Photograph by Jacob Riis – I Scrubs – Little Katie from the 52nd St, 1891, New York

Katie, 9 (poem told in the voice of Katie in the picture)

I scrubs.

I don’t cares beans for it.

I waits for bub and sis

Alone in our diggings.

I scrubs.

I never answers door-

Tom says them men will screams

For us to ponys up.

I scrubs.

Pops was the baddest egg.

I dance hurdy gurdy

And Lil says ‘yer a loon.’

I scrubs.

I swears scrubs makes me sore.

(Jacob Riis was a social reformer. He took many pictures of the characters in the slums in New York. When he came across Katie he asked her what she did. She answered solemnly that she cleaned: I scrubs. Her parents were nowhere to be seen and she lived with her siblings.