“Give me a name, any name you like,” said the madam as we went
downstairs. “I want you to meet my girls. They’ll all be glad to see you
again.”
I had but one name then, so I gave her that, and was introduced to the
girls who were waiting in the dining room, the same six girls that had
been arrested. If they noticed my embarrassment they did not show it.
Two or three of them nodded, looked at me half curiously, half amused;
the others, excepting Julia, did not even glance at me. She came over to
where I stood, put her arms about my neck, and kissed me.
“Oh, you poor kid, I never felt so sorry for anything in my life.”
I was seated between the madam and Julia. The dinner was a marvel—fried
chicken, hot biscuits, green vegetables. Beer was served, but I did not
like it and the maid got me milk. The madam and Julia were the only ones
that ate heartily. The others picked at their food, yawned, and looked
at each other with low-lidded, feline calculating glances, seldom
speaking. They looked and acted tired, worn, old, frustrated,
disappointed. A big dark woman opposite me got a bottle from the
sideboard and poured herself a drink of something.
“Now, my dear, be careful,” said the madam.
“Why didn’t you say that a year ago, Miss Kate?”
She took a piece of chicken in her fingers and went into a room across
the hall where she played “Annie Rooney” on the piano and sang with her
mouth full of food. Two others got up and went out. A blond girl pushed
her chair back, lighted a cigarette, and began doing her fingernails.
The maid came and whispered to another, who jumped up quickly and
disappeared.
Julia had finished the chicken and was crunching the bones between her
strong white teeth. The last of the tired-looking girls stood up, put
her foot on a chair, and ran her arm, elbow deep, into her stocking.
She came up with a small roll of bills which she threw across the table
to the madam, sullenly. “Thank the Lord that’s over,” she said, and went
out.
The madam counted the money carefully, bent over, and put both her arms
under the table; when she straightened up the money had disappeared.
Julia chattered away and ate everything in sight. She wanted to know if
I had ever lived in the country, if I could ride a horse, if I had ever
caught a fish, if I could “shoot off a revolver.”
The dinner was over and I was thinking about my milk bill. After this
wonderful hour I hesitated about presenting it to the madam. She may
have seen what was in my mind, for she said, “Julia, you have talked so
much to this boy that he has forgotten what he came here for.”
“I’m not done talking yet, Miss Kate. You know Sunday is my day out, and
I’ve made up my mind to have a horseback ride in the country. I’ve been
wanting to do that ever since I came here and here is my chance. The kid
here can ride, and I’ll take him with me. If you’ll go,” turning to me.
I hesitated.
“Oh, come on. I’ll pay for the horses and everything, and see that you
get back before dark,” she laughed.
“All right, I’ll go,” I said.
Julia looked at the madam. “Oh, I have no objection, Julia. You’ll be
out of mischief for one day and you’re just a couple of kids, anyway.”
She took my bill, gave me the money and went out.
Julia was hopping around like a sparrow. “Let’s see,” she said. “You be
here Sunday morning at, oh, ten o’clock. No, not here, that’s no good.
Be at the drug store down on the corner at ten. I’ll meet you there.”
I promised to be there and departed. On my way home I passed the police
station and pictured in my mind the inferno inside—the big negro
swinging his ladle above the snarling, cursing horde of half-starved
prisoners in the stinking bowels of the city prison.
At Madam Singleton’s my boyish mind had not grasped the greater tragedy.
Fresh air, light, meat, drink, and music—that was all I saw there then.
But the tired women were prisoners more hopeless than the savage men
fighting for food in the jail. The bodily comforts they had at Madam
Singleton’s but served to tighten their shackles. Life-timers of
society, they were slowly sinking without a straw to grasp at.
The time flew till Sunday. I looked over my clothes and wished I had my
gray suit and gray hat. I had saved my money but had not enough yet to
buy them.
I was apprehensive about meeting Julia. I could picture her coming into
the drug store for me in a dashing big hat, rustling silk dress,
expensive shoes, all powdered, perfumed, and painted as she was in Madam
Singleton’s. And me with my pants too short, my coat sleeves way up my
wrists, and my shirt open at the collar. I wanted to go, but at times my
heart failed me, and when I went to bed the Saturday night before I was
still undecided, hesitating.
Sunday morning I got up early, determined to face the thing. I also
settled another matter that had disturbed my mind of late. I got a
shave. I walked around till I found an idle barber in his empty shop.
He fixed me up with as much ceremony as if I had been an old customer.
At ten I was at the drug store, and Julia was inside, waiting. I had to
look twice to be sure of her. She wore a faded blue tailored suit, a
wide-rimmed straw sailor hat with a ribbon, and a pair of worn but
substantial shoes. No powder or paint, nothing to remind me of Madam
Singleton’s.
