Driven Back to Eden | Page 2

children now if I can without the aid of the police. Mousie, do you feel
stronger to-night?"
These words were spoken to a pale girl of fourteen, who appeared to be
scarcely more than twelve, so diminutive was her frame.
"Yes, papa," she replied, a faint smile flitting like a ray of light across
her features. She always said she was better, but never got well. Her
quiet ways and tones had led to the household name of "Mousie."
As I was descending the narrow stairway I was almost overthrown by a
torrent of children pouring down from the flats above. In the dim light
of a gas-burner I saw that Bobsey was one of the reckless atoms. He
had not heard my voice in the uproar, and before I could reach him, he
with the others had burst out at the street door and gone tearing toward
the nearest corner. It seemed that he had slipped away in order to take
part in a race, and I found him "squaring off" at a bigger boy who had
tripped him up. Without a word I carried him home, followed by the
jeers and laughter of the racers, the girls making their presence known
in the early December twilight by the shrillness of their voices and by
manners no gentler than those of the boys.
I put down the child--he was only seven years of age--in the middle of
our general living-room, and looked at him. His little coat was split out
in the back; one of his stockings, already well-darned at the knees, was
past remedy; his hands were black, and one was bleeding; his whole

little body was throbbing with excitement, anger, and violent exercise.
As I looked at him quietly the defiant expression in his eyes began to
give place to tears.
"There is no use in punishing him now," said my wife. "Please leave
him to me and find the others."
"I wasn't going to punish him," I said.
"What are you going to do? What makes you look at him so?"
"He's a problem I can't solve--with the given conditions."
"O Robert, you drive me half wild. If the house was on fire you'd stop
to follow out some train of thought about it all. I'm tired to death. Do
bring the children home. When we've put them to bed you can figure on
your problem, and I can sit down."
As I went up to the Daggetts' flat I was dimly conscious of another
problem. My wife was growing fretful and nervous. Our rooms would
not have satisfied a Dutch housewife, but if "order is heaven's first law"
a little of Paradise was in them as compared to the Daggetts' apartments.
"Yes," I was told, in response to my inquiries; "Winnie is in the
bed-room with Melissy."
The door was locked, and after some hesitation the girls opened it. As
we were going downstairs I caught a glimpse of a newspaper in my
girl's pocket. She gave it to me reluctantly, and said "Melissy" had lent
it to her. I told her to help her mother prepare supper while I went to
find Merton. Opening the paper under a street lamp, I found it to be a
cheap, vile journal, full of flashy pictures that so often offend the eye
on news-stands. With a chill of fear I thought, "Another problem." The
Daggett children had had the scarlet fever a few months before. "But
here's a worse infection," I reflected. "Thank heaven, Winnie is only a
child, and can't understand these pictures;" and I tore the paper up and
thrust it into its proper place, the gutter.
"Now," I muttered, "I've only to find Merton in mischief to make the

evening's experience complete."
In mischief I did find him--a very harmful kind of mischief, it appeared
to me. Merton was little over fifteen, and he and two or three other lads
were smoking cigarettes which, to judge by their odor, must certainly
have been made from the sweepings of the manufacturer's floor.
"Can't you find anything better than that to do after school?" I asked,
severely.
"Well, sir," was the sullen reply, "I'd like to know what there is for a
boy to do in this street."
During the walk home I tried to think of an answer to his implied
question. What would I do if I were in Merton's place? I confess that I
was puzzled. After sitting in school all day he must do something that
the police would permit. There certainly seemed very little range of
action for a growing boy. Should I take him out of school and put him
into a shop or an office? If I did this his education would be sadly
limited. Moreover he was tall and slender