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http://www.blackmask.comI WRITE this introduction to Madeleine because it is a book that may be misunderstood by many and it deserves to be read without prejudice—with an open mind. And I commend warmly the courageous frankness of the author in writing it and of the publishers in bringing it out.
I will soon begin my twentieth year on the bench of a court in a city of about three hundred thousand people. It is a good, average city—certainly no worse and I sometimes think a little better than other cities of its size. But the problems of one city are much the same as those of all cities. During this time as judge I have dealt mostly with human problems that some people look upon altogether as moral problems. For seven or eight years I tried most of the divorce cases in such a city, with a record of having divorced some five thousand people in that time. And then for many years it has become my duty to preside in those delicate affairs known to the officers as "sex cases." At first they concerned mostly the protection of society against prostitution. Then they turned gradually to the protection of women against society. These cases are often conducted regardless of the technicalities of law. We cease to be a court; we become, rather, a place of adjustment of human frailties and difficulties. In a word, we now deal with people and the causes of bad things. We no longer deal merely with the things. We no longer use vengeance, violence, stupidity, and ignorance as the only remedy for these things. In this experience I was forced to the conclusion that there are no good people and no bad people—only good things and bad things. It gives me a great charity and a great sympathy—not for sin, but for sinners. It teaches me that while it is difficult at times to know how to fight sin without fighting sinners, in the end it is the better policy to conquer sin and save the people. For sinners are only people. We do not fight sick children—we fight the disease. People are only children grown up.
Thus it is that I have an intense appreciation of Madeleine. It ought to be read and pondered over. It is true. The Madeleines are right in your midst.
Not that I may not have some criticisms and that I may not differ in some conclusions... But the author has told us the facts—as fine, as splendid, and as sordid and as human as some of them are.
In dealing with the cases of hundreds of young girls I have cried out in an agony of hopelessness at times that not one of them could rise up to throw the facts in great bloody chunks into the faces of people, a people asleep that needed to be shocked—aroused. This Madeleine has done, and I congratulate her and thank her for it. It is a great public service. She has followed all the tortuous, trying paths of a young girl gone wrong, but not "ruined" necessarily, as the conventional lie would have us believe.
Never in history so much as now, facing mighty changes, after upheavals of war, have we needed more the truth about our smug society and the things we are responsible for that make for the "sins" we denounce, the sins that we will not lift one little finger to alleviate except by methods generally so narrow and absurd that they merely add to infamies they are intended to suppress.
I agree in the main with the conclusions of Madeleine, including most of what she says about the white-slave traffic and the utter lack of real humanity in a great many of our so-called welfare workers. And most of the real social workers who are human workers will also agree with Madeleine.
I stand for purity and decency in the home and the maintenance of those institutions that are dear and necessary to our civilization, but is it not high time that society changed the relative values it sets upon "sin"— especially those sins for which it is in large measure so much to blame? By numerous acts it encourages prostitution. For its own victims the remedy has been ostracism and jails. Such is its cry: "Stone her! Stone her!" Is there not even more reason now than in His time for society to change its attitude? Not that we wish to justify sin, but that we wish to do justice and in the end learn how to fight evil more and women less.
Of course Madeleine can hardly be recommended to youth of tender years, but neither could some portions of Shakespeare or the Bible. It would be a very good thing for girls having reached a reasonable maturity to really know more of our "Madeleines." I believe that we should teach children—wisely and properly, of course—what evil is. We should tell them where it lurks and where and how it strikes.
If we take alone the smug and contented moral rather than the just and eternal human attitude, then, indeed, and only then, shall the "Madeleines" be numbered among the "ruined" and the "lost."
BEN B. LINDSEY.
JUVENILE COURT OF DENVER,
September, 1919.
IF I dwell at some length on the story of my ancestry and my childhood it is for the purpose of setting forth the elements of weakness and of strength which were inherent in my character and which, combined with the circumstance of my life, brought about my social bankruptcy and made possible my spiritual redintegration.
A few years after the close of the Civil War my parents came from their birthplace near the Atlantic seaboard and settled in a thriving town of the Middle West. I was born in this place and grew into young womanhood without ever having been more than twenty-five miles from my native town.
This community was new and crude, and its inhabitants were for the greater part persons of little education and few aspirations. If they had ever possessed ideals they must have left most of them behind in the older communities from which they came.
My parents had many traditions of race, of class, of education, and of religion; they were looked upon as being rather peculiar in the principles which they sought to instil into the minds of their children. Even as a small child I received much religious instruction, which, singularly enough, I wove around the personality of my great-grandfather. I had learned to read at an unusually early age, and possessed rather a remarkable faculty for the English language. Sonorous words appealed to me and soon found a place in my memory. The two questions most often found on my tongue were: "How do you pronounce this word, father?" and, "What does it mean?" So that when I read in a very old newspaper, a cherished possession of my mother's, an account of the death of my great-grandfather, together with an account of his life, his virtues, and his piety, I retained a clear recollection of one paragraph because there were many new words in it that fell musically upon my ear. It read: "He represented the highest type of a Christian gentleman, this venerable citizen, this grand old patriarch, who as a young man left his native land to found a home on the virgin soil of free America that he might worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience."
My mother had a portrait of him which showed a benignant-looking old gentleman, clothed in the stately garments of his day; and he was to me a very real person, though he had died many years before I was born. My mother often spoke of him in terms of great reverence, referring especially to his piety and his kindliness. He was often quick to anger, she said, but he was also quick to repentance, and if he had offended relative or friend he asked his pardon and the pardon of God before he slept.
I was brought up in a strict heaven-and-hell belief. If I were a good child and pleasing in the sight of God I would go to heaven, but if I were a naughty girl then hell would be my portion throughout all eternity. Great-grandfather C— came, in my mind, to take the place of God. While I prayed to God it was really Great-grandfather C— whom I wanted to please and stand well with. I could imagine him walking, majestically, through the gold-and-jasper streets, and I wanted to go up there and walk beside him. When I was wilful I grieved, not because I had lost God, but because I had lost Great-grandfather C—. Now, confused as these childish ideas were in my mind, it is clear to me that almost my first outlook on life held the thoughts of a Supreme Being and a future punishment for sin.
My early companionship with my father was a very happy one, for I not only loved him better than any one else in the world, but I was very proud of him. He was of distinguished bearing, handsome, brilliant, and possessed of that personal magnetism which makes for leadership. In the social, political, and business life of our town he was a conspicuous figure.
We were a large family; our friends were always telling us that we were a mighty fortunate one, and no doubt we were. We were exceptionally healthy children who never seemed to have any of the common ailments that prevailed in other homes. We had some means and a beautiful home. Both of our parents possessed a high degree of intelligence and sane religious beliefs. No children could have begun life under more auspicious conditions.
My mother seemed to have been created for the expressed purpose of being a mother, for poise and common sense were her distinguishing characteristics. My father was the mainspring of our pleasant home life. Mother was the balance wheel.
We heard much of the beauties of literature and had access to many good books. My eldest brother and myself had this one common love, though we were diametrically opposite in many other things. He had a reserved manner and was thought to be very proud. He preferred the companionship of boys much older than himself and did not see any sense in playing with girls, but he would read with me or to me for hours at a time.
Our laundress had a little son about my own age, and I often played with him, though father frowned upon my doing so, for he held rigid ideas of caste. One day when I was about eleven I was playing in the hayloft with this little companion when my father called me to dinner. His voice was unnaturally harsh and sounded as if he were angry. Without knowing what was wrong, I feared to answer him. He called again, his voice more angry than at first, and in fear and trembling I answered.
A few minutes later he came up into the hayloft where we two little ones crouched in fear. His face was purple with rage as he seized my little playmate and began shaking him until the little fellow screamed in terror. I thought he meant to kill the child, but at length he threw him back on the hay and, putting me across his shoulder, went down the ladder.
Without a word to me father started for the house, but on his way seemed to change his mind, and set me down, while he cut a switch from a near-by tree, and then and there administered such a terrible beating that for weeks my body was a mass of bruises. It was years before my nervous system recovered from the shock.
My screams brought the cook, the laundress, and my mother to the scene. When mother saw the cause of my terror she ran forward and grasped father's arm. None of the subsequent horrors of my life ever blotted out the memory of that moment as he raised his arm to strike her. She was white, but not a muscle of her face moved as she waited for the blow to fall. Father glared at her a moment, his handsome face distorted by a demoniacal grimace, then, still in that inarticulate rage, he threw the switch from him and went into the house. I did not see him again that day.
Mother was very silent as she undressed me and put me to bed, but Aunt Jennie, our old negro cook, who had come into the household before I was born, was not so discreet. After mother had gone Aunt Jennie came to me with soothing words, denunciation for my father, and my long delayed dinner.
Then I heard that my father was "jest plain crazy drunk." Aunt Jennie went on to tell me that he had been drinking for two years, and that she and mother had resorted to every device to keep his weakness hidden alike from his friends and his children, but she, for one, refused to hide his shame if he was "goin' to take to killin' little children."
This was but the first of many inexplicable beatings that I received. He never struck mother; he seldom whipped one of the other children. If any one crossed him when he was drunk I made vicarious atonement. When he was sober I was his favorite child. When he was drunk I was the one who suffered most. For many years I was seldom without the marks of his brutality.
Not long after the whipping episode father sold his business and went away. Mother said he was in poor health and needed a change. He was gone for several months, but his letters came at regular intervals. After I became a woman I read those beautiful letters. Each one was a literary gem; each one replete with expressions of undying love for his family, and filled with high resolve for the conquest of the enemy and his return to his own place in the world. Yet much of this time he was drinking heavily and spending money like a drunken sailor.
After his return our home was sold under mortgage, but we did not immediately move out. Father gave his pledge to mother, and for a time all was well. He started in on a salary to retrieve his fallen fortunes. He planned to move to a farm which he still owned, after he should have saved some money. He and the boys would lead a splendid outdoor life, mother would be always at his side to keep him in the path of duty, we girls should be sent away to a good school when we were old enough.
It was a beautiful picture, wonderfully drawn by a man who was a master of English, but it never materialized. Instead, the pledge was broken, the farm was sold, the family never saw a dollar of the proceeds, and we went to live in a small house in a poor neighborhood.
Father soon lost his position and went away to seek work. My eldest brother, who was fifteen, left school to assume the burden which his father had laid down. All the following winter he sat up nights in the bitter cold in a vain endeavor to keep abreast of his class, striving, fighting, praying for the education that was being denied him.
I was thirteen that fall, but I could in no way assist in the family finances. There was no demand for child labor in our town; neither could I go to school, for there was no money to buy books and clothes. In the midst of all this trouble a new baby was added to our already large family.
Words are feeble things with which to convey any ideas of the horrors of that winter which followed my thirteenth birthday. One may become inured to suffering without becoming indurated by it. Many black and bitter waters of hunger and humiliation, of shame and sorrow, of unmerited punishment and social injustice, of physical suffering and spiritual despair have passed over my head since that time. Above the roar and swirl and buffeting of these many waters the memory of that winter has always stood out conspicuously.
