TEXT A
You ask me what is poverty Listen to me. Here I am, dirty, smelly and with no "proper" underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth near you. I will tell you. Listen to me, listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding. Put yourself in my dirty, worn out, ill-fitting shoes ,and hear me.
Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt - and illness - stained mattress. The sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves. This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long - cooked onions. Onions are cheap. If you have smell this smell, you did not know how it came. It is the smell of the outdoor privy. It is the smell of young children who can not walk the long dark day in the night. It is the smell of the mattresses where years of "accidents" have happened. It is the smell of the milk which has gone sour because the refrigerator long has not worked and it costs money to get it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel Shovels cost money.
Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the last baby came that I had chronic anemia caused from poor diet, a bad case of worms, and that I need a corrective operation. I listened politely--the poor are always polite. The poor always listen. They don’t say there is no money for iron pills, or better food, or warm medicine. The idea of an operation is frightening and costs so much that, if I have dared, I would have laughed. Who takes care of my children Recovery from an operation takes a long time. I have three children. When I left them with "Granny" the last time I had a job, I came home to find the baby covered with fly specks, and a diaper, that had not been changed since I left. When the dried diaper came off, bits of my baby’s flesh came with it. My other child was playing with a sharp bit of broken glass, and my oldest was playing alone at the edge of a lake. I made twenty -two dollars a week, and a good nursery school costs twenty dollars a week for three children. I quit my job.
Poverty is dirty. You can say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house. "Anybody can be clean." Let me explain about housekeeping with no money. For breakfast I give my three children grits with no oleo or cornbread without eggs and oleo. This does not use up many dishes. What dishes there are, I wash in cold water and with no soap. Even the cheapest soup has to be saved for the baby’s diapers. Look at my hands, so cracked and red. Once I saved for two months to buy a jar of Vaseline for my hands and the baby’s diaper rash. When I have saved enough, I went to buy it and the price had gone up two cents. The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked sore hands into the cold water and strong soap. But you ask, why not hot water Fuel costs money. If you have a wood fire it costs money, If you burn electricity, it costs money. Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries. I know you will be surprised when I tell you how young I am. I look so much older. My back has been bent over the wash tubs everyday for so long, I cannot remember I ever did anything else. Every night I wash every stitch my school age child bas on and just hope her clothes will be dry by morning.
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage