I was reading the other day a story of a census taker who was working on the east side of lower New York, and came to a tenement that was literally crowded with children.To the woman who was bending over the wash-tub he said:
‘Madam, I am the census-taker; how many children have you?’
‘Well, lemme see,’ replied the woman, as she straightened up and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘There's Mary and Ella and Delia and Susie and Emma and Tommy and Albert and Eddie and Charlie and Frank and—‘
‘Madam,’ interrupted the census man, ‘if you could just give me the number—
‘Number!’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘I want you to understand that we ain't got to numbering 'em yet! We ain't run out o' names!’
The more I see of the world and the more I read my Bible the more clearly do I see that I am living in a world of Marys and Ellas and Delias and Susies, and not in a world of tens and hundreds and thousands and millions.
F W Boreham, ‘My Lost Faith’, The Golden Milestone (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 165-166.
Image: There's Mary and Ella and Delia and Susie and Emma and Tommy and Albert and Eddie and Charlie and Frank and—