My brother did a man's work, but he did not draw a man's pay. My little brothers and sisters often cried for food when there was no food to give them. The baby wailed incessantly because mother was insufficiently fed, and we stayed in bed as much as possible, trying to keep warm.
At irregular intervals father came home, drunk and demoniacal, to sober up, repent, and become again the courteous gentleman, the kindly parent, the loving husband of his brief sober periods.
Mother never failed him. We children heard no word of reproach for the man who had wrecked her life and ours. She met poverty and shame, as she had met prosperity and honor, with a poise and a dignity that I have never seen equaled.
She was powerless to change conditions. She was powerless to change him, but she could meet any fate with a calm exterior. This man had been the playmate of her childhood. He was the lover of her youth and the husband of her choice. She had not taken him for fair weather only; she had chosen him for life. It never entered her mind to abandon him.
In the spring we moved again, this time to the worst neighborhood in the town. On either side of us, and across the street, the houses were occupied by prostitutes. All of them had other, ostensible means of support. The attitude of the town was too puritanical to permit wide-open, publicly recognized houses of ill fame. They were boarding-houses, dressmaking-shops, hand-laundries, and the homes of working-men whose wives added to the family finances by occasional prostitution.
Thus disguised, these resorts flourished, and they were a far greater menace to the youth of the neighborhood than any wide-open places would have been. These women assumed the virtuous air that deceived none but the very young; even they heard whispers which aroused prurient curiosity and quickened the cosmic urge.
Neither my brother nor I ever went to school again, and I developed into young womanhood in this noxious environment. I was strictly forbidden to visit these neighbors. I was in no sense a delinquent child, but I was a growing girl to whom a good meal was a rarity. These people had good things to eat, served on nice china. They had clean table-cloths; we had none at all. Their houses were palaces compared with the wretched place that I called home. Needless to say, I visited them whenever I had the opportunity, and I heard many suggestions and learned many things that it is not well for a girl to know.
I liked nice clothes, but my love for them was not inordinate, which was well, for I never had decent clothes, to say nothing of pretty ones. Amusements, or recreation of any sort, were unknown to me, except as something to long for and to dream about, especially after meeting some group of nicely gowned girls who had been my playmates in childhood, girls of the circle in which I rightfully belonged.
My early childhood had been spent in an atmosphere of good literature and my love of books was stronger than my love for recreation. As a child I had heard the masters of prose and poetry discussed at great length. I had a most tenacious memory, and knew by name the great writers as distinguished from the mediocre. Neither were within my reach.
My intellect was not satisfied by Goldie Rivers, the Beautiful Cloakmaker, nor by Léontine, the Pirate's Daughter, but, this being the only class of books attainable, I devoured them eagerly. Our neighbors had an abundant supply of this drivel, and I borrowed freely, along with books which were far less harmful.
One would have to live through it to realize the agony a high-spirited, sensitive girl may endure when she is the town drunkard's daughter, especially when that town drunkard had once been one of the leading citizens.
I was never permitted to forget that this was my position. I had no girl companions—my sisters were too small. Instead of girlfriends, I made clandestine visits to ignorant, corrupt women who wore a scanty garb of respectability, and whose influence was far more pernicious than a public prostitute's would have been. I had no boy friends. Our home was far too squalid to invite them to, even if there had been any boys who would have gone with me openly. I was fair game for any predacious male who might be attracted by my youthful face or my well-developed figure.
Men who had been my father's friends made open or tentative advances to me. To one man who insulted me I made indignant threats to tell my father. He laughed contemptuously and answered: "That would not help you. He would only get drunk and beat you."
He had struck at the tap-root of the matter. I had not only lost my father's support in material matters; I had lost his protection as well. My mother was tied hand and foot by ill health, poverty, a sickly baby, and the care of a large family. I needed both my parents; I had neither. The mating instinct was developing strongly and I had no legitimate outlet of study, amusement, companionship, or recreation.
I made a terrific effort to keep above the level of my environment and that of my forbidden companions. My mother's training and example, and my own inherent sense of decency, fought for the right. My environment and social isolation fought against it. The result was inevitable; I lost the battle.
When I was seventeen the family affairs seemed to have reached their lowest possible level. Dirt, squalor, ignorance, vitiated standards, sin, all the horrible concomitants of poverty engulfed me. But I still retained many traces of the earlier condition to which I had been born. The most notable example was my retention of the English spoken in my home, which was not only different from that used by our present neighbors, but notably better than that spoken by the "first families."
I cannot refrain from speaking of this, because it played such a large part in my life, both for sorrow and for joy. It always made me a marked woman in an environment where no standards of English prevailed. It brought me into much conflict with those who considered me "stuck-up, when she hain't got nothing to be stuck-up about." And it brought me much notice and consideration that I would not otherwise have received.
Shortly after my seventeenth birthday there came to my mother a letter from a former servant who was married and living in St. Louis. She offered to send money for my expenses to the city, and to care for me after my arrival there. She suggested factory work as offering the best opening for untrained workers, as well as involving the least expenditure for clothes.
At this time we had not heard from father for nearly a year, but we knew that he would never consent to the plan, even if we could consult him. Mother and I decided that it was the only chance I would ever have to work out my own life, and she accepted it for me, with many secret tears and prayers. She made it plain to me that my fate was in my own hands, that the temptations were many and the opportunities few; but she believed that I had a high degree of intelligence, and that I would make opportunities for myself if I were given a chance. Above all, she believed that I would have a chance to study when I should have access to books; and she laid many injunctions on me to use the public library at every spare moment.
And then came the more intimate conversation in which she tried to tell about things of which, to my shame, I knew more than she. I could only listen in silence and resolve in my heart that this thing that had come into my life should be cast out forever, and that, God helping me, I would become all that she expected of me, working always with the view of lightening her burdens and helping her to shield the younger girls. My two little sisters were rarely beautiful children, and I knew that they would need every safeguard that could be thrown around them. In my heart I said, "My darling mother, I have deceived you, and I am not worthy to be your daughter nor a sister to your children; but with every effort that a girl can make I will strive to become worthy."
Want and misery had been our portion through several years, but love and the ties of blood had not become lessened, and the thought that one of us must go out alone into the world was a grief almost too great to be endured. My oldest brother, who was my mother's counterpart in mind and countenance, possessed the same dignity and fortitude, and shared her pride of birth. He had taken his father's place, not only as the breadwinner, but as counselor and guide for the other children. The younger ones gave him the same obedience and respect that they gave mother, and all of them had for him a passionate love, though they stood somewhat in awe of him. I was too near his own age to obey him, though I valued his good opinion very highly and stood in awe of the disapproving frown he would always bestow upon me after he had learned of one of my visits to our questionable neighbors.
He bore his burden without complaint; he could do a man's work and carry a man's responsibilities, though he was but a slender boy. But no amount of social isolation would have driven him to association with people whose social, educational, or moral standards were not those of his own mother; and he could not understand that I was of different mold. I loved the things that he loved, but I did not possess his fineness of temperament nor his isolation of spirit.
I was thankful that a way of escape from my hateful surroundings had been opened to me, and I felt a lightening of the burden of fear that I had carried for several months—the fear of my brother's scorn if he should learn of my sin and the greater fear of my mother's heartache. Father was still the adored one, and we mourned for him during his long silence as sincerely as if he had been the most devoted parent in the world. Since mother did not criticize him to us, it was but natural that we children should not criticize him to her nor to one another; we looked upon him as one who suffered from a horrible malady, and always referred to the happier days as the time "when father was himself."
One the day of my leaving mother, my brother and myself were very silent, but the younger children, who adored Sister—as they always called me—wept loud and long and would not be comforted. At the station our good-bys were few, because they had already been said. I almost broke down at the last moment, but was enabled to restrain my feelings because I knew that my mother would consider it unseemly if I made a public display of grief.
But when the train had pulled out of the station my grief broke through the barriers I had built up, and I wept all the way to the city, without any thought of the unseemliness of publicly displaying my emotion. I was only a little girl and I did not in the least want to work in a factory, nor live with our former servant, nor leave my home and my little brothers and sisters, nor the cuddling baby brother who was my especial care. He was old enough to talk by this time, and as night shut down I tried to peer through the darkness and picture him crying for Sister, and my own tears poured forth afresh. And I still weep when I think of the little chap who, as he grew older, always said, when he saw an attractive young woman, "Mother, she looks like Sister, but I do not think she looks so nice."
IT was eleven o'clock at night when I arrived in St. Louis, and as I had never before been out of bed at that hour, I was somewhat frightened and bewildered by the clamor and the crowd until I heard a cheery voice at my elbow exclaiming: "My, but you have grown! And you look just like your ma; I would have known you anywhere." And thereupon I was gathered to an ample bosom on which I proceeded to pour out my homesick tears.
After I had been petted and soothed by a hand that had soothed me in childhood, and my tears dried on her own handkerchief, my one-time nurse turned to the quiet-looking man who accompanied her, and introduced her husband, asking me if I remembered Fred James, who used to deliver groceries at our house when she was a nurse there.
I remembered him well, and after the exchange of greetings his first remark was an echo of his wife's greetings: "You certainly look like your ma."
Mrs. James added the little sting with which every one always qualified this compliment, "She does and she don't; she will never be as good-looking as her ma."
On the street-car, however, she sought to divert my thoughts from home by telling me about the position she had held open for me, in the factory in which she was forewoman. I was to be a check-girl, whose duties would consist in checking out bundles of work to the machine-workers and in checking in the finished product. It sounded very complicated to me, but she assured me that I could do it, that she would be at my elbow for the first week; after that I could "go it alone."
The pay would be five dollars a week, out of which I was to pay her two dollars for board, and a room which I should share with two older girls, a younger sister of Mrs. James, and a cousin who lived with them. Both girls worked at the factory, as also did Mr. James. They all made good wages and were laying up money. Mrs. James was a woman of keen judgement, straightforward and industrious; she was clearly the head of the household. My mother had thought highly of her integrity and intelligence, and I knew that I was in capable hands.
Just as I fell asleep, or so it seemed, I was awakened by Mrs. James at the door of the bedroom, her brisk voice calling, "Come, girls, it's four-thirty; time to get up."
Why any one should get up at four-thirty was a mystery to me, but I followed the example of my bedfellows and reluctantly dragged myself out of bed. I had always understood that Missourians were lazy, but if an entire household arose at four-thirty, the climate could not be as enervating as I had supposed.
Both the girls were frankly curious about me, and discussed me quite freely in my presence, but without the least thought of giving offense. Being wage-earners who had supported themselves for several years, they looked upon me as a green little country girl, to be patronized and instructed in the ways of the city.
It did not require much time to discover the reason for the early rising; there was plenty of work to be done, in which all took a part; there was breakfast to be got, and the house to be set in order before leaving for the factory. The house wore a spick-and-span appearance that would have put to shame many housewives who spent the day dawdling over their tasks. The women made their own clothes, snatching the time whenever they could; and in good weather they walked to and from work, although the distance was more than two miles.
