Part 39 (2/2)
The screams of a girl who had just been given a sentence to Bedford startled him out of his thoughts. She pleaded and cried, she tried to throw herself at the judge's feet, but the policeman dragged her out, the crowd craning forward with avid interest. She was the last case before the court adjourned. Jarvis leaned across the rail and asked the probation officer if he might speak to her.
”Perhaps you will walk along with me toward my home?” she suggested. He gladly a.s.sented. In a few moments she came out, hatted and ready for the street. She looked keenly at this tall, serious youth who had so unexpectedly arraigned the court.
”My name is Jarvis Jocelyn,” he began. ”There are so many things I want to ask you about.”
”I shall be glad to tell you what I can,” she said quietly.
”Have you been in this work long?”
”Eleven years.”
”Good G.o.d! how can you be so calm? How can you look so hopeful?”
”Because I am hopeful. In all the thousands of cases I have known I have never once lost hope. When I do, my work is over.”
”You're wonderful!” he exclaimed.
”No, I am reasonable. I don't expect the impossible. I am glad of every inch of ground gained. I don't demand an acre. If one girl is rescued out of twenty----”
”But why does it need to be at all?” Jarvis interrupted her.
”Why does disease need to be? Why does unhappiness need to be, or war, or the money-l.u.s.t that will one day wreck us? We only know that these things are. Our business is to set about doing what we can.”
”One girl out of twenty,” he repeated. ”What becomes of the other nineteen?”
”I said I was glad of one girl in twenty. Sometimes several of the nineteen come out all right. Bedford helps a great many. They marry, they keep straight, or--they die very soon.”
”Tell me about Bedford.”
She outlined the work done in that farm home, which is such a credit to New York. She told him of the honour system, and all the modern methods employed there.
”Can you get opportunities for girls who want the chance?”
”Plenty of them. I have only to ask. When I need money, it comes. Lots of my girls are employed in uptown shops, leading good, hard-working lives.”
”Where does this money come from?”
”Private donations. That is one of my hope signs--the widespread interest in rescue work.”
”The old ones--those aged women?”
She sighed. ”Yes, I know, they are terrible! There is a mighty army of them in New York. We grind them in and out of our courts, month after month. The inst.i.tutions are all full. There is so much grafting that the poor-farm has been delayed, year after year, so there is no place to send them.”
”Where do they go?”
”Into East River, most of them, in the end.”
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