mrs. Adams (this was an American family) had been that way ever since she was a girl about twelve years old. Her stepmother had tried to force her into a furnace in the basement and the child had been badly frightened. This same neighbor volunteered the information that three of the Adams children were not quite right. They were in the "dumb room" at school. Bennie and Minnie were out on the tracks trying to hunt some wood, the mother said. George, the youngest, a fair- haired, blue-eyed, little boy about three years old, sat on the floor, thumping on an old tin pan. "He calls that his drum," explained Mrs. Adams. "Georgie just loves drums. Sometime when Pa gets on his feet and things are going good, I aim to get him one of them toy drums at the dime store." This accounted for all the Adams children but one, I thought to myself. There he was now, over in the corner of the room, watching me intently. Jimmy was fifteen, his mother said, but he looked no more than ten. His face was covered with pimples and his mouth puckered into queer shapes when he talked. "Jimmy can't learn good in school," volunteered Mrs. Adams, "but he's a good boy around the house. He minds what I tell him." I smiled at Jimmy. "Wouldn't you like to come over to Erie Neighborhood House?" I asked him. "What do you like to do best? Would you like to play games in our big 6 NEIGHBORS gymnasium, or would you rather make boats and aeroplanes with Mr. Stary in the craft shop?" Jimmy seemed interested. "I like to draw," he said, speak- ing slowly with seeming effort. "I can draw swell pictures." Jimmy's mother lifted her hand in protest. "Listen, Teacher," she said. "He can't draw no swell picture, Jimmy can't. He just scribbles all over the paper like Georgie here," pointing to the little boy on the floor. Jimmy looked indignant. He drew himself up to his full height. "I can too draw," he declared. "I draw a real swell picture and then my hand gets kinda nervous and I scribble on top of it, but underneath there is a swell picture all right if ya can see it good." The boy nodded his head for emphasis. Jimmy had preached a sermon without being aware of it. "Our neighbors are all like that," I mused. "Society may call them delinquents, criminals, drunkards or prostitutes, but hidden somewhere in each individual is a 'swell picture.' God put it there when he made us all in his image and like- ness. Poverty, ignorance, sickness and sin, with their attending miseries have so 'scribbled over' the swell picture, half of the world even doubt its existence, but we who work for God know it is there." I crossed the street again to the Neighborhood House thinking of this neighborhood of ours with its seething mass of helpless, hopeless folk, slaves to an established pattern of living, too starved physically, mentally and spiritually, too conscious of their own inferiority, to dare great things. "Oh, God, the Father of us all," I prayed, inwardly, "help us to awaken these neighbors of ours to a consciousness of their birthright as children of God. Show us how to face with them the daily struggle up towards that which is finest and best. Because we believe in them and in Thy power and love, help us to work together with great faith, and high courage, attempting 'the impossible' in this small part of the world which we call our neighborhood." Ill PUT THEM OUT OR— KEEP THEM IN? " ; I ^ HAT fellow over there with the striped shirt, put him outside, yea and the guy next to him, that little kid too. «*■ Put them all out. They've got to behave in here. ,, The ushers walking up and down the aisles looking for possible trouble, pounced promptly on the offenders. There was a scuffle. The assembly of some three hundred boys and girls who attended the showing of the stereopticon pictures every Friday night in the earlier days at Erie, rose en masse to stare at the ones who were being forcibly ejected. Sometimes "a big fellow" would take sides with the offender. "Go on, give it to him, Pete, ,, he would cry. "He can't put ya out. Ya paid your two cents, didn't ya?" However, the ushers generally won out. They dragged their protesting victims to the front door and thrust them outside. The door was hurriedly bolted against an onslaught of vicious kicks directed at the stout wooden panels. The kicks were accompanied by equally vicious language directed at the one in charge specifically and the whole institution in general. The girls and boys, somewhat tense, settled back on their benches and the young man in charge with an outwardly sat- isfied smile resumed the showing of his pictures. But peace was not for long. "Now this picture—," he began, then sud- denly stopped short and stared fixedly at another offender. In his position at the front, his eye missed nothing. 