After the first week at the factory I experienced no difficulty with my work, the chief requisites being alertness and attention, qualities that I possessed, together with a fair chirography, and a quickness at figures which pleased Mrs. James, though it did not surprise her; for, as she remarked, "Your pa and ma are the smartest persons I ever knew; you would have no excuse for being a blockhead." And for the next ten minutes she held forth about the blockheads with whom circumstances compelled her to deal.
Although I had few difficulties with my work, I never grew accustomed to the noise made by eighty power-machines running at top speed, each one of them making twice as much noise as an ordinary sewing-machine. After listening to their deafening racket all day I dreamed of it at night. This and the various sounds from the city's streets at length began to "get on my nerves."
I wiped away many a secret tear, for I was homesick and unutterably lonely. I envied the machine-girls who laughed and sang at their work and carried on their communication by their own peculiar sign code, for no human voice could be heard above the roar of the machines.
I never became intimate with any of my fellow-workers, for I had a certain shyness which I could not overcome, and I spoke a different language which made those around me declare that I was "stuck-up, an' tryin' to talk stylish." No girl enjoys being set apart from her fellows, and, being a perfectly normal girl, I was no exception to this rule. I went to the extent of trying to speak their language in my effort to be one of them; but the only result was to offend my own ears and bring forth a sharp reprimand from Mrs. James to the effect that I need not try to talk like a Missourian.
On Saturday night my two roommates often went to a show or a dance with their "fellows," but when they brought along a young man to act as escort for me Mrs. James promptly vetoed my going to a dance or having young-men callers. As I did not demur, that settled the matter to her entire satisfaction. Accordingly, she wrote to my mother that I was a good girl and an obedient one; however, the obedience caused me little effort, since I had never learned to dance and the young man did not interest me.
On Sunday mornings, when I would gladly have lain in bed to rest, she sent me to church, although no other member of the household attended. In her time, our own household had been a church-going one, although the custom had been abandoned in recent years for lack of decent clothes to wear; but Mrs. James felt that her duty to my mother included religious guidance for me, which she was quite willing should come through others.
After I had been in the city for about two months my health, which had always been perfect, notwithstanding the hardships and poor food of our home, began to fail. I lost my appetite, had frequent attacks of vomiting, and did not sleep well. I managed to get through my work at the factory, but the walks home were one long-drawn-out torture. At the end of three months Mrs. James was seriously alarmed; at first she had attributed my failing health to the hot weather, but it was autumn now and the air was an elixir; still I did not improve. I cried at the slightest provocation, and seemed to be all nerves. As I had never before been sick, I made sure that I was going to die. Then my mother would never know that I had been a wicked girl, nor that I had tried to redeem my unspoken promise to her when I had whispered to myself that I would become worthy to be her daughter.
Another month went by, and the women's faces around me grew grave when they spoke of me. One night I heard the girls talking about my illness, "She is not fit for work; she ought to go home." I only sighed wearily. Perhaps my mother would know what to do for me, but I did not want to go home; I had taken great pride in the fact that I was making good on the task assigned to me. On the morning after this conversation Mrs. James came to me before I was up and said that she and I would not work that day, because she had decided to take me to a physician, all home remedies having failed.
After the doctor had announced the result of his diagnosis I could only stare at him in dumb amazement. It seemed to me that he must be speaking of some other girl, not of me. Mrs. James sat with face blanched and lips trembling before the words came to them; then she burst forth: "It cannot be true, Doctor. I promised her mother to guard her; she has never gone out alone since she came to St. Louis; and she does not know a young man in the city."
My sense of justice came to the relief of my stiffened tongue and impelled me to tell them that it had happened in my home town; beyond that I could say nothing, shame had made me speechless.
By the time we had returned to the house Mrs. James had threshed the matter out in her own mind and decided that at all costs my mother must not know the truth; with her usual perspicacity she added: "If your father had been himself, this would never have happened. There is not a man in B— County that would have dared bring shame to him if he were the man he was ten years ago."
I knew that she spoke the truth. I knew, moreover, young as I was, that I would never have dared, either, had he "been himself." I, too, had taken advantage of his disability and struck him in his most vulnerable spot, the honor of his womankind; indeed, the honor of all womankind, for whatever his other failings, he had never been known to impugn the character of any woman; and he looked with loathing upon men who spoke lightly of feminine virtue. It was his most reverent assertion that no woman of his own or my mother's name had ever borne the breath of reproach. In my hour of bitterness and shame I almost forgot the gentle woman whose heart would break if she knew, in my grief for the proud man whom insidious foes, without and within, had brought so low.
"I will not say anything to the girls until I can think what is best to do," said Mrs. James, as she went into the kitchen to prepare our lunch.
I stood in the sitting-room, still wearing my street clothes, while her remark kept ringing in my ears; the conviction that finally penetrated to my consciousness was that the girls must know. I, who in my secret heart had felt so superior to these illiterate working-girls, must become a byword to them, because, despite my better birth and breeding, I had lost that jewel of virtue which they still retained; yes, and I must bring shame into the home of this kindly woman, who, out of reverence and love for my mother and a lingering respect for my father, had treated me as if I were of different clay.
A sudden resolution came to me: I must go away. Where, I had not the least idea, but I must get away from these humble friends and bear my disgrace alone. I went into my room and took from my trunk the small sum of money I had saved—fifty cents a week, for four months; for I had promised my mother that I would spend Christmas at home; and I had resolutely resisted all temptation to buy girlish finery, that I might keep that promise.
Twelve dollars; it seemed a large sum as I carefully tucked it into my bosom and stood irresolutely looking into my trunk. No, I could take nothing else, I decided; and then I saw a small photograph of my mother, which had been taken in the heyday of her matronly beauty when I was a child of ten. I wrapped it carefully in a clean handkerchief and, putting it with the twelve dollars, I went forth to hide myself from the only friends I had in St. Louis.
Although I was not at that time aware of it, it was from myself that I was trying to hide. I hailed the first passing car, and as I was utterly unfamiliar with the city and had no objective point in view, I rode to the end of the line. Leaving the car, I found myself in a suburb of the modest sort, where I wandered aimlessly up and down the blocks and across vacant lots, until I had lost all sense of direction. My mind and soul were in such torment that I only vaguely sensed fatigue and hunger; until at length I dully realized that it was growing dark and that I had never before been on the streets at night alone. The thought of suicide obtruded itself into my consciousness, but I rejected it, because I firmly believed in the old-fashioned hell; and I had no desire to precipitate myself into that abode of the lost, although I entertained no doubt as to its being my ultimate destination. With the thought of suicide there had come to me a sense of the anxiety which Mrs. James would suffer on account of my absence; perhaps she would telegraph to my mother; that contingency must be averted at once. I walked on and on until at last I came to a drug-store, and, going in, purchased stationery and a stamp. I asked the man in charge if I might write a letter; he handed me a fountain-pen and, pointing to a table in the rear of the store, invited me to make myself at home. There were no customers in the place at this time, and I was not interrupted as I wrote my incoherent letter to Mrs. James. I could not restrain my tears as I made my plea that she would not tell my mother that I was not with her; I knew perfectly well that she would not tell her of my condition.
When I had finished my letter I thanked the man for his kindness and asked him where I would find the nearest post-box. He came up close to me, a middle-aged creature, oleaginous in person and unctuous in manner, and putting his hand on my arm inquired, "Are you in trouble, little girl?" and then answering his own question, he continued: "I know you are. Can I help you?"
It had not been necessary for me to come to a great city to meet men of his stamp; I had seen them in my own country town. Men who had known me since my babyhood had not spared me their insults, and I was in no doubt as to this man's meaning. But protest was useless and I was inexpressibly tired, so I thanked him for his solicitude, told him there was nothing wrong, and started to go out of the store, whereupon he barred my way, and, again putting his repulsive hand on my arm, made a proposal so offensive that high above shame and grief and weariness my anger arose and I lashed him with the fury of my contempt until he stood aside and let me pass.
I was still shaking with anger when I reached the street; but clearly in my mind the resolution formed itself that, although I was an outcast from my friends and my family, I would never become the prey of such creatures as he.
Although I did not then realize it, I had that night found a weapon of defense—one with which I often wounded myself, but one which served me in good stead in many conflicts with creatures who wore the guise of men, and on whom diplomacy, or womanly sweetness, or an appeal to chivalry would have been worse than wasted; moral cowards who would take to flight before the white heat of a woman's scorn—to attack her later from ambush if they could.
Hailing an approaching street-car, I boarded it, neither knowing nor caring where it should take me. Every inch of me ached from the long hours of wandering and of mental anguish, and I was grateful for the rest which the car afforded me. I sank into a half-sleep, in which I seemed to be forever frantically walking toward a given point, to find, when I reached it, that I was facing a high, impenetrable stone wall, but when I would have turned to retrace my steps there was no pathway leading backward.
From this stupor I was awakened by the jostling of many persons leaving the car; I followed the crowd and found myself in front of the Union Station; on entering the waiting-room I saw by the large clock facing me that it was nine-thirty. I had left Mrs. James's house before noon, and in my wanderings must have covered many miles. I had eaten nothing since early morning; and then, because neither grief nor shame can kill and because I was very young, hunger was the sensation uppermost for the time being; I went in search of food.
After eating supper life appeared a little brighter to me; I left the station with the intention of finding a room for the night. The conventions had been strongly impressed upon me, and so, notwithstanding the fact that by breaking the moral code I had become an outcast, it did not seem to me respectable that a young girl should be on the street alone at ten o'clock at night.
The clamoring hotel-runners and expressmen and hack-drivers confused me, and after three successively insolent hackmen had touched my arm and leered up into my face with their "Hack, miss?" I became frightened and retreated to the safe shelter of the waiting-room. Almost as soon as I had sat down I fell into a troubled sleep, from which I was awakened by a touch on my arm, and I screamed in terror at the thought that men were to go on forever touching my arm; but I was reassured when I saw the kindly face that was bending over me. At once I knew that there was no evil design therein.
"You were sleeping pretty soundly, all right. I hope I didn't scare you, ma'am," said the man, who wore a cap marked "Depot Master."
"No, sir," I answered, "or at least you do not frighten me now; you did when you touched me."
"For a long time I have been watching you sleep, and I was afraid you would miss your train, so I woke you up to ask what train you are taking."
In consternation I glanced up at the clock and saw that it was after one. The waiting-room was almost deserted. What in the world should I say? I turned to the official in great trepidation. "I—I—I was not going anywhere," I faltered.
The man looked puzzled. "Then what are you doing here at this time of night?" he asked. Then, a light seeming to dawn on him, he sternly inquired: "See here, young lady, I know that you are a country-town girl. Are you running away from home? You had better tell me all about it; perhaps I can help you."
That was what the vile man in the drug-store wanted to do—to "help" me. I looked sharply at this man, with eyes that were beginning to have a prescience of masculine designs, but there was nothing but kindly interest in his face. Still, I could say nothing; at all hazards I must guard my secret; wild horses could not drag it from me so long as I was able to conceal it; and then, as if in mocking derision of my efforts at concealment, the first ominous movement of the newly created life took place inside my body.
