Henry David Thoreau 175 



invariably noticed that the workers seldom look 

 up, and then only for a hurried glance time 

 is too precious. Well, the society in question 

 attempted to solve the problem before them. 

 Here were thousands and thousands of people 

 who never knew what rest or recreation really 

 meant, whose children had never seen a green 

 field, or had had a real play in good air, whose 

 lives were apparently hopeless. Ask some of 

 the most intelligent of these slaves of the needle 

 why they cannot move out into the suburbs 

 where they could get nice little cottages for less 

 money than they pay in their horrible quarters 

 in the tenement districts, and the answer is al- 

 ways that they cannot spare the time needed 

 to go back and forth with the bundles of cloth- 

 ing upon which the family labors. In New 

 York such errands require but a few moments ; 

 in the country they would take up time and 

 money for car-fares. 



The society resolved to do away with that 

 trouble, by paying for the expressage of cloth- 

 ing to and from the city for people who might 

 like to move away, and a quiet spot was found 

 out on Long Island where a dozen little houses 



