Most of the tenants of the Court were good people, honest and
pure, but there were exceptions. Of these my memory has retained
the face of a man who was known as "Carrot Pudding" Moe, a
red-headed, broad-shouldered "finger worker," a specialist in
"short change," yardstick frauds, and other varieties of
market-place legerdemain. One woman, a cross between a beggar
and a dealer in second-hand dresses, had four sons, all of whom
were pickpockets, but she herself was said to be of spotless
honesty. She never allowed them to enter Abner's Court, though
every time one of them was in prison she would visit him and
bring him food
Nor were professional beggars barred from the Court as tenants.
Indeed, one of our next-door neighbors was a regular recipient of
alms at the hands of my mother. For, poor as she was, she seldom
let a Friday pass without distributing a few half-groschen (an
eighth of a cent) in charity. The amusing part of it was the fact
that one of the beggars on her list was far better off than she
"He's old and lame, and no hypocrite like the rest of them," she
would explain
She had a ferocious temper, but there were people (myself among
them) with whom she was never irritated.
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