In speechless fright I sank back in my seat and looked at the man in dumb agony. Visions of the reform school, of the House of the Good Shepherd—places that I had heard the girls at the factory refer to as punitive refuges for wicked young girls—swam before my tortured imagination. Public disgrace; my proud father's daughter, my beautiful mother's little girl, my splendid brother's sister in one of these institutions with a public brand of infamy upon her. It was too much; my soul rose in revolt against a punishment that was out of all proportion to my offense. Still I could not speak.
The depot-master, sensing something of my suffering, gave my arm a pat which contained nothing but reassurance. "Well, well, young lady," he said, "you can't stay here all night. Think it over, and if you can't tell me, I will see what I can do, anyway."
At the end of half an hour he returned with a cheery, "Feel any better now, my child?"
"You are very good to me, sir," I stammered, "and I am thankful, because I am in deep trouble; I cannot talk to you about it. But I am not running away from home; although I am a country-town girl, I came here, with my mother's consent, to work in a factory."
"Where have you been living?" he asked.
I told him the name of the street, but not the number; I added that I had left my boarding-house only that day. I hastily reassured him that I had some money: only, I did not know where to go.
"Well, well, you look like a good girl," he said, kindly. "I had a notion to call a policeman and have him question you, but I am glad now I didn't. There is a hotel up the street kept by decent people that I know well. I shall take you up there. They would think it strange for a nice girl to be out at this time of night, so I shall tell them that you missed your train. You can get a room somewhere else to-morrow; this is no neighborhood for a girl to be in alone."
In the presence of the night clerk at the hotel he assumed a very brisk manner to cover up his kindness. "John," he said, "here is a young lady who has missed her train and does not know where to go, as she is stranger in the city; give her a quiet room and let her sleep late, for she is pretty tired." Turning to me, he drowned my tremulous thanks in a brusk: "You are all right here, little girl. Good night."
MY long, dreamless sleep of exhaustion was not disturbed until the twelve-o'clock whistles awakened me. I sat up in bed and looked around the unfamiliar room; then I remembered all the horrid events from the day before, and jumped out of bed in alarm. I must not stay here. The depot-master had said I should only remain in that hotel overnight. It did not enter my mind to disobey him. I wondered if he had girls of his own. If he had, I thought, they must be proud to have such a nice man for a father.
When I went to put on my stocking I discovered a blister on each heel, and I had great difficulty in getting my swollen feet into the shoes that had been large enough for them the day before. As I put on my clothes I tried to formulate some plan of action, but no plan presented itself to my sorely harassed mind. Being of a naturally buoyant disposition, however, I felt that something must happen; surely my fate could not be so black as my fancy had painted it the day before.
The approaching motherhood, in itself, meant nothing to me. The thought of a child had but one meaning—disgrace, which carried with it the penalty of separation from my loved ones and disability for the work which would enable me to sustain life. At home I had often known hunger, and now I made no vague, abstract speculations about it; I knew it only too well, and the very prospect of it made me heartsick.
But if I could not work, I must starve. Yet, with the ready optimism of my nature, I felt that there must be work which I could do, something which would not prove so arduous as my task at the factory had grown to be.
Moreover, my twelve dollars did not now seem so large a sum as it had seemed the day before. Already I had spent one dollar, and it was but little more than twenty-four hours since I had left Mrs. James. I had not yet bought breakfast.
My heavy hair was with great difficulty brought into a state of order, without the aid of comb or brush, and I made a mental note of the fact that I should have to spend at least twenty-five cents for a comb.
There were many other factories in the city other than the one in which I had worked, but my fear that Mrs. James would find me, together with the certainty that I could not much longer do the work required, made me hesitate to try the factories. Without influence I could not hope to get another position "checking," and I had had no experience in the machine-work. I knew that inexperienced operators could not, at best, earn more than a dollar and a half a week for the first few weeks. Indeed, I had checked the work of beginners that came to only sixty cents a week after ten hours a day of grilling toil.
With no wardrobe other than the clothes on my back, I could not expect to get a position in a department store; the only other possibility was housework. I had little training in that, for one does not learn much about housework in a wretched hovel of three rooms almost destitute of furniture, nor does one acquire culinary skill when the food to be prepared consists of soup-meat and potatoes (seldom enough of that) and corn-bread, made without either eggs or "shortening."
In the restaurant where I ate breakfast I picked up a copy of The Globe-Democrat and looked over the "Help Wanted" advertisements, selecting two which specified that young girls were in demand. I went out to look for employment at domestic service.
My utter ignorance of the city made it difficult for me to find the first address I sought. The depot-master's remark about having a policeman question me made me fear to seek knowledge from that source, and I was too bashful to ask the passers-by. At length I hit upon the expedient of boarding a street-car and asking the conductor as I paid my fare. In this way I got the desired information, but at the cost of a precious nickel.
When at length I reached the house the haughty dame who answered the bell shut the door in my face, with the curt information that she did not interview prospective servants in the afternoon.
If ladies did not interview applicants in the afternoon, there was no use in my trying the other address. I decided the only thing to do was to get a room and wait until morning.
Nor was I destined to find a position the next day, nor any of the following days. My unsophisticated air made me appear even younger than I was, and I had neither references nor experience to aid me in my search. While I was shabbily dressed, I had not the manner nor appearance of the Southern servant-girl of that period, who was usually recruited from the class that Missourians called "trash." My speech was also against me, and was the cause of invidious remark by many of the women to whom I applied for work—hopefully at first, and at last in frantic despair as my small sum of money decreased to the vanishing-point.
The car fare made heavy inroads on my purse, for I seemed to be always taking the wrong car and paying an extra fare; and while in the beginning of my pregnancy I had no appetite, now I was always hungry. In my search for work I was much out of doors in the crisp October air that was like a tonic and increased my appetite to alarming proportions. The life within my own likewise called constantly for "Food! food! food!"
In St. Louis, which is the central market for one of the earth's garden spots, food was very cheap at that time; but, cheaply as it could be bought, the day was not long in coming when I could no longer buy it nor pay for a room to shelter me from the streets.
I, an attractive young girl, homeless, defenseless, hungry, and in a few months to become a mother, had no choice between the course I took and the Mississippi River.
And the well-dressed man with whom I spent the night, after I was shelterless, left me, with a derisive laugh, when I timidly asked him for money next morning.
It was a raw day, and the wind tearing through my thin clothes chilled me to the marrow as I left the lodging-house where I had spent the night. I went down-town and into one of the big department stores; in the rest-room I wrote two letters, for I still had a few stamps in my purse. One was to Mrs. James saying that I had found work and was all right, and asking her to send my mail to General Delivery.
The other letter was to my mother. I wrote as if nothing had happened, explaining that I had missed my usual letter on the previous week because I had not found time to write. I wrote that I was well and getting along nicely, although at that moment hunger was cutting me like a knife and I had no place to go when I should be forced to leave the warm rest-room.
There was an inner rest-room in which patrons were permitted to eat lunch, and from well-filled boxes many suburban shoppers were partaking of their midday meal. As I hungrily watched them eat and then toss their scraps into a large wastebasket in the corner, my heart filled with bitterness that these women should have food to throw away while I starved.
When at length the rest-room was deserted I dived eagerly into the basket and, bringing forth all the scraps I could find, sat down and greedily devoured them.
At eleven o'clock that night, as I stood on a quiet street corner shivering from cold and hunger, a well-dressed negro came up to me in a deferential manner and hesitatingly accosted me. "Excuse me, miss," he said, "but I done been watchin' you stand on this corner like you was lost, and I 'lowed maybe you was out to make money and findin' it hard to brace up to a man. If I's you I'd be keerful, 'cause the police in this man's town am mighty stric' and you is liable to get pinched; you done been standin' here for a right smart while."
"Thank you," I gratefully answered, and, turning up a side-street, made haste to get out of that neighborhood. When I had gone about a block I heard hasty steps behind me in the quiet street, and my heart almost choked me. That it was a policeman I did not doubt. Being "pinched" meant nothing to me in the sense the negro had intended to convey. It meant a policeman who would question me about my home, discover my condition, and send me to the reform school. I was ready to break into a run when the negro who had spoken to me came up beside me.
"Now, missie, hain't no use you being so skeered; they's no policeman in this block, and I want to tell you where they's a rich white man 'at would give a lot of money to git aholt of a pretty girl like you. He'd be mighty good to you, too. I works for him, and he don't live very far from here. If yore out to make money, you better go where you can git it, 'cause yore too bashful to ever make it on the street. You shore needs lots of brass for that, an' you hain't got it. You just follow me and I'll take you to that white man."
His manner was as deferential as his argument was irrefutable. If I wanted to make money, the place to go was where I could get it. It took "brass," and I had none. After a brief hesitation, I gave a nod of consent and followed him down the street. He walked on for several blocks, from time to time looking backward to see if I still followed. We were getting into a shabby neighborhood, and I was beginning to doubt that any man with so much money lived in this street, when he stopped before a small cottage and waited for me to come up to him.
I did not doubt about the white man, but I questioned about the money. My experience of the night before had shown men to me in a new light. I knew that they shirked their moral responsibilities, but I did not doubt that they were willing to pay, in cash, for the soft white body of a girl. Now I had learned that they were as ready to cheat in a monetary transaction with her as they were to shirk their moral obligations.
When the negro saw my hesitation he came up beside me, his manner changing from the courteously logical one he had at first employed to one of passionate pleading.
"Don't you be skeered now. He shore am a mighty fine man, and he'll suttenly treat you right; he's got lots of money," and as if to prove it, he took from his own pocket a large roll of bills.
"Hain't nothing he wouldn't do for a nice white girl like you," he went on, but now his passionate pleading frightened me; I knew it was he who wanted "the nice white girl."
Every "fine, protesting fiber" of mind and body arose in revolt against the fate which had overtaken me. I had not chosen to become an outcast from my family; I had not chosen to be a lost creatures of the streets; I did not want to be cold and hungry and in the streets at midnight, with a panting negro offering me money for my aching body; I did not want that within me which was making my own frame a burden to drag around on my throbbing, weary feet. My God! had I come to this in payment for a moment's sin? And in my misery I shrieked aloud my protest: "I hate you! I hate you!" But it was not the negro at whom I shrieked.
A cab turned the corner as I screamed aloud my agony of defiance and despair. The driver pulled up sharply at the curb, and as the passenger inside opened the door to discover the cause of the commotion the negro took to his heels.
I did not stop my incoherent protest against the world, against an unjust fate, against my Maker, until the man from the cab had seized me by the shoulders and vigorously shaken me. "For Heaven's sake," he exclaimed, "stop that yelling and tell us what the trouble is. Don't you see that we want to help you?"
I stopped screaming, but I could not yet talk coherently. The cab-driver gave his version of the affair. "As I turned the corner there," he said, "I heard this girl screaming like mad; there was a big coon with her, but he ran away when I pulled up."
"Did the brute hurt you?" inquired the man who had shaken me.