“Don’t pay any attention to my clothes.” She saw me looking at them.
“These are the ones I had on when I went there. I have lots of others,
but Miss Kate won’t let me wear them when I go out unless I am with her.
I owe her so much money she is afraid I’ll run away. All the girls owe
her. They are always in debt to her; that’s the way she keeps them
there.”
We hunted up a livery stable near by. A big, good-natured fat man was in
charge, and we told him we wanted some gentle saddle horses. He looked
at Julia. She had a cocky air, and acted more like a boy than a girl.
“Do you want to ride straddle-legged, gal? If you do, I’ve got some of
them bloomer things.”
Julia did not blush or stammer. “No, I don’t want to ride straddle. What
do you think I am anyway?” She was angry. “You get me a riding habit and
a side saddle and mind your own business.”
He went after the horses.
“We’ll go down to the river, get the ferry, and go over into the woods.
I hope we find some place to eat over there. I am hungry already,” she
said.
I had been too occupied to think of breakfast and was hungry, too, and
suggested that we go across the street and get a bite. When we came back
the horses were ready. The fat man boosted Julia up into her saddle, and
we dashed off like Indians. Our way to the river led past Miss Kate’s.
When we were in front of it Julia pulled up her horse, and we stopped.
“They are all dead to the world in there except Jo, the colored girl.
They won’t get up till four this afternoon. God, what a place! How I
hate to go back there!”
The treacherous April showers came on us when we got into the country
and drove us into a deserted cabin on an abandoned weed-grown farm. I
built a fire in the old fireplace. We found a couple of homemade
three-legged stools in a corner and in a box nailed to the wall there
was the greasiest pack of cards I ever saw. We got a board that we put
on the stools, making a table, and played casino. The roof leaked in a
hundred places, the cabin was full of smoke, the rain beat in from all
sides, and Julia won every game. She chattered away through it all, and
hoped there would be “a regular cyclone.” Discouraged, I threw the cards
in the fire. We were half wet and watery-eyed from the smoke, the horses
pawed restlessly in the leaky shed behind the cabin. Julia laughed at me
and accused me of being a bad loser. I couldn’t think of anything else,
so I said: “Oh, I’m half starved, and there’s nothing to eat within
miles of here.”
She was just a healthy young animal, always hungry like myself, and the
thought of food, especially when it was so far away, started her to
raving. Nothing would do but we must head for home. The afternoon was
half gone, the rain let up, and the sun shone again. I stamped and beat
out the fire.
Julia climbed upon a tree stump in front of the cabin, where she got
into her riding habit. I brought her horse around and she leaped to the
saddle like an acrobat. The horses, homeward bound, needed no urging. We
let them go as fast as they liked, and in the evening pulled up safely
in front of the livery stable, where Julia insisted on paying the bill.
The fat man reached for the money I proffered, but she snatched it out
of my hand and made him take hers.
“This is on me,” she said, returning my money, “and so is the dinner.
Come on, let’s find a good place to eat.”
The fat man looked at me slyly, started to say something, but changed
his mind. He was afraid of Julia.
Any place is a good place to eat when one is young and hungry, and not
burdened with money. We wasted no time looking, but went into the first
restaurant we came to. Neither did we haggle over the menu card. Julia
found chicken, and there we stopped. She never seemed to get enough of
it. The dinner was a long time coming; she popped her head out of the
box every minute looking for the busy waiter.
“I wonder what’s happened to him. He has either dropped dead or the
police came and arrested him,” she was saying when he appeared. We fell
on the dinner and devoured it like a couple of hired men. She had the
waiter bring a cigar. I managed it fairly well.
Her chatter ceased. She sat quietly, elbows on the table, her face
covered with her hands, strong-looking, large, capable hands, but white
and shapely. I smoked and wondered about her. What a partner she would
make for me if she were not a girl! She pushed her chair back, rested
her hands in her lap, and looked up at her bedraggled straw hat on a
hook. I thought she was ready to go, and got up to get it.
“Don’t touch it, I despise it,” she burst out. “I hate these shoes.” She
put her foot up. “And this dress and every stitch of clothes on my back.
Do you know why? Because every one of them means a different man. Do you
want me to tell you about it; what a tough time I’ve had? But you
wouldn’t understand it. You’re only a kid, like I was a couple of years
ago.”
“Tell me, anyway, Julia.”
