XLI
But, of course, serious things kept intruding. Karlin the express
driver, had a sick wife, and Carpenter heard about her and insisted
upon going to see her. Apparently there was no end to this business
of the poor being sick. It was a new thing to me--this world
swarming with dirty and miserable and distracted people. Of course,
I had known about "the poor," but always either in the abstract, or
else as an individual, or a family, that one could help. But here
was a new world, thickly peopled, swarming; that was the terrible
part of it--the vastness of it, the thickness of the population in
these regions of "the poor." It was like some sort of delirium; like
being lost in a wilderness, of which the trees were miseries, and
deformities, and pains! I could understand to the full Carpenter's
feeling when he put his hands to his forehead, exclaiming: "There is
so much to do and so few to do it! Pray to God, that he will send
some to help us!"
When he returned from Simon Karlin's, he brought with him the
latter's wife, whom he had healed of a fever; and here was another
of the company whom he insisted upon helping--"Comrade" Abell, one
of the men I had noticed at the meeting last night, and who appeared
to be done up.
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