"No, you won't walk; not if I can help it." This outburst got past the
lump slowly, one word at a time, each syllable exploding hot like balls
from a Roman candle. "You get your things together quick as you can, and
wait here until I come back," and I turned abruptly and motioned to the
turnkey to open the gate.
In the office of the Chief of Police outside I found Marny talking to
Sergeant Cram. He was waiting until I finished. It was all an old story
with Marny--every month a new batch came to Covington jail.
"What about that girl, Sergeant--the one with the baby?" I demanded, in
a tone that made them both turn quickly.
"Oh, she's all right. She told the Judge a straight story this morning,
and he let her go on 'spended sentence. They tried to make her plead
'Not guilty,' but she wouldn't lie about it, she said. She can go when
she gets ready. What are you drivin' at? Are you goin' to put up for
her?"--and a curious look overspread his face.
"I'm going to get her a ticket and give her some money to get home.
Locking up a seventeen-year-old girl, two hundred miles from home, in a
den like that, with a baby two weeks old, may be justice, but I call it
brutality! Our Government can pay its expenses without that kind of
revenue." The whole bundle of Roman candles was popping now.
Inconsequent, wholly illogical, utterly indefensible explosions. But
only my heart was working.
The Sergeant looked at Marny, relaxed the scowl about his eyebrows, and
smiled; such "softies" seemed rare to him.
"Well, if you're stuck on her--and I'm damned if I don't believe you
are--let me give you a piece of advice. Don't give her no money till she
gets on the train, and whatever you do, don't leave her here over night.
There's a gang around here"--and he jerked his thumb in the direction of
the door--"that might--" and he winked knowingly.
"You don't mean--" A cold chill suddenly developed near the roots of my
hair and trickled to my spine.
"Well, she's too good-lookin' to be wanderin' round huntin' for a
boardin'-house. You see her on the train, that's all. Starts at eight
to-night. That's the one they all go by--those who git out and can raise
the money. She ought to leave now, 'cordin' to the regulations, but as
long as you're a friend of Mr. Marny's I'll keep her here in the office
till I go home at seven o'clock. Then you'd better have someone to look
after her. No, you needn't go back and see her"--this in answer to a
movement I made toward the prison door. "I'll fix everything. Mr. Marny
knows me."
I thanked the Sergeant, and we started for the air outside--something we
could breathe, something with a sky overhead and the dear earth
underfoot, something the sun warmed and the free wind cooled.
Only one thing troubled me now. I could not take the girl to the train
myself, neither could Marny, for I had promised to lecture that same
night for the Art Club at eight o'clock, and Marny was to introduce me.
The railroad station was three miles away.
"I've got it!" cried Marny, when we touched the sidewalk, elbowing our
way among the crowd of loafers who always swarm about a place of this
kind. (He was as much absorbed in the girl's future, when he heard her
story, as I was.) "Aunt Chloe lives within two blocks of us--let's hunt
her up. She ought to be at home by this time."
The old woman was just entering her street door when she heard Marny's
voice, her basket on her arm, a rabbit-skin tippet about her neck.
"Dat I will, honey," she answered, positively, when the case was laid
before her. "_Dat I will_; 'deed an' double I will."
She stepped into the house, left her basket, joined us again on the
sidewalk, and walked with us back to the Sheriff's office.
"All right," said the Sergeant, when we brought her in. "Yes, I know the
old woman; the gal will be ready for her when she comes, but I guess I'd
better send one of my men along with 'em both far as the depot. Ain't no
use takin' no chances."
The dear old woman followed us again until we found a clerk in a branch
ticket-office, who picked out a long green slip from a library of
tickets, punched it with the greatest care with a pair of steel nippers,
and slipped it into an official envelope labelled: "K.C. Pineyville,
Ky. 8 P.M."
With this tightly grasped in her wrinkled brown hand, together with
another package of Marny's many times in excess of the stage fare of
thirty-six miles and which she slipped into her capacious bosom, Aunt
Chloe "made her manners" with the slightest dip of a courtesy and left
us with the remark:
"Sha'n't nothin' tech her, honey; gwinter stick right close to her till
de steam-cars git to movin', I'll be over early in de mawnin' an' let ye
know. Doan' worry, honey; ain't nothin' gwinter happen to her arter I
gits my han's on her."
When I came down to breakfast, Aunt Chloe was waiting for me in the
hall. She looked like the old woman in the fairy-tale in her short black
dress that came to her shoe-tops, snow-white apron and headkerchief,
covered by a close-fitting nun-like hood--only the edge of the
handkerchief showed--making her seem the old black saint that she was.
It not being one of her cleaning-days, she had "kind o' spruced herself
up a li'l mite," she said. She carried her basket, covered now with a
white starched napkin instead of the red-and-yellow bandanna of
work-days. No one ever knew what this basket contained. "Her luncheon,"
some of the art-students said; but if it did, no one had ever seen her
eat it. "Someone else's luncheon," Marny added; "some sick body whom she
looks after. There are dozens of them."
"Larrovers fur meddlins," Aunt Chloe invariably answered those whose
curiosity got the better of their discretion--an explanation which only
deepened the mystery, no one being able to translate it.
"She's safe, honey!" Aunt Chloe cried, when she caught sight of me. "I
toted de baby, an' she toted de box. Po' li'l chinkapin! Mos' break a
body's heart to see it! 'Clar to goodness, dat chile's leg warn't
bigger'n a drumstick picked to de bone. De man de Sheriff sent wid us
didn't go no furder dan de gate, an' when he lef us dey all sneaked in
an' did dere bes' ter git her from me. Wuss-lookin' harum-scarums you
ever see. Kep' a-tellin' her de ticket was good for ten days an' dey'd
go wid her back to town; an' dat if she'd stay dey'd take her 'cross de
ribber to see de city. I seed she wanted ter git home to her husban',
an' she tol' 'em so. Den dey tried to make her believe he was comin' for
her, an' dey pestered her so an' got her so mixed up wid deir lies dat I
was feared she was gwine to give in, arter all. She warn't nothin' but a
po' weak thing noways. Den I riz up an' tol' 'em dat I'd call a
pleeceman an' take dat ticket from her an' de money I gin her beside, if
she didn't stay on dat car. I didn't give her de 'velope; I had dat in
my han' to show de conductor when he come, so he could see whar she was
ter git off. Here it is"--and she handed me the ticket-seller's
envelope. "Warn't nothin' else saved me but _dat_. When dey see'd it,
dey knowed den somebody was a-lookin' arter her an' dey give in. Po'
critter! I reckon she's purty nigh home by dis time!"
The story is told. It is all true, every sickening detail. Other stories
just like it, some of them infinitely more pitiful, can be written daily
by anyone who will peer into the cages of Covington jail. There is
nothing to be done; nothing _can_ be done.
It is the law of the land--the just, holy, beneficent law, which is no
respecter of persons.