Her story, new to me then, was as old as man’s duplicity and woman’s
inherent desire to be loved and protected. Betrayed and deserted,
fearing to face her family, she stole enough of her father’s money to
take her to the city and into a hospital where her baby was born. “And,”
she continued, “I was glad when it died, it was a girl. When I was well
enough to leave the hospital they couldn’t find my clothes. Cheap as
they were, somebody had taken them. A man can go out into the street
without a hat and coat, kid, but just let a woman try it, even if she
has the nerve, and watch what happens to her. I had no money. The doctor
gave me this dress; that is, he sold it to me and I paid for it the
first time he got drunk. One of the internes traded me these shoes. He
was just a dirty little beast and didn’t wait to get drunk. Then the
hospital cook got me that hat and some cheap stockings and underclothes.
He happened to be a white man,” she said bitterly. “I suppose I would
have taken them just the same if he had been a negro or a Chinaman.
After the drunken doctor I thought of nothing but suicide, anyway. But I
had to have enough clothes to get through the street and down to the
bridge where I could jump into the river.
“The cook told me he would get me a job in a restaurant downtown and
that stopped me from going to the river. He gave me money for a couple
of night’s lodging, and something to eat, and told me where to go for a
room. He came that night to my room. When he left in the morning his
last words were: ‘I’ll go right out now and get you the job.’
“I waited all day but he never came back. He was a liar; I never saw him
again. When the third night came my money was gone. I was starving, and
the rent was due. I wanted to go down to the river then, but was so
hungry I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
She had talked furiously, with a storm of bitter words. Now she stopped
and smiled. “Yes, this appetite of mine saved my life. I’ll never die
hungry if I can help it.
“Anyway,” she resumed, “this is the long and the short of it. About nine
o’clock that night the woman of the place came up and wanted the rent. I
told her I was broke, and asked her to stand me off for a few days till
I could get a job or give me something to do so I could earn the rent.
“What do you think she did, kid—the big, man-eater! She took me by the
arm, dragged me out into the hall and pushed me downstairs. She went
back and got my hat, that straw hat hanging up there, and threw it out
on the sidewalk after me.
“A policeman was standing there and saw her do it. He came up and asked
me what the trouble was about. Here is where I may get help, I thought,
so I told him I had just left the hospital, that my money was all spent,
and that I had been put out of my room. He asked how old I was. I told
him I was eighteen—that’s two years ago, I’m twenty now. He asked if I
lived here in the city. I told him I lived in the country, but was going
to stay in the city and work. He wrote something on a card and gave it
to me, saying: ‘I’ll get a hack driver to take you to a hotel. When you
get there give that card to the landlady.’
“The driver took me a few blocks to a place where he stopped, let me
out, and helped me up the steps. He rang the bell and went away. I gave
the card to a colored girl who opened the door. She came back in a
minute and asked me to come in—and,” she finished wearily, “I’ve been in
Miss Kate’s ever since, kid.
“Miss Kate took me in and dressed me up. She charged me double for my
clothes. I pay her, she pays the milliner. It’s the same with all her
girls. No girl ever goes into her place unless she is broke and ragged
and sick and hungry. I’ve been there two years, and if I stay there
twenty years I will still be in debt to her. The longer I stay the more
I owe. Everybody charges us double for what we buy. We have to go to a
certain drug store where we get robbed. On our days off, Miss Kate
takes us around to her friends in the saloons and restaurants, and they
rob us. We go out with her because we can wear our best clothes and look
good and she shows us off to her customers.
“Once in a while a girl gets so discouraged that she runs out into the
street in her wrapper, but she don’t get out of the block. Some other
landlady’s door is open and she goes in hoping to get fairer treatment
and a chance to save part of the money she earns, but it’s the same old
thing. What the madam don’t get goes to the doctors, druggists, hack
drivers, and messengers. All we get is enough to eat, enough to wear,
and plenty to drink if we’re foolish enough to go that route. God only
knows what becomes of these girls when they get too old and ugly. They
go down and down from one place to another till they finally land in the
street, old, worn out, dissipated and diseased. No man will have them.
I guess they go to the river or to the hospital.
“Bad as Miss Kate’s is, it is better than having to trade yourself for a
few shabby rags like I did. Miss Kate won’t let drunken men come in and
beat us and abuse us. The men we meet don’t lie to us or deceive us like
they do out in the world. They come in and look us over just like the
butcher used to look at my father’s fat hogs in the fall. We know what
they come for; they know we know. So there’s no lying and deception and
promising you a job. Of course they will steal your money out of the
bureau drawers or your hair brush or a pair of garters or silk
stockings, but you soon learn to protect yourself. Sometimes, when they
get drunk, they give you a few dollars for yourself, or lose it on the
floor and you put your foot on it. Sometimes a girl gets so in debt that
she steals a few dollars from the men to spend decently when she can get
out by herself.”