I shook my head. "He only frightened me and made me angry," I answered.
He smiled quizzically at me. "Well, that scream was a mighty good weapon; I would not lose it if I were you; it is handy to have around. It is a good thing we came along when we did; and now you must let me take you home."
"I have no home. I am a bad girl," I answered. "That negro told me that the man he works for would give me lots of money; but he told a lie, because he wanted me for himself."
The man tapped his foot thoughtfully on the sidewalk for a moment. "Even bad girls," he said, "usually have homes of some sort. You don't look very bad; but if you want to make some money, perhaps you had better come with me."
My teeth were chattering with the cold, but my mind was growing numb with the numbness of despair as I preceded him into the cab. He gave a direction to the driver before entering, and explained to me: "We are going down to Tony Faust's and get something to warm you up while we talk it over. You poor little kid, you are half frozen!"
I leaned against the soft cushions without speaking, and he respected my silence as we drove on.
Arriving at Faust's, where he seemed to be well known to the waiters, we were shown into a private room. "A hot toddy, Fritz," he ordered, "for the lady, and see that it is hot and strong; and something soft for me, as I am on the water-wagon."
After the drinks were served he gave the order for supper, and told me to drink my toddy while it was hot. I recalled a pledge I had take in early childhood, and pushed the glass away. "I can't take that," I said. "I belong to the Band of Hope."
"Poor little girl, you belong to the Band of the Hopeless right now; and that absolves you from the pledge. You will have more hope after you have something hot inside you. Drink it," he said, peremptorily, and I obeyed.
After I had swallowed the last drop a warm glow permeated mind and body. I reflected that I should have to go to hell, anyway, so breaking my childhood's pledge did not seem such a heinous offense as it would have otherwise.
When the thick, rare beefsteak, with mushrooms, was brought in I eyed it greedily; when my host served me with a dainty portion I wanted to take it in my teeth and rend it. "As free from ceremony's sway as famished wolf that rends its prey."
An almost forgotten incident of childhood came to mind, putting me at once on my good behavior. At a large family dinner-party, where several mothers wrestled with unruly children, it was remarked by many of them, in my hearing, that, although my mother was not present to keep me in order, I was a very polite child and had the best manners of any little girl in town.
I did not want my kind host to think me a savage, even though he had found me screaming in the streets, so I ate as daintily as I had on that day when I had been so proud to be called "the best-mannered little girl in town."
A noted actor was playing "Richelieu" in the city, and my host entertained me with a description of the man, contrasting him with another great actor he had seen in the same character.
His courtliness to a starving girl whom he had picked up in the streets caused my mind to revert to the well-dressed man who had laughed derisively when I timidly asked him for money. I added another item to my rapidly increasing store of knowledge of the ways of men. A man with a true heart of a gentleman does not change his attitude of courtesy toward women because the woman in question chances to be one of the fallen sisters. That is a conclusion I have never found reason to alter.
After supper he took me to his rooms, where he anticipated my every need with a gentleness that was balm to my aching heart; giving me his own dressing-gown and slippers, and laying out a clean nightshirt for me, after he had first turned on the bath.
When I came from the bath, with the long robe trailing under my feet and the slippers falling off at every step, he laughed indulgently and I tried to join him, but the muscles of my mouth refused their office.
"It is after three," he said, "and I have to see a man at 'The Planter's' at nine-thirty. I will go down there now and get a room for the night. You sleep as long as you like. I will be up about one, and we will have lunch together. The maid who takes care of my rooms comes about ten, but you need not let her in."
He gave me a friendly handshake and was about to open the door when he seemed to think of something else. "I had better leave you some change for breakfast," he continued, "in case I am detained." He picked up my shabby purse, and, after putting something into it, again bade me good night and went out.
THE nourishing supper which my host had served me, followed by the inestimable boon of a hot bath, a beautiful warm room, and a comfortable bed; the glow of gratitude in my heart for this man who had shown me such kindness, with the additional delicacy of leaving me, all conduced to the relaxation of my outraged nerves and my exhausted body.
After a prolonged sleep I had entirely recovered from the effects of my protracted fast, which but for the waste-basket scraps had been unbroken for forty-eight hours.
My host did not come in until one-thirty, but I had slept so long that I had just finished dressing when he entered the apartment. I busied myself in setting things to rights, while he walked about, expatiating on the pleasure it gave him to find some one at home waiting for him. When the lunch, which he had ordered from a near-by restaurant, was brought we laughed over his attempt to help arrange the table, and he made the discovery that I could laugh; he proposed that I should remain with him for a few days until I had other plans.
It was quite evident that he did not consider me a bad girl in the sense I meant when I had announced that fact to him the night before. He knew that there was much behind the scene that I was making when he had met me, and he was obviously expecting to be taken into my confidence; but much as I longed to have him understand, I could not tell him the truth. It did not occur to me to tell him a lie.
The process of education in the oldest profession in the world is like any other educational process, in that it requires time and effort and patience; it can only be acquired by taking one step at a time, though the steps become accelerated after the first few.
I had yet to learn that lying was a part of the profession and was included in the curriculum; that it was employed, not only as a means of advertising and arousing interest, but also as a measure of self-defense against impertinent inquirers. And I had yet to learn that every man's vanity, regardless of how casual his intercourse with "one of the girls" may be, leads him to expect that she shall take him into her confidence, and tell him the truth about her family affairs, and her private life, and her "right name," and why she is adventuring in the primrose way, though he is quite ready to concede her right to "conceal hersel', as weel's she can, frae critical dissection" on the part of others.
Since I was utterly ignorant of these facts pertaining to the profession which had been thrust upon me, I could only maintain a painful silence in answer to the delicately veiled hints of my host that I tell him all about it.
After lunch he again put money into my purse, remarking as he did so that perhaps I would like to do a little shopping, and suggesting the place where one could buy to the best advantage; he added that I would better have dinner before I returned, as he might be detained until too late to dine with me.
My first purchases were in the underwear department; after that I bought stockings and shoes, and was trying to decide what would be the most sensible way to spend the remainder of the money when I was suddenly seized with a panic, because of new and disquieting movements from the life that was within my own life. My long rest of the night before had been so complete and the arrival of my host had been so early that for many hours I had forgotten this other part of my existence.
Hurriedly leaving the store with my parcels, I hastened back to the apartment and, tearing off the clothing which was now suffocating me, I threw myself on the bed and gave way to angry, frantic, futile tears. However, the movement inside of me ceased, and gradually I grew calm again. I counted the money which remained from my shopping expedition, and decided that I would not even buy my dinner; I had spent too much already.
There was no use quarreling with myself about what could not be undone, and I had sorely needed the articles I had bought. I prepared the bath, and afterward, when I had put on the new garments, I would not have been a woman had I failed to feel the glow of satisfaction which came over me as I felt the touch of clean, dainty linen.
At six-thirty my appetite got the better of my would-be prudence and I went out for dinner, which I ate with all the more relish because I felt that I should not have bought it. My host came in a few moments after my return and I put aside my anxiety in an effort to be agreeable to this man who had shown me so much kindness.
He was a brilliant conversationalist, and my shyness made me a good listener; he spoke on many subjects of which I had no knowledge; but with a habit which had been formed in early childhood I laid them away in my capacious memory for reference at the first opportunity.
After a while he told me something about himself and his personal affairs. At his father's death he had inherited a comfortable fortune and a large share of his father's business. He said, regretfully, that he had neglected his business and had spent a great deal of money in reckless living. For the past year he had been drinking steadily; until about five weeks before his meeting with me, when he had contracted a disease which made it imperative for him to stop. He mentioned the name of the disease; but the only idea that was conveyed to my mind was that it could not be a very bad thing if it had caused him to stop drinking; moreover, he did not seem to be suffering much pain.
When I mentioned this he said that he had suffered considerably at first, but the doctor now considered him cured; however, he was not taking any chances, and was earnestly trying not to drink again.
He went on to say that my presence would be a godsend to him, for he disliked being alone in his rooms; and he had a great struggle to leave liquor alone when he was with his friends, who were a pretty rapid lot.
My heart went out to him in his struggle with the enemy that had wrecked our own home; I rejoiced that I could be of service to him, in return for his kindness to me. Eleven o'clock came very quickly, and after he had taken his departure from his own rooms, that I might have undisputed possession for the night, I felt sorry that he was so old—he must have been at least twenty-eight. But perhaps it was all for the best, I reflected; if he were younger, perhaps I should fall in love with him.
At two o'clock the following afternoon he came bounding in like a school-boy and insisted on taking me shopping, though, to be sure, I was not loath to go. He bought me a hat and a coat, and a gown with silk lining and the various accessories, waving aside my shocked objection to his spending so much money.
I remained in the department store while the needful alterations were made in the gown; afterward I donned my new garments in the fitting-room, preparatory to keeping a dinner engagement with my benefactor, who had left me after making the purchase of my new wardrobe.
Conscious that I was looking well in my new clothes, I felt a natural glow of elation when I met him; but was somewhat disconcerted when he suggested that I should go into a hair-dresser's and have my hair "done up," as we were going to the theater. Evidently I was not looking so nice as I had supposed. Seeing my disappointment at his lack of approbation, he hastened to assure me that I looked all right; he explained, smilingly, that the reason for his suggestion was my "pigtail," which made me look so young that he feared he might be arrested for cradle-robbing.
That explanation served to soothe my newly discovered vanity, because I disliked the pigtail very much; but I had to wear it because I had not yet learned to dress my hair in any other way.
That night, after our return from the theater, he appeared reluctant to leave, and it must be confessed that I did not find him so entertaining as on the night before. I had enjoyed the evening, but now I was very tired; my tight clothing was causing me excruciating pain, and I longed to be alone.
When at length he had gone I sat down to brush my hair and prepare for bed. As I brushed I pondered over this man's generosity in giving so much and asking nothing in return. Surely the world could not be so heartless as I had thought. I had just received proof that chivalry had not entirely died out of men's hearts.
As I got into bed I heard his key in the door. As soon as he had entered the room he began making profuse apologies; he would stay only a minute; he had felt impelled to come back and tell me how much he had enjoyed my society; how my refinement had appealed to the best that was within him; how adorable and altogether charming he had found me to be. The flattery, which would have been pleasing to my unaccustomed ears a few hours earlier, only wearied me now. But with true masculine density he could not see that I was bored; with true masculine vanity he appeared to think I was as loath to have him go as he was reluctant to leave.
Then I made the discovery that the reason for his continence was not, as I had supposed, his exceeding great virtue, but the illness from which he had recently suffered. When he saw that I did not in the least understand what he was talking about he explained in detail. He had contracted a venereal disease which, if properly treated, was no worse than a severe cold. His physician had pronounced him cured, but he would not ask me to expose myself unless I fully understood that there was an element of risk. At worst it was not a virulent disease, and the risk was slight, but it would make no difference in our friendship if I should refuse to run that risk. Much of his explanation was Greek to me: I understood thoroughly, although he made no intimation of it, that this man had found me starving in the streets; that he had fed and sheltered and clothed me; and that he did not demand payment. Nevertheless he did expect it, and pleaded for it... I paid.
