Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/236

 They spend their money on things stupid and gross. What else can you expect of them. You bring a child up in the gutter and he learns to play with mud, and likes it."

They were walking where the streets crept up the hillside. Over a waste space where dust and ashes lay they could see far east and west. The man halted and flung out his arms.

"The Valley of the Wyndbeck. So they call it on the map. It ought to be the gutter of the Wyndbeck. One long, foul, reeking gutter where men and women walk in darkness and the children play with dirt."

He had forgotten John. The child slipped a hand into his.

"Won't the fields ever come back?" he asked.

Anthony shook his head. "They'll never come back," he said. "Nothing to do for it, John, but to make the best of things as they are. It will always be a gutter with mud underneath and smoke overhead, and poison in its air. We must make it as comfortable a gutter as the laws of supply and demand will permit. At least we can give them rainproof roofs and sound floors and scientific drainage, and baths where they can wash the everlasting dirt out of their pores before it becomes a part of their skin."