“Julia,” I asked, “did you take the hog man’s money?”
“No,” she snapped, bristling. She lied bravely, and I knew it, and
respected her for it, somehow. It was one of those lies you know to be a
lie and yet believe. The beauty of her lie was that she just let it go
with that plain, short “No!” She did not go into any long explanations
or excuses, or blame it on anybody else. It was a perfect lie, any way
you look at it.
She lied to me and made me like it. My mind was much disturbed by this
terrible story, so new to me, and a hundred plans came into it for
helping her, but she seemed so independent, confident, and resourceful
that I hesitated.
She struck the table with her fist. “If I ever put my foot out of that
place again I’ll stay out. I was foolish to go out to-day; it’s so much
harder to go back now, after all the fun we’ve had. If I had a change of
clothes I would stay away and try to get a job and start over again.
I’ve got to get out of there while I’m young and strong enough to work.”
“Don’t go back, Julia,” I advised. “Take my money, get a room and a few
clothes. I’ll help you find a job. I know how. I have forty dollars
saved up. You take that and we will earn more. It’s at my room. You
wait here till I get it.”
“Sit down,” she said. “Sit down. Why, you poor kid, I wouldn’t take your
money on a bet. I’d rot in Miss Kate’s first. Don’t you know you are the
only human being I’ve met since I left home that hasn’t tried to do me
some kind of dirt? I am going to start in saving every nickel this week,
and if I can find some way to get a few clothes out of there I’ll kiss
Miss Kate’s good-by forever.”
Here was a chance for adventure. “I’ll take your clothes out of there,
Julia,” I could see myself going into Miss Kate’s with my two rusty
pistols and demanding Julia’s clothes. I could see the madam blustering
and protesting, the girls all gathered around, myself standing there,
adamant.
“No excuses, madam, if you please. I want Julia’s clothes and Julia.”
Nothing to it, simple!
“How are you going to do it?” Julia asked. “If you went in there and
tried to take them they would throw you out.”
“Well, how can I do it? Any way you say.”
She thought a long time before she answered: “I could tie them in a
sheet and throw them out the window into the alley, kid, to you.”
This wasn’t heroic enough to suit me, but it sounded practical. I wanted
to help her, so I consented.
“And how are you going to get away if I get your clothes?”
She thought again. “This week, kid, you hunt up some hack driver you can
trust and tell him what you want to do. You can have him in the alley
with his hack. I’ll throw the clothes out. You put them in the hack.
Then I’ll come downstairs, go out through the kitchen, and over the back
fence into the alley. Nobody will pay any attention to me going out in
my parlor wrapper without a hat.
“Next Saturday when you come with your bill I’ll see you in the hall and
tell you what night to come and what time.” Julia was herself again; all
animation, chattering like a sparrow. “It can’t fail, kid. I can feel
myself out of there already. All you have to do is get a hack driver, a
big, tough one that won’t get scared and run away. That’s all settled,
and it’s time for me to get back to Miss Kate’s. It’s not so hard to go
now.”
Again she insisted on paying the bill. I said good night in front of the
restaurant. She shook hands with me heartily, boyishly; her hand was
hard, firm, and her grip something to inspire confidence. “Saturday,”
she said, darting away.
I went home with my chest out, my shoulders up in the air, and my head
high. I thought of all my heroes. No, I wouldn’t trade places with any
of them. Here was real work to do. I must find a hack driver, “a big,
tough one.”
Cocky McAllister was tough enough. A lean, hungry pirate with a balky
eye, who cruised about my neighborhood with his spavined horses and
rickety hack.
I told him what I wanted.
“Never let it be said that I refused to help any young feller get
himself a girl and get up in the world,” he declared. “Say when. I’ll be
on the spot an’ it won’t cost you a dime, either.”
Julia was waiting Saturday when I got to Madam Kate’s.
“Did you get a driver, kid?”
“Yes.”
“Be in the alley to-morrow night at eight.”
I promised to be there. That night I found Cocky and readied him up for
Sunday evening. He showed up on the minute, and we were in the alley by
Madam Kate’s early. Julia was waiting at the window and out came the
bundle. I threw it into the hack. A minute later Cocky snatched her off
the fence, leaving part of her wrapper behind. More of it was streaming
out of the hack door as I slammed it and we drove away.
She wiped the powder and rouge off her face. “No more of that stuff,”
she said.