I had learned another of the lessons of the oldest profession, "Man gets his price for what man gives us."
In the morning he was worried and not so sure of there being no risk. He hovered over me as I put on the garments that had been so beautiful the day before, when I had thought them a free-will offering; now that I had paid the price for them they were to me merely a covering for the body, a means of protection from the cold. He wearied me with his attentions, and I was glad when he had gone.
I was not at all apprehensive about the disease, partly because I had never heard of it before, and he did not seem to have suffered much from it; partly because I had none of that haunting fear of contagion by which so many persons are made miserable. Exposure to smallpox, a disease that at the time of which I write was looked upon as most deadly, would not have frightened me at all; this disorder of which I had just heard had no terrors for me. The thing which I most feared in the world was hunger. That was something of which I had personal knowledge.
After I was alone I went down to the post-office and found two letters awaiting me there. One was from Mrs. James, in which she implored me to write home every week, even if I would not let her know my whereabouts. She told me to continue having my mail sent to her, and that she would forward it to General Delivery; she said she would help me to keep the truth from mother, and believed she was serving God in so doing. There was no word of reproach for me. She begged me to let her know when my time came, that she might be with me.
The other letter was from my mother. She had not worried at my not writing, because of a letter from Mrs. James in which she had written as if nothing had happened.
As soon as I returned to the apartments I answered both letters. In the one I told the truth as to my present movements, but not of the happenings before I had reached this haven of refuge. I did not give my address. In the other I wrote as if I were still at the factory, and made no reference to having left Mrs. James.
A few days after the events of which I write business matters called my host to Kansas City, and I accompanied him. When we had been a week in Kansas City the disease to which I had been exposed made its appearance and I could not return with him to St. Louis. He was filled with regret that I had contracted the disease; though he felt but little remorse for the act that had made it possible. He was most solicitous for my recovery, and, as the physician who was called in advised the hospital, he left me well provided with money, and after securing my promise of forgiveness begged me to return to him when I had recovered.
If the physician who attended me or the nurses discovered my pregnancy they took no cognizance of it. I was given a room with another girl who was suffering from the same disease, and we received scant courtesy from the nurses, though the physician was very kind, especially to me. He said I would be all right in a couple of weeks; he explained that there were no after-results to women from this disease, though men frequently suffered for a long time.
The girl with whom I found myself was from a house of ill fame on Fourth Street, and, far from being ashamed of it, she proceeded to tell me all about it. As I had the disease, she accepted me into the fellowship, though in a rather contemptuous way, referring to me as a "titbit." She decided at once from my verdancy that I had not come from a house, and she deduced from the dainty clothes with which my friend had liberally provided me that I was a kept woman with a "live one on the string."
Mamie, as she called herself, had no reserve whatever; she told me all she knew of evil, and whatever she did not know, she drew on her imagination for and told for good measure. Her English and her manners, or, rather, her lack of them, shocked me almost as much as her frank discussion of everything pertaining to sex, including her own illness. She looked upon the disease as a matter for jesting; that she, an old-timer of six years' standing, should have been caught napping struck her as being a huge joke on herself.
It was an unbearable recital and filled me with heartsick loathing for her and for all of her kind. I felt sure that human degradation could go no farther; when she took a box of cigarettes from under her pillow and offered me one I was speechless with indignation. She refused to be snubbed, however, and in the dark days of suffering which followed, Mamie's spontaneous good nature finally won my grudging admiration, though she did not succeed in inducing me to join her in a cigarette; indeed, the shock she gave to my sense of decency at that time prevented me from ever even trying to smoke them.
She had quite recovered from her illness, and was importuning the physician at every visit to give her a certificate, so she could go about her business; she would have gone without it, but for the reason that her landlady would not let her make money unless she had the desired document. Mamie advised me, when I should have the misfortune to lose "my man," to go into a house. She said that a girl who got into the right kind of a house had good food, a beautiful room, and was cared for if she got sick; she was not preyed upon by the class of men who wanted something for which they were not willing to pay. She was protected by the police, and, what was still more important, she was protected from the police.
When she had received her certificate she was as happy as a high-school girl who has just been handed her diploma.
"Don't ever be fool enough to go into the streets," was her parting advice, and she shuddered, as if at some horrible recollection. I, too, shuddered at the hideous memory her words had conjured up. With an invitation to come and see her, and a good-by to the nurses, as cordial as if they had been unfailingly considerate of her, she was gone.
Long letters came to me every day from the man in St. Louis; and I answered him in letters which, if they were not so long nor so loving as his, seemed to satisfy him. I had a very tender spot in my heart for him, for I knew that he had really grown fond of me and that he had not intended to harm me. I appreciated his many fine qualities, even if he were no longer on a pedestal.
When I was ready to leave the hospital at the end of three weeks I had great difficulty in getting into my corset and my clothes, and as soon as I had reached the hotel to which the doctor had directed me I at once removed them and sat down to ponder over the situation. The doctor had advised me to remain in Kansas City for a while until all danger of renewed infection, on either side, should be over. He thought the best way to avoid temptation was to keep away from it. He had said this to my friend when he was called in for consultation, and we were agreed as to his wisdom.
I now realized that I could not hope to keep my secret from my friend much longer. I did not answer his latest letter, because there was nothing to write except the truth. I could not tell him that; I must let him pass out of my life, thinking whatever he would of me.
During the following week I tasted every variety of homesickness, of loneliness, and of despair. I ripped open my coat and sewed fifty dollars into the lining. That should be for my confinement; I would not touch it though I starved. After putting this sum away I had money enough to keep me for a week longer; there would remain more than three months until the event. There was nothing for it but to send for Mamie and consult her. If I brooded much longer, I was sure I should lose my mind.
When Mamie came, in response to my message, and I had told her of my resolve not to return to St. Louis because of my condition, she promptly told me that I was a little fool, pointing out many ways in which I could deceive my friend while I "pulled his leg" for enough to carry me through my coming trial. She attempted to show me how I could still hold him, by lying about the city in which my home was located, and pretending to go home. After it was all over I could return to him and he would never know. I rejected the scheme at once; I had one person to lie to now, my mother. I did not find the task so easy that I cared to embark on another sea of lies. I wanted to shriek the truth from the house-tops, I was so burdened from concealing it.
Mamie still maintained that I was a fool, but of course it was my own business. She would see her landlady and ask her to take me, though she bluntly told me that a girl in my condition would not be considered a drawing-card; still, as I showed it very little, I should be able to make money for a little while yet. She left me with the assurance that I would hear from her in a little while. I had not told her about the fifty dollars.
In a couple of hours a note came saying that Miss Laura, her landlady, would take me and that I was to come down at once. After I had packed my bag my courage failed me. It was impossible; I could not go.
After two days of struggle with myself I made the attempt, but when I reached Fifth and Broadway a drunken man was being ejected from a saloon by an irate bartender, and the air was sulphurous with the oaths they were exchanging. In soul-sick terror at the thought of proximity to such conditions of life I turned and fled back to the hotel.
At the expiration of another two days I took down my coat and tentatively fingered the spot where I had hidden the money. I did not take it out and I knew that I would not touch it until my time came. I had no vague ideas of the horrors of being moneyless; I knew this monster which is called poverty, in all its soul-destroying aspects; I knew that if I used the money it was only postponing the evil day... I went to see Mamie.
When I turned into Fourth Street my courage again failed me, and I was about to beat a retreat when Mamie came out of a restaurant across the street and warmly greeted me. The porter, who came to the door in response to our ring, said that Miss Laura was in her room, and we were shown in. I saw a woman comely and middle-aged, who bore no resemblance to the horrible creature of my imagination. She greeted me in a soft, well-bred voice, and everything about her so eloquently spoke of her potentialities for motherhood that instinctively I looked around for the children who should have been clinging to her skirts.
Her first question was about my age. She thought I looked older than my seventeen years, and no doubt I did. The condition I was in, the anxiety and illness which I had just suffered, gave me an air of maturity which would have seemed impossible to any one who had known me a few weeks earlier.
"Does your family live in Kansas City?" was her next question. "And will they make trouble when they find you here?" I told her that my family did not live here, did not know of my presence in the city, and that she need fear no trouble from them. In response to her question, "Do you understand what this life means?" I succinctly answered, "Yes, it means food and shelter."
"It means more than that, my dear." She smiled, rather sadly. "But we must take it as we find it and make the best of it."
When she asked me if I had ever known a man I was surprised, because I thought Mamie had told her all about me. I discovered in the course of our conversation that Mamie had told her little, and that that little was misleading. With her customary mendacity, Mamie had not told her one word of the truth concerning my condition. She had not concealed it through any desire to shield me, but through sheer inability to tell the truth.
We had a few minutes' conversation on other topics; then she rang for the housekeeper to take me in charge, giving her instructions to have the "house doctor" see me before I was permitted to "come into the parlor."
The housekeeper shattered another preconceived idea. She was a stately-looking woman somewhat over thirty, and perfectly fulfilled my ideal of a Southern aristocrat, in which girlishly romantic conclusion I happened to be correct. She looked at me rather sadly and asked where in the world I had met Mamie. It was evident from her tone that Mamie did not stand very high in her estimation.
I explained that I had met Mamie at the hospital, and she asked me no further questions. One of the first things impressed upon me by her was that I should never ask questions about the private affairs of other girls; conversely, none would be asked about mine.
She looked approvingly at my street clothes and regretted that I had nothing suitable for the house. "I will borrow a wrapper and a parlor dress for you from one of the other girls," she said. "You will not want to go in debt first thing."
She went out, to return in a few moments with a girl whom she called Bessie, explaining to her my need of proper clothes for the house. Bessie was a Jewess, no longer very young, who still bore the traces of a beauty which had been marred by her protest against life rather than by time. She looked inexpressibly tired and disillusioned with life. After a little conversation, in which she was at first rather inclined to be cold and distant, she took me to her own room and placed her ample wardrobe at my disposal, selecting for me a red robe of Grecian design which left my arms bare and exposed much of my chest and shoulders, but relieved me of the necessity of wearing a corset.
She took down my abundant hair and dressed it in a Greek knot with bands, and had started to "make-up" my face when I interposed an objection which all of her arguments were unable to overcome. I would not have my face painted, and that settled it! Not only for that day, but for all of the succeeding days in which I remained in the business. I had to draw the line somewhere. Doubtless cigarettes and paint were the least harmful of the concomitants of prostitution (having at this late date been admitted into good society), but they were offensive to me, and I drew the line at them.
As Bessie worked she kept up a running fire of comment on the life I was about to enter, telling me that if I had any sense I would find some other kind of a job, no matter how menial, rather than enter upon a path from which there was no turning back. When I told her of my condition she became very gentle in her manner to me, but she continued to protest against the life. Some of her sayings kept ringing in my mind for many days; indeed, at intervals, for many years.