8 NEIGHBORS "That guy over there, yea, the big fellow with the tin whistle, the one that's ducking, get him and get the fellow next to him, too. No, not him, not the little fellow, he's all right; it's the guy with the striped sweater." Again the helpers to the rescue, again a scuffle in the aisle, again the front door bolted on the disturbers, protesting to the end that they "didn't do nothing." "The guy in front thinks he's just too smart." And so it went on through the evening. The pictures over, the children filed out rather joylessly and somewhat noisily. . After the door had been permanently bolted for the night, those in charge rather wearily sat down together in the rear seats to talk things over. They had a vague sort of feeling that the evening with the children had not been a complete success. One of the ushers suggested that it might be a good thing to have two policemen come up from the Racine Avenue station on Friday nights and just stand by the door in case any of the older fellows got too tough. "You never can tell what these Italians will do," he added. "It's better to be on the safe side in case of trouble." "Sure he was a good boys' worker," said one of our young men the other day, one who had been a little boy in the audi- ence during those early years, "But he always had everyone outside. You can't help the kids by keeping them outside. Slowly we developed the new program, first at Erie Chapel Institute and then as we went into the new building and took the name of Erie Neighborhood House. We decided that force might be a temporary emergency measure, but * could never be used in any really constructive way. If the "swell picture" was to be recovered and brought to the light it must be through long time planning. We typed these words of wisdom on strips of cardboard and thumb tacked them over our desks, "Always remember that growth is a slow process and never forget to love unceasingly." Every evening our largest room on the main floor was set PUT THEM OUT OR-KEEP THEM IN? g up as a young people's game room. The game room was most popular on winter evenings when often as many as a hundred young people gathered around the tables to play Chinese Checkers or work out jig saw puzzles. Sometimes a group would go to the piano and spend the whole evening to- gether singing popular songs. At other times they seemed perfectly satisfied to just sit and talk. If one's family was on Kehei and there happened to be no carpet on the floor, no fire in the stove, and only a kerosene lamp for light, it was good to have a place where one could meet the "girl friend" or the boy friend without having to spend any money. Tombstone Tony, whose activities at Erie took more time m the weekly staff discussions than any other problem, was always among those present. He never stayed through the evening but drifted in and out, generally with his big gang of Polish fellows trailing after him like well disciplined pups taught "to heel." v Tombstone Tony had overheard a conversation one eve- ning outside Erie's front door. Someone had said that Tony's whole family was no good and Tony was headed straight for the pen, himself. Tony's father was known to have led a number of young girls into serious trouble. He also kept a gambling place in the rear of his so called "candy store " lonys mother was a weakling, far from well, who cried a great deal and didn't seem to have much "say so" in the family affairs. Tony's older brother, Pete, was a fugitive from justice, wanted at present for a hold-up in a Greek restaurant, resulting in the fatal shooting of three men. It was fully a year ago that Tombstone Tony had heard this conversation about his family, but tonight he seemed un- usually disturbed about something. He went into the game room and took out checkers but his mind wasn't on the game. Suddenly, he pushed the board aside and dashed out into the lobby where Emil, one of our own young men, working on W. f A. was directing the game room traffic. Tony walked up to him with an ugly sneer. IO NEIGHBORS "Listen here youse," he said. "Youse can talk about me all yez want to, but youse can't talk about me mudder or me fadder or me brudder or any of the rest of me family, see. The guy wot doz is goin' to have his dirty head punched in and the stuffings knocked clear out of him. 1 11 take yez on right now. Get me?" , Emil was Polish and as slow as Tony Italian was quicL Emil had no desire to be "taken on," besides he knew he had no" been guilty of talking against Tony's family. Evidently Tony had "picked the wrong guy." He started to argue the matter out with Tony, but the Italian had no time He was all for action when there were difficulties to be settled. He was constantly bragging about "taking somebody on. With more ugly words his fists shot out in the direction of Emil's head. Fortunately a staff member was nearby and led Tombstone Tony back to the game room. "Come on. I'll play a game with you,' he said. Tony tried to play but his mind just would not stay on the game. Again he dashed out into the lobby. Again he was pulled away from Emil. The third time, the fight was just about to start in earnest. Dick, our boys' worker a tall, quiet, well- poised young man put his arms around the little Italian and moved firmly towards the front door. Tombstone Tony was "sore." "G'wan," he shouted, put me out, will ya? G'wan call the cops. That s the way you do things at Erie." . Dick spoke quietly. "We are going outside a minute to cool off, Tony. I am going with you. Then when you think you've got hold of yourself we are coming back in. I have no intention of calling the police. I could if I so desired. The telephone is handy.