A little girl in tears

A little girl in tears by Ellis Parker Butler is a short story written in the early 20th century. It centers on a complacent clubman who, seeking adventure, wanders into a tenement and stumbles into a case of poverty and bereavement; the likely topic is how a small act of courage and charity can change desperate lives.

Bored clubman Morley Smith takes a taxi to the East Side and is mistaken first for an undertaker, then for a social worker named Cardigan by a frail teen, Mary Singleton, whose mother is mentally fragile and whose drunken father is dangerous. Learning that Mary wants her mother safely taken away to harmless work so Mary can enter a hospital, Morley improvises: posing as a “lawyer,” he quietly gives Mary his own money as if it were an inheritance, buying them time and hope. Mary’s former sweetheart, John Dredd, slips in and hides, and after Mary revives, Morley discreetly alerts her to John’s presence and departs. Across the hall he glimpses a neighbor family grieving a dead child, and he later sends white flowers, sealing his adventure with a final gesture of sympathy.