On the way back to my neighborhood she spotted a “Housekeeping Rooms”
sign in the window of a dingy-looking house. She stopped the hack and
put some money in my hand. “Dash up there, kid, and hire a room,
anything that’s vacant.”
I secured a room quickly enough, came down, and got her. Cocky followed
with the bundle of clothes. I lit the gas, Cocky threw the clothes on
the bed.
“This is the dirtiest room I ever saw,” said Julia, “but it’s better
than Miss Kate’s, and it’s home to me. Good night and many thinks. I’ll
see you later, kid.”
Back at the cigar store I treated Cocky to a good smoke. “Kid,” he said,
leering at me admiringly, “you’ve got a gold mine; that dame’s a
money-getter. She’s young and healthy and good for years. Listen, you
put her right out on the street. Make her walk the blocks. She’s workin’
for you then, an’ not the landladies and landlords. Keep her away from
the other women. They’ll wise her up an’ you’ll lose her, or put her
against hop an’ you’ll have a bum on your hands. That’s all, now. Are
you goin’ to start her in to-night? The sooner the better.”
“No, Mac,” I was anxious to get away from him. “She’s tired and
nervous. I think I’ll let her rest to-night.”
The police got Cocky that night. I never saw him again. He never learned
of my treason in allowing Julia to stay off the streets.
She came into the cigar store a few days later, beaming, happy. “I’ve
got a job, kid, at the Comique jerking beer. Not so good, but better
than Miss Kate’s. It will do till I get a better one. Come down and
watch me work.”
The Comique was an old-time collar-and-elbow variety show long since
supplanted by the modern vaudeville show house. A dozen girls sold
drinks to the patrons on commission. A girl could live on her
commissions, but few of them did. I think Julia managed to do it. I went
down to see her and found her bouncing with energy.
“I’ve made three dollars already to-night, kid, and it’s all mine.”
I waited till she was ready to go home, and walked with her. She had
cleaned up the room till it looked halfway decent. “You don’t have to
go; the place is as much yours as mine,” she said when I was leaving. I
didn’t think about her being a girl; I went home because it was my
habit. If she had been a boy I would have done the same.
I was busy all the time learning to gamble at Tex’s, collecting bills
for the milkman, and taking Julia home after work. There was no mention
of her the next time I went to Madam Singleton’s. She was forgotten,
and they never suspected me.
I was saving my money, hoping some day to get my gray suit, hat, and
trunk. I told Julia of my ambition to have the suit and leather trunk.
“I’ll buy them for you, kid, as soon as I get a few things myself.”
“Never mind that, Julia, I’ll pay for them,” I said, thinking of Cocky
McAllister.
I hung around the Comique every night, waiting for Julia. She knew all
the “actors” and told me about them.
The handsome young man who came out in a green suit did a clog dance and
sang “’Tis a handful of earth” so feelingly worked daytimes in a near-by
chop-house. The two girls with skirts almost to their knees that did the
buck and wing dance sold beer in the boxes. The comedians that beat and
pummeled each other about the stage starved around between engagements
at the local theaters. The strong man, my favorite, turned out to be the
bartender upstairs; he also served as bouncer.
Julia was ambitious to make more money and every night practiced dancing
in hopes that she could some time do a turn at the theater. I served as
her audience, sat around till the small hours, and often fell asleep in
a chair or on the bed. One night we hurried home ahead of a storm and I
was on the bed asleep before she had her supper cooked. She woke me up
tugging at me. “Get up, you poor kid; take your clothes off and go to
bed if you’re that dead for sleep.” She helped me take off my shoes and
I was soon asleep again. She went to bed without waking me, but as I
tossed about in the night I knew she was there and was glad. Once my
body touched hers—it was hot and sticky. I pulled the sheet down between
us and turned away. The next morning as we were walking to the
restaurant for breakfast a heavy hand fell on my shoulder; I turned to
face my father.
My father’s hand was heavy on my shoulder as he pushed me into a
doorway. He looked sad and his stern voice shook. “John, do you know
what you are? You are a pimp.”
Julia never stopped, never looked back, just kept going, which was the
right thing. She probably thought I had been taken by the police. No
good in her getting arrested, too.
Although for years I kept a sharp eye out, I never saw her again; that
is, to know her. Of course the gray-haired old lady that sat next me in
the car this morning might have been Julia. But anyway, if she is alive
and this meets her eye, I want her to know I never doubted for a minute
that she stayed away from the life she left behind at Madam Singleton’s.
Later, when I went to her room, it was vacant. The man in charge told
me a strange, bearded man with a policeman called on her—my father, no
doubt—after which she packed up and left without a word.
I called at the theater and inquired, but they had forgotten her.