^ However, I think you and I can work this out by ourselves." , With Dick outside with Tony, I turned my attention to E ™Go in the other office, Emil," I said, "and don't show your face until Tony has gone home for good. It doesn t PUT THEM OUT OR— KEEP THEM IN? u do any good to argue with him. You just make matters worse. Dick and I will handle Tony." I went into my office across from the general office where I had sent Emil. In a moment, the door opened and Dick came in with Tony. "I think we can talk it over quietly in here," said Dick. "Let's get together, Tony. What's on your mind?" Tony stood before us, his head down, but still defiant. The boy had just passed his eighteenth birthday. There was silence. Finally I spoke. "Tony there is lots of good in you. You are a born leader. Dick and I have thought that before long you might be able to manage one of our Junior Boys' clubs, or have a boxing class in the gym. The little fellows always look up to an older boy especially if he has any special skill such as you have. You are the best boxer on the gym floor. We like to have you here at Erie, but you see we can't use you if you can't control yourself. That is the first lesson a leader has to learn. Besides, what have you against Emil ? Emil hasn't said any- thing about your family. Erie isn't against your family. What gave you that idea? I know some things about your father that would put him in jail, but we haven't put him there. We hope some day to be able to interest him in our men's club. I wonder if you knew that we are helping your mother to get her teeth fixed and she is very happy about it. As for your brother, Tony, I am going to tell you something now that you never knew. Do you remember the time three years ago when Erie was robbed ? One of the boys was killed by the police two days later. The second boy is serving time in Joliet now on another charge, not ours. Your brother Pete was the third boy. We did not send the police to arrest him because we hoped that we could get him to come to Erie Neighborhood House, show him we were his friends, and help him go straight. That's the way we try to do things at Erie." Tony's head had dropped lower and lower as he stood I2 NEIGHBORS silently before us. Suddenly, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a very soiled handkerchief. Tombstone Tony, leader of the toughest gang on Erie Street, was crying. "Yea," he sobbed. "I bet if you go by my house now you'll find my mudder cryin' and I can't do nothin' to make her glad. The cops just found my brudder Pete hidin' in our attic and they took him away. Maybe he'll be in now for life." Then at last we understood. The police had finally "caught up" with Tony's brother; the poor, weak little mother was home crying. There was nothing that Tony could do but get the person who a year ago had talked about his family, and fight it out with him. He had come over to Erie with his gang for that special purpose. He had guessed unfairly that the voice he heard had been Emil's. Both Dick and I talked to Tony a while longer with one thing in mind. Tony must know that we did care about him, that we believed in him and were ready to help him if he would give us a chance. Suddenlv the phone rang on my desk. It was Emil calling from the office across the hall. "Say," he said, "I knew Tony was in there with you and Dick so I just went outside a minute to look at my car. Tony's gang has cut my tires all to pieces. I have been thinking what to do about it and I guess I know what you'd want me to do, forgive him and be friends. Well, Erie helped me when I was a drunkard down in the gutter. Maybe I can help Tony. Ask him if he'll let me come in and talk to him, will you?" I turned to Tony. "That was Emil on the phone," I said. "He just went out to look at his car and found your gang had cut his tires, but just the same he wants to t>e friends. Will you let him come in and will you talk to him decentlv without flying at his throat?" Tony was silent for a moment ; then rather huskily from deep down in his throat, "Sure, he can come. I won't fight him." PUT THEM OUT OR— KEEP THEM IN? 13 Emil came. Everyone at some time in his life has his shining hours. Emil was at his best. "Perhaps you don't know, Tony," he said, "that I used to be a drunkard. Erie got hold of me and helped me back up. ^ You couldn't have a better friend than Erie. I'd sort of like to pay back my debt. What would you think about you and I being real pals ? We could go out in my car to- gether and have a good time talking things over. What do you say? Is it a go? Will you put her there?" Emil extended his hand and looked questioningly at Tony's averted face. Tombstone Tony hesitated just a moment. Then he lifted his