Part 13 (1/2)

Mrs. Florence Roberts, who is known in San Francisco as the Rescue Missionary and Singing Evangelist, will address the public in the Baptist church next Sunday on the subject of the establishment of a non-sectarian home for women near San Francisco.

She comes highly endorsed by prominent citizens and Christian societies. There are, she states, thirty-five thousand women on this coast to be reached, and she is endeavoring to procure funds for a home to which they can come for reformation. A free-will offering will be taken at the conclusion of the address.

Prior to this meeting I learned of a little rescue home in San Jose, the adjacent city, and one afternoon Lucy and I visited it. We went without previous announcement, for I wanted to satisfy myself as to its merits. It was a pretty old-fas.h.i.+oned cottage of about eight rooms, located at 637 East St. John Street. There were but two girls--one a mother, the other a prospective one--and, sad to relate, a most inefficient matron. I quickly took in the situation, and, for the sake of the inmates, privately decided to accept erelong her invitation to sojourn temporarily under that roof.

After I had thoroughly canva.s.sed Santa Clara, I, acting upon divine directions, took Lucy and went to the San Jose rescue home.

Before long it became my sorrowful duty to report conditions as they existed. The president of the board of managers, Rev. J. N. Crawford, was absent on his summer vacation. Upon learning that the vice-president, Mrs. Remington (now deceased), was sojourning in San Francisco, I boarded the train and a few hours later was in earnest discussion with Mrs. Remington and her friend, Miss Sisson. This consultation terminated in their sincere plea for me to take upon myself certain responsibilities, concerning which I promised to pray.

The result was that I felt led to go further south for a while, but not before some better conditions existed for those two poor girls and others who might follow.

CHAPTER XVII.

CALLIE'S WONDERFUL STORY.

One day while I was visiting Mr. and Mrs. Helms, Sr., in Santa Clara, good friends of the cause, the latter said:

”Sister Roberts, have you ever met Callie----?”

”No, Sister Helms,” I answered, ”but I have heard of her. She was often, before my missionary work there, an inmate of the county jail, Branch 3, and gave much trouble when a prisoner.”

”I want to let you know she is wonderfully converted and one of our most remarkable missionaries. Try and take time to call on her. She works in the R---- boarding-house and will be glad to see you, for she knows of you quite well. Ask her to tell you her story. You never heard anything equal to it; furthermore, you never have, I doubt ever will, meet any other like her. She is _a living marvel of G.o.d's power to save to the uttermost_.”

The following afternoon, leaving kind-hearted Lucy (without offense to the matron of the home) to administer to the comforts of the inmates, I went to the place designated. Soon there came into my presence a smiling, healthy-looking woman about forty years of age, who told me that she was the person for whom I had inquired. No sooner did I mention my name than she threw her arms about me exclaiming, ”G.o.d love you, Mother Roberts! G.o.d love you! It's good for sore eyes to see you”--and she rattled on. When I told her the nature of my errand, she replied that she would come to the home that evening and would then relate the story of her life and wonderful conversion. She was on hand at the appointed time, and soon Lucy and I were listening to what I will now relate.

”I first saw the light of day in the slums of St. Louis, Mo. I never knew, nor did any one ever tell me, who my father and mother were. All I know about those days and up to my fourteenth year is that one or another of the women of that neighborhood fed, clothed, and sheltered me. I had no schooling; didn't know how to read or write till a few years ago. I never heard much besides bad language, seldom saw anything but drinking, gambling, and so forth; never saw the inside of a church and seldom saw the outside, 'cause I wasn't out of my own neighborhood very much. It was too much like a fish being out of water. Never heard the name of G.o.d or Jesus Christ except when they were taken in vain, and never troubled my head to find out who was G.o.d or who was Jesus Christ.

”Before I was fifteen years old, I married a gambler. He was a fine-looking fellow, considerably older than me, and sometimes had a pile of money.

”Yes, he gave me what I asked for. Sometimes I spent quite a bit on dress and treating my friends, 'cause there ain't a stingy bone in my body. I've no use for stingy folk, have you?

”Tom wasn't a heavy drinker, but he used to 'hit the pipe.'”

”What is 'hit the pipe', Callie?” I inquired.

”Don't you know? Why, smoke opium. Also, he had the morphine habit, and if anything, that's the worst one of the two, but, between you and me, there's little or no choice. It wasn't long before I, too, commenced taking morphine, and kept it up until two years ago. Look here!”

With that she stripped up the sleeves of her dress, and we were gazing at arms which from the shoulder to wrist were one ma.s.s of tiny bluish spots. I doubt if there was room to place a pin between them.

”Oh! Callie, what are they?”

”Shots--shots from the hypodermic needle that we used to inject the morphine.

”Hurt? No, not much; besides, we get to be such slaves to it that we'd gladly hurt our bodies for the sake of it. It's the most demoralizing, hard-to-break habit on earth. But glory to G.o.d! I'm saved and sanctified now, and I'll tell you how it came about.

”I suppose I'd been serving my fifteenth sentence, to say the least, in Branch No. 3, and they'd put me down in the dungeon, as usual, as they most always had to do for the first few drays, 'cause I wanted the drug so bad (they give you some there, but it never was enough) that I used to disturb everybody, and besides, was very troublesome. I'll never forget the day when I tried to knock my brains out on the dark cement floor, but couldn't; so I cried, 'O G.o.d! if there is a G.o.d, and some of these missionary folk that come here say there is a G.o.d, and a Christ what can save, _save me, save me, please save me_! I don't want to go to h.e.l.l! I've had h.e.l.l enough! I don't want to go to h.e.l.l!'

”There was a little quiet-looking old lady visiting the jail that day, and she asked Matron Kincaid if she couldn't go down and try to help that poor afflicted soul in the dungeon, and Mrs. Kincaid gave permission.