“We gave a Thanksgiving basket to Katie, the laundress,” said Hinpoha, “and we collected a barrel of clothes for the Shimky’s when their house burned down, and we gave a benefit performance to pay little Jane Goldman’s expenses in the hospital, and we send toys and scrapbooks to the Sunshine Nursery every Christmas.”
“And I earned three dollars and gave it to the Red Cross,” said Sahwah. “Don’t you call that doing something for other people? We haven’t meant to be selfish, I’m sure. By the way, Katherine, your elbow’s in the fudge.”
Katherine shoved the dish away absently and returned to her subject. “Yes,” she admitted, “the Winnebagos have done a great deal that way, but it’s all been _giving_ something. We haven’t _done_ anything. It’s easy enough to pack a basket and hand it to someone, and collect a lot of old clothes from people who are anxious to get rid of them anyway, or pay the bill for somebody else to do something. But I think we ought to do something ourselves—give up our own time and put our own touch into it.”
“What do you mean we should do?” asked Gladys, hunting through the dish for a piece of fudge that had not been demolished by Katherine’s elbow.
“Well, there’s the Foreign Settlement,” said Katherine. “I’m sure we could find something to do there. It’s a grand and noble thing to show the foreigners how to live better.” And she launched into such an eloquent plea in behalf of the poor overburdened washerwomen who had to neglect their babies while they went to work that the girls wiped their eyes and declared it was a cruel world and things weren’t fairly divided, and surely they must do what they could to lighten the burdens of their sisters in the Settlement.
“What will we do, and when will we do it?” asked Hinpoha, all on fire to get the noble work started.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” answered Katherine. “We ought to go out into the Settlement and see what’s to be done. We’ll make a survey, sort of, and then we’ll step in and see where we’re needed most.”
Nyoda, appealed to for advice, told them to go ahead. She liked the idea of their trying to find out for themselves what needed a helping hand. She could not go with them to the Settlement on Saturday morning, but it was all right for them to go by themselves in daylight.