head. The beast was gone. There was a new expression on his face. "Sure, I'll put 'er there," he said, and Tony's lean brown hand, usually doubled into a fist, clasped the hand extended to him as if he was in dead earnest. The two slipped out the door together. Tony's gang, lounging lazily on the lobby benches got up and followed them outside. Emil reported the next day that Tombstone Tony and his gang had helped him patch up the tires. "They were not damaged as badly as I at first thought," he admitted. "I was mad clear through and then I remem- bered the kind of a guy I used to be before Erie got hold of me. I remembered how you talked to me about Jesus' way being different. Well, I thought I'd better try it out as long as I am a deacon here at our church." IV THE H. B. GANG THERE were ten of them that hung around Erie Neigh- borhood House, because they had nothing else to do. They arrived in the lobby as soon as the janitor opened up in the morning and were the last ones out when we closed the building at 10:30 P.M. They were between seventeen and twenty-one years of age; most of them had not adjusted in school and none of them seemed to be able to find a job. We had no program set up that could keep them occupied all day and in the evening also, so we finally agreed to have the Recreation room open for them three mornings a week if they would all promise to go job hunting the other two mornings. However, on the mornings scheduled for the job hunt, the boys invariably turned up in the lobby about 10:30. They had tried, they said, but "it just wasn't no use." One of the boys had a weak heart and another, the tallest and lankiest of the lot, we guessed was a little subnormal. He had been in the ungraded room at grammar school and had finished up at Montifiore, our school for problem boys, or rather "boys with a problem. " The boys stayed in the gymnasium or recreation room for a short time but usually worked back into the lobby where they settled down comfortably on the benches. The lobby was much nearer the scene of greatest activity. One could see everybody who came in at the front door and pass the time of day with them. However, with the boys in the lobby, it was not a very 14 THE H. B. GANG 15 quiet place for the rest of the neighbors. It developed into a place for argument, loud voices, scuffling, and often insult- ing remarks. In the course of the morning, a vase would fall over and be broken, some one's elbow would go through a window, or perhaps we would find that the notices which we had carefully thumbtacked on the bulletin board were completely covered with pencil scrawls and personal remarks. No one, of course, ever saw who did these things. We discovered that the highest code of ethics that the boys seemed to know, placed first in importance, "Don't be a squealer. ,, If a boy kept this one rule, he was a pretty good fellow. The white haired, timid little old gentleman who worked on W. P. A. in the check room before he received his Old Age pension, was concerned about the gang as we all were. "I don't mind the boys teasing me," he said, "but Miss Towne, I really think it looks bad for the visitors that come in. You know we have got to think of them, too. Now if we could just put these boys out, we'd have a nice quiet lobby." Again we asked ourselves, suppose we do put them out, out where? It was winter. There were a number of gambling places, "candy stores," and ice cream parlors of ill repute in our neighborhood where altogether too many boys were already "hanging out." Finally, one night, we invited the gang up to our third floor dining room for some ice cream and cake and a con- ference about the whole matter. The boys, a little embar- rassed, ate greedily, spilling their cake and bumping into each other, telling jokes and laughing noisily. However a group cannot sit around the table and break bread without drawing just a little closer to each other. When the food had all been consumed, we talked over the things that had happened for which we felt the gang was responsible. The boys were silent and a little ashamed. After all, Erie was a pretty good place where a fellow could find a friend when he needed one. 16 NEIGHBORS "We are going to give this group a name/' I said, "and we are going to expect you to live up to it. We are going to call you the H. B.'s." "What's that?" the boys asked with real interest. "That's for you to find out," I said. "That will be something to keep you busy all day tomorrow. The boy that guesses correctly will receive a prize — a pair of socks." I realized that the giving of prizes was frowned upon by up-to-date social workers — I also knew that a leader who knew her psychology did not "superimpose" a name of her selection upon any group even if the groups chose for themselves such names as "Killer Dillers," "Seven-Elevens," or "Naturals." I thought "Naturals" was quite a nice name for our toughest group of little neighborhood thieves until our boys' worker explained its derivation. It seemed one must be familiar with the game of "craps" to really