A Factory Girl's Story

Maoriland Worker, Volume 11, Issue 475, 21 April 1920, Page 7

A Factory Girl's Story

Mr 3. Rose Pastor Stokes is, according to a "Central News" message from Chicago, one of 85 Communists who have been arrested on charges of plotting against the United States Government. Mr 3. Stokes's maiden name was Pastor. She was horn in Russia, of poor Jewish parents, and was brought to London as a child. Later, she was barely able to keep her body and soul together on the miserable pittance she could earn as a cigarmaker in Whltechapel. . Her Fchooling-wasalmosi. negligible, but she educated herself in her spare time, spending on hooks money that might have gone on food. On one occasion, having eaten nothing for 48 hours, she wrote the following touching little poem:— FEEDING THE SPARROWS. My last crumb I feed to you; I pray the Lord to feed mc, too. For I am so hungry, birdies sweet, And no one gives mc bread to eat. The crumbs you pick were laid away From bread I ate 'ere yesterday. Since when I have not tasted food, But—4 He. will care" and "all is good." My heart is full, my table bare; Yet "all is good , ' and "He will care." So little sparrows take your fill Of crumbs from off my window-sill. After her father's death she emigrated to the States/and worked in a tobacco factory. Her writings brought her to the notice of Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes, the millionaire, who gave her a literary appointment. He was immediately attracted by ler striking .personality, and courted her as they wbrkefl to- , gether among the poor of New York. They became- engaged, and until the «ye of her wedding, with her lover's consent, she went to work In the cigar factory. She was married in 1906, ana as the bride of a millionaire revisited the scenes of-her early poverty in the London Ghetto.