"You are young now. Men will swarm about you if you learn how to please them. It lies with you whether they show you much consideration or not. It is in your power to make them do so. But as you grow older you will find them losing consideration for you. Men who have known us for five years are always ready to swear that they have known us for ten. Those who have known us for ten years refer to us as 'grandmothers,' 'old women,' 'has-beens,' and call us other names even less complimentary.
"Most women who have been ten years in the business are still under thirty and retain much of their youthful charm; many of them have improved in appearance; but if they stay in the place where they are known, they become 'old-timers' to the men and do not receive the consideration shown to younger women. The one consolation is that they usually make more money than the beginners."
I told her that my friend in St. Louis had said that prostitutes never lived over seven years; that they usually died earlier than that. Bessie laughed, but her laugh contained no mirth. "There is no such luck," she said. "I am twenty-eight and I have been in the business since I was eighteen. I am a long way from being dead. There are eleven girls in this house, exclusive of you. Five of us have been here, at intervals, for over ten years. One of the five has been here at various times for fifteen years. Two have been here steadily for over six years. The others are comparatively new in the business. Miss Laura has kept house in Kansas City for nearly twenty years. She herself was a boarder in St. Louis at the close of the Civil War. She does not look like a candidate for the graveyard, does she?"
Two of the other girls dropped in about this time, and when Bessie attempted to introduce me it was discovered that I was nameless. Each of these girls had a favorite name to propose, Bessie had still another; none of them pleased me, and the discussion waxed warm until one of the girls suggested that we go down and let Miss Laura decide.
Miss Laura suggested Hazel, which brought forth a discussion of "lucky" names; superstition enters largely into the lives of these people, and even Miss Laura and the housekeeper, both women of superior intelligence, were not exempt from the taint of it.
The essential requisite of a name seemed to be that some "lucky" girl had borne it. I suggested the name Miriam, which was instantly rejected because several girls bearing that name had been notably unfortunate; consequently no one who bore it could hope to "have luck." At length I hit upon the name "Madeleine," and as none of them had ever known any one by that name, lucky or otherwise, it was decided that I should take a chance with it; finally, and for "good luck," Bessie gave me the surname of Blair.
AT that time the moral conditions in Kansas City were abominable. The restricted district extended for several blocks on Third and Fourth Streets, but segregation was a name only, not a fact.
Vice flourished in all parts of the city, but especially in the rooming-house districts; wine-rooms were wide open for any one having the price of a drink; private houses and assignation-houses abounded throughout the residential parts of the city; and the roadhouses ran full blast for twenty-four hours a day.
Besides the local product of the city itself, many of the small towns of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas sent their quota of the raw material of prostitution into Kansas City; and Kansas City, not to be outdone in courtesy, returned a finished product to the houses of the smaller cities in these states. But an overplus still remained, with the result of a glutted market and poor business.
There were three first-class places, of which Miss Laura's was one. That is, these houses maintained a high price, regardless of the condition of business or of the keenness of competition, and they harbored a better class of women.
Table-board was five dollars a week, which meant that the girl must make ten in order to pay her board; after that was settled half the money she made was her own. The girls were supposed to turn in half of the standard price of the house, but if a man gave them more, it was their own. In many houses the landladies claimed half of whatever the girls received, regardless of the regulation fee.
This led the girls into a labyrinth of lies, which they justified on the plea of self-defense.
In many of the houses there was a system of fines by which the girls paid two dollars and a half for any infraction of the rules. One place was particularly notorious for this practice. One of the girls was calling at Miss Laura's one day when I asked her what percentage the girls paid her landlady. "Oh, the first ten dollars you make, and all the rest," she laconically replied.
In the house where I lived there was no attempt to take from the girls anything but half of the standard price. If the girl received a gift of money from a man she was not constrained to conceal the fact through the certainty of having to share it with the landlady. This not only led to a better spirit, but gave the girl the opportunity to spend the money more judiciously.
When the girls were compelled to lie about the money they had received they were much more likely to buy liquor with it, and "blow it in with the gang," than to employ it for their actual needs.
Neither was there a system of fines at Miss Laura's except for a failure to be in the house during "parlor hours," which were from 8 P.M. until 4 A.M. Even this rule was not an inflexible one, a reasonable excuse being accepted unless the girl was obviously under the influence of liquor.
Most of the customers were of a rather staid sort, for Miss Laura kept too many "old-timers" to be popular with a very fast crowd. The other houses referred to her place as the "Old Ladies' Home," although none of the women were old in the matter of years.
Miss Laura always smiled indulgently when she heard of this name, for it was to her a far more important matter that the girls should look upon the place as "home" than that she should make a great deal of money. Her mail was a heavy one, containing letters from girls in all parts of the country, who remembered her and her house with gratitude when they had contrasted it with other places where they made more money, but from which the vital touch of kindliness was absent.
This woman, whom God and nature had designed for a beautiful motherhood and whom circumstance had cheated of her birthright, was endeavoring, so far as lay in her power, to live up to the standards which had been laid down for her in early youth. Her father, who was a slaveholder in Missouri at the outbreak of the Civil War, was killed in one of the early battles. Marauding bands had driven off their stock and burned their home, and her mother, who was in a delicate condition, had been tortured before her eyes in an effort to make her reveal the whereabouts of valuables that the marauders believed she had hidden.
The death of her mother following the birth of twins had left four children: Miss Laura, at that time a girl of sixteen, a sister eighteen months older, and the two infant sons, who afterward proved to be feeble-minded, possibly as a result of the horrors that their mother had endured previous to their birth.
A noted Union general had offered "protection" to the girls and a safe-conduct to St. Louis. They paid for the protection and the safe-conduct in the manner in which men often claim payment from defenseless women, and later they entered a house of ill fame in St. Louis. Afterward they came to Kansas City. They had prospered in the business, and after the war they gathered up some of their old house slaves, who were still with them at the time of which I write. The cook, the waitress, and the porter in Miss Laura's house were all former slaves of her father.
Never once had these sisters faltered in their obligation toward their unfortunate brothers. They had a private home in the city, with a housekeeper and a teacher for the "boys," who were queer-looking little men, with excellent manners and the mentality of children of eight.
Every business of this kind reflects, to a large degree, the personality of the keeper, and the spirit of the house is largely the spirit of the woman who presides over it. Because this woman was broad-gaged and kindly, there was a spirit of tolerance and fellowship in her establishment such as I have seldom seen elsewhere. Competition was keen among the girls, as it must be in this profession, but there was an unwritten law that girls must not compete by unfair methods.
Miss Laura's great desire was to make the girls comfortable. In many large houses there is little heat during the daytime, and in a few of them the table is stinted to the last possible degree. Not so in this place. Miss Laura's constant command to the porter, "Uncle Henry, see that the ladies' rooms are warm," resulted in keeping the house like a bake-oven.
I could never accustom my eyes to the sight of such a well-laden table. At times I was afraid I would wake up and find it a dream. The house closed at four in the morning; the rising-bell rang at twelve-thirty; breakfast was at one, but I could not get accustomed to lying in bed until this time of day, and I was always famished in the morning, with the result that I would brave the wrath of the cook, who was old and crabbed, by going downstairs at the earliest possible moment.
Had I employed half the skill to ingratiate myself with customers that I used to win the good graces of the cook I should have made a barrel of money. I was rewarded, however, not only with an early breakfast, but with many stories of slavery days.
The supposition had been, among those who knew me best, that I was an exceedingly bright girl. If this had ever been true, it had ceased to be so since I had entered upon the primrose path. I was constantly chagrined by my own stupidity and contrasted myself with women who had not half my intelligence in most matters, but who, as they themselves declared, "could give me cards and spades."
Both my natural reserve and my physical condition made it difficult for me to talk with strangers; but when I had gotten my own consent to so do, I was so deplorably frank that I would insist on expressing my repugnance for the business, and my contempt for the men themselves if they did not happen to please me.
The result was that I made very little money and few men came to see me the second time. The few who did return were very young men to whom it was not difficult to be nice, or who were content to have a girl's body for which they had paid without exacting her soul and her affections as largess.
I was a good-looking girl, but by no means beautiful; consequently few men would have noticed me for my looks alone in a parlor full of good-looking, beautifully gowned girls, each in her own way clamoring for attention and crying her own wares. A less indulgent woman than Miss Laura would not have kept me two weeks; I was not worth my salt, but she was patient. Another of my derelictions was in the matter of drinks. No one expected me to sell them, because few girls who are new in the business are able to sell drinks, but they did expect that I should not "knock" the sale.
The housekeeper had explained to me, with great patience and at great length, that the chief source of income for the house was from the liquor sold, and that all the girls were to help in the sale; she added that this could be done without much drinking if the girls used a little judgement.
It was necessary to remove the glass from the tray and hold it up with an acknowledgement of some sort to the purchaser. It was seldom necessary to drink. After touching the glass to the lips the contents could easily be thrown into one of the tall, vaselike cuspidors which stood beside each chair, or, failing in this, it was very easy to dance around the room, apparently in response to the music, and dance out with the glass untouched.
These lessons were as difficult to me as the instructions upon the art of handling men. I loathed the sight of liquor, and I did not want any one even to think that I liked it. So, despite my resolve to remove the glass when the tray was brought around, I frequently found myself saying, in a voice from which I made no effort to remove my contempt, "No, thanks; I do not drink."
This holier-than-thou attitude of mine, aside from being very bad for business, brought me into conflict with the other girls, who were prone to resent it, and in a less tolerant household life would have been made unbearable for me.
Twice in one week I let men go out without paying me—great brutes, who had taken advantage of my ignorance to exact far more than the stipulated entertainment, and had then bluffed me out of my wages.
Discipline required that I pay for the time consumed. I was responsible for collecting the money, and if I did not have sense enough to get it, it was my own fault. So I not only did not get paid, but I had to pay for the torture I had undergone in entertaining these brutes. These matters of discipline were at the housekeeper's discretion, and she ruled that the only way to teach me to get my money was to make me pay if I did not.
She fully believed me when I said that I had been bilked, but if she had let me off without payment, unscrupulous girls would take advantage of her leniency and cheat the house out of its due.
She had remarked sarcastically that if I had got my money first I would not have been bilked; and the very next day I offended one of the best customers of the house by asking him for money in advance. The housekeeper was exasperated beyond endurance with me, and told me I would have to learn to distinguish a gentleman from a blackguard; to which advice I hotly retorted that I didn't believe that gentlemen came into a "sporting-house."
Time proved me mistaken in this opinion.
The process of education was painfully slow. When I had just succeeded in mastering one of the rules, and had resolved to make a practical application of it, I would stumble over another one that I had not learned.
The housekeeper gave a sigh of apprehension every time a man "picked me out." If he were an old customer, the chances were that she would have to spend half an hour applying soothing-salve to his wounded vanity. If he were a stranger, it was almost certain that he would flounce out with the sarcastic taunt, "If that's the way your girls treat a fellow, I'll never come into your d—d old house again."
My difficulties with the patrons arose from two causes. The first was the almost invariable habit of patrons in asking a girl all about her private life; the fact that they had never seen her before, and possibly would never see her again, made not the faintest difference. They considered that her story was one of their privileges and included in the price they had paid for their entertainment.
