Feed him!" After the doctor had gone and
mother and baby had fallen asleep, the husband left them alone in the
house, and taking the elder child to a neighbour's, himself went to his
business in a desperate state of mind, for his wife's condition made
money--some money--an absolute and immediate necessity. But nothing
came into the office and he did not know where to borrow. What then
happened he told sixteen years subsequently.
"I walked along the street and made up my mind to get money from the
first man whose appearance might indicate that he had it to give. I
stopped a man--a stranger--and told him I wanted $5. He asked what I
wanted it for. I told him that my wife was confined and that I had
nothing to give her to eat. He gave me the money. If he had not, I
think I was desperate enough to have killed him." [3]
The diary notes commence again twenty days after the new baby's birth
and show that the struggle for subsistence was still continuing, that
Henry George abandoned the job-printing office, and that he and his
wife and babies had moved into a smaller house where he had to pay a
rent of only nine dollars a month--just half of his former rent.
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