ap- preciate the significance of this name. Probably I might be slipping according to social work standards, but one thing of which I was sure was that the boys needed the socks. Three of the boys had great yawning holes at their heels. Two others wore no socks at all. The next day the lobby was filled with excitement. The group was bent on finding out the meaning of "H. B." <{ Dick, our boys' worker, suggested that it could mean "Hard Boiled"' or "Habitual Bums" and fit the case very well. He even suggested "Hoboes" for an alternative. For once, the boys grouped around old Mr. Harris in the coat room with genuine friendliness. "Go on, tell us, Mr. Harris, what do you think 'H. B.' means?" Mr. Harris was touched by their overtures. "Well, Boys," he said, smiling. "It might mean 'Heavenward Bound.' You boys have been much better lately." I laughed when the boys came to me with Mr. Harris's guess. The name might fit the gang sometime in the future, but it did not seem to tell the story just now. Finally towards night, Happy, the tall lanky boy with the yawning holes in his socks, thought he had the answer. THE H. B. GANG 17 "I bet I know," he declared. "It's 'Honest Boys/ " "No," I said, "but you're getting warm. I'll tell you. It means 'Honor Bound.' That's the name of your club from now on. Live up to it." We had many talks together about things the boys could do to really help at Erie. They did seem at times eager to try but were just awkward and clumsy, loud and irresponsible. Things were, however, improving in the lobby. It was the first of April and we were making arrangements for the annual Sunshine Luncheon, sponsored by our Woman's Auxiliary. Between three and four hundred women from our interested churches were to be our guests that day. Lunch was at 12:30. For those who came earlier, we had set up our exhibit of the children's work in the girls' club room on the second floor. I suggested that the H. B's might help on that day by being our ushers. We pinned blue and white badges on each one and gave them final instructions before the first visitor pre- sented herself. "When the ladies arrive," I explained, "first show them where the check room is located and help them check their wraps. Then suggest that they go up to the girls' club room and see our exhibit of handwork. After that, you can show them into the church. Herman will be playing some lovely music on our Hammond organ and they can sit there and enjoy it while waiting for lunch." It all seemed very simple. The hour was at hand. The boys lined up on two sides of the door. Unfortunately, instead of a car load of people being the first to arrive, our first guest was a lone lady who had come on the street car. The H. B.'s remembered their instructions. Five or six of them all pounced on her at once. The lady seemed a little annoyed. No, she didn't want to check her wraps. She'd just keep them on. It was a trifle chilly. Next the boys tried to interest her in the exhibit room. No, she didn't think she'd go upstairs. She wanted to wait 18 NEIGHBORS in the lobby for a friend. One of the boys came over to me, perplexed. "What do we do now, Miss Florence ?" he whispered. "She don't want to do none of those things." I told the H. B. gang to possess their souls in patience. It was early yet. By and by they would have more people than they could possibly care for. And so it proved. The boys went up and down, guiding and directing here and there, answering questions and carrying in bundles from the cars. I passed them several times with groups in tow and they all seemed to be thoroughly concentrating on their job. At three o'clock our guests were saying goodbyes at the front door. A woman from the Riverside Church had been with us for the first time. "Who are those fine outstanding young men who have been ushering us around all day?" she asked. "They have been so gentlemanly and so polite. That boy over there standing by the stairs was our guide. I wish you could have heard him talk about the work at Erie. I judged from the intelligent, enthusiastic way that he talked about 'what we do at Erie,' that he must be on your staff." I looked over at the stairway. "You mean Walt?" I gasped, "That boy over there?" "Yes," she said, brightly. "Is he your boys' worker ? He is certainly an outstanding young man. You are to be con- gratulated." The visitor passed on through the door as I tried to get my breath. Walt ! Our boys' worker ! Six months before Walt's main objective in coming to Erie had seemed to be to steal the kindergarten pennies from the little wooden barrel bank that Miss Jane tried to keep locked up in her desk. His language too had been pretty bad. I smiled over at Walt. "You did a good job today," I said. The boy grinned. "I had a swell time doing it." The H. B's are all scattered now in various clubs. Some THE H. B. GANG 19 of them have jobs and are holding them. Walt is teaching a Sunday School class of intermediate boys. His first attempt at service for Erie was at the Sunshine Luncheon, just two years ago. V THE MAKING OF AN ELDER