These questions about my private affairs annoyed me very much. As I had no finesse in evading them, I took refuge either in silence or in impatient outbursts about it's being none of their business. The result was an offended customer.
Secondly, I could not make a demonstration of affection over men nor any pretense at response to their caresses. For the life of me, I could not understand why they should expect it. They had only bought my body. I could not see why they should want more. My love was not for sale, piecemeal, to every man who had the price to pay for my body, and I could make no pretense at a response I did not feel. On the contrary, I made little effort to conceal my repugnance.
While I suffered greatly from all these conflicts, they were not unique. Every girl who has any sense of decency or refinement goes through much the same experiences as mine. No girl is plunged suddenly from a life of virtue into a life of prostitution. For whatsoever may have been the contributory causes, each girl who enters a house has gone through a period of moral attrition before she takes this seemingly fatal step.
Nor are young girls just entering the business of much value, commercially, either to themselves or to the house. The elements of success in this business do not differ from the elements of success in any other. Competition is keen and bitter. Advertising is as large an element as in any other business, and since the usual avenues of successful exploitation are closed to the profession, the adage that the best advertisement is a pleased customer is doubly true in this business.
Whatever of arts and wiles or even of coercion men may enlist when they seek to betray, all these are laid aside when they go into the open market; they will no more buy from an indifferent, reluctant, or contentious woman than they would buy from a merchant of the same sort.
They expect the same willing, responsive service from the woman whose body they have bought as they do from the waitress who serves their dinner. If the waitress brings in the meal and slams the dishes down in front of the customer, with an air which seems to say, "I am compelled to serve you, but you can see how repugnant the service is to me," the result is a complaint to the proprietor and usually a lost customer.
This is even more true in the case of service from public women. A man soon forgets his irritation in the former instance and merely records his displeasure by remaining away. In the second his vanity has been piqued. The combination of himself and his money having failed to win him a response, he voices his displeasure to every male whom he dares take into his confidence. The result is not only a lost customer, but several lost customers, and often an implacable hostility for the house, an enmity which does not cease even after the cause of it has left the establishment. By some peculiar freak of masculine logic, a man usually holds the keeper responsible for any offense the inmates may give him. She should have trained her girls better.
One evening Miss Laura, who seldom came into the parlors, came to the door and mysteriously beckoned me out into the hall.
"There is a man in my own parlor I want to introduce you to," she said when the door was shut. "You ought to suit him down to the ground. He dislikes having the girls make a fuss over him, and while he always gives a girl more than her price, if she tries to make love to him he flatly tells her she can eliminate that part of it, because she will not get anything extra for it."
I felt that I would be delighted to meet such a man, although I had by this time decided that there was no such animal who did not also want to claim a woman's soul for the price he had paid for her body.
Miss Laura performed the introduction, and I really smiled a spontaneous smile of which I knew not the cause. At a first glance this man struck me as being the ugliest person I had ever seen. But a second glance showed that he had an air of distinction that his plainness of features could not mar. After a little conversation I began picking out his "points" and discovered that he was not ugly at all.
After he had left my room and was on his way to the front door he changed his mind about going out, saying that he was lonesome and wanted to talk to me. We went into the parlor and ordered a bottle of wine. I went into the hall to look for reinforcements, because I felt that I could not "slough" the wine if I were alone.
The housekeeper looked surprised when I told her what I wanted. "You don't mean to say that that man has ordered wine, do you?" she asked. "He usually rushes out as though he had been sent for. Don't call any of the girls, for he may not like it. I will come in and help you out."
He did not seem to care whether I drank the wine or not. Evidently he had only bought it because he wanted to remain for a while.
He said he would call again in a few days, and when he went out I sat down to ponder about this man who was so different from the usual run of patrons. To my great surprise, he came again the next night. It was a great joke in the house, a subject for conversation at the breakfast-table, that this man, who was so difficult to please and who had seldom taken the same girl the second time, should have called twice on me when I was never known to have been nice to a man.
"What in the world led you to please him?" they asked.
"Nothing," I answered.
"That was just it," the housekeeper joined in. "He hates to be entertained. Somebody lied to that boy when he was young, and told him that fast women were a necessary evil. He believes it, all right. He comes here because he considers it necessary, but he does not consider it incumbent upon him to have social intercourse with us; and it offends him because the girls try to make love to him."
"Don't worry about Madeleine making love to any one," cut in Mamie. "She is stuck on that man in St. Louis."
"I do not care for any one," I retorted. "But it was a relief to me to meet a man who did not think he had bought me outright. Some of them even expect you to tell them what you are thinking about. I enjoyed this man's society, and I hope he will come again."
"Oh, he'll come, never fear," laughed the housekeeper. "He kept me at the door for fifteen minutes while he sang your praises. He's been coming here for the past two years, but he never before took any notice of a girl."
He did come again. He came every night for a week, bringing me candy and books and sending me flowers betweentimes. He was generous with his money, but parsimonious with his conversation. It was evident that he was violating all of his standards and all of his traditions by showing attention to one of the lost sisterhood, yet he could not stay away. I looked forward with pleasure to his coming and regretted his departure. Suddenly he ceased to call, and I missed him very much.
When I had not seen him for over three weeks and had concluded that I should never see him again, I received a letter headed Winnipeg, Manitoba. He explained that he was in that place on matters connected with his business, that he had felt it best not to see me before leaving Kansas City, since nothing good could come from such a friendship; but he had not been able to forget me and would see me when he returned in the spring.
This letter came a few days before Christmas, and as I was still at the age when a month seems longer than a year, I felt the most sensible thing to do was to forget all about him.
Besides, I thought that Winnipeg was up somewhere in the vicinity of the North Pole, and it was not likely that he would ever return.
On Christmas morning I rose at ten o'clock with the intention of leaving the house for the day. I had promised my loved ones to spend Christmas at home with them, and I had perjured my soul in accounting for my failure to do so. I could not breathe in the house, yet I was undecided where to go to escape from it. The day was not cold, but clear and bright, and I walked about for a long time. I wanted to go to church, but several reasons prevented me. I did not know where there was a church; then there was an unwritten law among the girls that religion was taboo. Most of them considered it bad luck to mix religion in any way with their profession.
No such superstition hindered me from going to church. I had been taught that Christ came to save sinners, not saints, but since I could not leave my profession, I looked upon it as being in questionable taste to go to church.
I took a Westport car and went out as far as Union Cemetery. I left the car and, wandering about among the graves for a while, I tried to picture myself as lying under the snow, but I did not like the picture.
In the distance I saw a gravestone so much taller than any other that I was moved by curiosity to go and read the inscription.
After the lapse of many years I have forgotten the full verse, but I recall the ending of it:
LEAVE HOPE AND FAITH ALIKE ADIEU—
WOULD I COULD ADD REMEMBRANCE, TOO.
Underneath was a notice, reading, "The above inscription was placed here by special request of deceased."
I stood there speculating about the inscription, and the monument, and the man underneath the stone, until I was nearly frozen. Why should a dead man be bidding adieu to Faith, and Hope, and Remembrance? What had the dead to do with these graces of the living? As I walked back to the car I turned this over in my mind. I did not like him, this man who had bidden adieu to Faith and Hope. But he had reached out of the grave to befriend me; he had raised such a revolt in my soul by his pessimism that I vowed I should never bid adieu to either of these graces.
And deep down in my heart on that Christmas Day, in Union Cemetery, there was born something which can only die when I have ceased to be numbered among the living.
On Main Street I left the car, intending to go to one of the many restaurants which lined that thoroughfare. When I saw two half-frozen newsboys standing on the corner I thought of the little ones at home. I wondered if they were cold; I wondered if they had a turkey for dinner. I could not buy dinner for them, but I could buy one for these newsboys.
They responded with alacrity to my invitation, and volunteered the information that they knew two more kids on Main Street who had no Christmas dinner. We found the other two, and, accompanied by my four newly found friends, I went into Staley & Dunlop's and asked for a private table.
The head waiter said no doubt they were working me, but I did not care. I was perfectly willing to be worked. I was used to little boys, and I enjoyed the society of these dirty-faced urchins as much as they enjoyed the dinner which they consumed. Fortunately for me and thanks to the generosity of the man in Winnipeg, I was able to pay the check without going broke.
Christmas Day had not been so dreary as I supposed it would be.
A few days after Christmas an unexpected bit of good fortune befell me through a cattleman from Texas who had taken a fancy to me. As a result of his liberality I had ample funds to carry me through my coming ordeal and pay my board until that time should come. I would not be obliged to use the fifty dollars I had hidden in my coat.
Now that I need not worry about money for some time to come, I gave up all attempts to make more. I came down-stairs in the early part of the night, but I did not go into the parlors when men were present. I had grown very nervous and irritable, and cried almost constantly for my mother. I was sure that I would not live through the coming ordeal, and all attempts to induce me to make the usual preparations failed.
The girls vied with one another in preparing for the coming stranger, but I was not interested. They bought many little garments ready-made and they made many others. Bessie, who could do all kinds of beautiful needlework, was busily engaged in embroidering and stitching every spare minute on the little garments that I did not even care to look at.
I was ill and I wanted my mother. I wanted my little brothers and sisters, to whom I had been passionately attached. I wanted to see the children of the neighborhood at home, for I had loved them and they had returned my love; but I did not want this child that the girls talked about.
Yet these women who were not mothers and who would never be mothers, these women who had known me but a few short weeks, were as interested in the coming event as the most normal feminine household would have been. When Mamie, who was the exception, suggested the impossibility of my keeping the child after it came they fell upon her as though she had suggested its murder.
Mamie stood by her guns and declared that I would never be able to take care of it. In her opinion I did not have sense enough to take care of myself, and she would like to ask what I would do with a child? She was sure that the greatest charity both to me and to the child would be to find it a home in some good family.
I wished they would be quiet. I wished they would leave me alone. I did not want a baby... I wanted my mother.
If I lived there would be a chance for me to disentangle the web of my life, for I knew that my nature contained more of the elements of decency than of vice. My family loved me and my death would be an irreparable blow to them. I simply had to live—there was no way in which I could depart with good grace.
Miss Laura sent the examining physician to see me, but I did not like him and would not talk to him. His hands made me shudder, for I had grown very sensitive in the matter of hands. Whenever I had been forced to submit myself to customers I looked at the hands that were to touch my bare flesh before I looked at the face of the man who was buying the right to handle me at will.
There was one pair of hands that were firm and kind, beautiful in shape and texture of skin, whose touch had been like a benediction instead of a pollution. These hands had fascinated me by the many things they had expressed, things which the plain, impassive face of their possessor had concealed like a mask.
If I would not have the regular physician of the house, another must be provided, and after a prolonged discussion with the housekeeper Miss Laura sent for an old friend of hers, a famous physician who had retired from active practice, and begged him to take my case. When she brought him up to me and he had taken my hand in his friendly clasp my mind was at rest. I was ready to act upon any suggestion that he might make. </