WHAT POVERTY THREATENED: OF GRANITE AND BRASS Minnie's flat, as the one-floor resident apartment were then being called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of labourers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with the rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year.

It was on the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where, at night the lights of grocery stores were shinning and children were playing.

To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horses-cars, as it was novel.
She gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the front room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.
Mrs.Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby and proceed to get supper.

Her husband asked a few questions and sat down to read the evening paper.

He was silent man, American born, of a Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator cars at the stock-yards.