The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets | Page 9

her to come
back, and then another series of efforts to recover his child, before he
set her free through a court proceeding. Joe, however, steadfastly
refused to marry her, still "sore" because she had not "stood by." As he
worked only intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the
police to do much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support
the humble ménage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and
by washing "the odd shirts" of the lodgers. For five years, during which
time two children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the
taunts of her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to
give help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her
course with no shade of regret or sorrow. "I'm all right as long as Joe
keeps out of the jug," was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps,
but genuine and "game." Her surroundings were as sordid as possible,
consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap "furnished rooms"
in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better days.
But Molly's heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was never
desolate until her criminal lover was "sent up" again, this time on a
really serious charge.
These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which
each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in which
are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection arising out

of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there who through all
tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl who overcomes, her
drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and goes back to
uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion of a man who
wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to marry her,
these are also impressive.
One of our earliest experiences at Hull-House had to do with a lover of
this type and the charming young girl who had become fatally attached
to him. I can see her now running for protection up the broad steps of
the columned piazza then surrounding Hull-House. Her slender figure
was trembling with fright, her tear-covered face swollen and
bloodstained from the blows he had dealt her. "He is apt to abuse me
when he is drunk," was the only explanation, and that given by way of
apology, which could be extracted from her. When we discovered that
there had been no marriage ceremony, that there were no living
children, that she had twice narrowly escaped losing her life, it seemed
a simple matter to insist that the relation should be broken off. She
apathetically remained at Hull-House for a few weeks, but when her
strength had somewhat returned, when her lover began to recover from
his prolonged debauch of whiskey and opium, she insisted upon going
home every day to prepare his meals and to see that the little tenement
was clean and comfortable because "Pierre is always so sick and weak
after one of those long ones." This of course meant that she was drifting
back to him, and when she was at last restrained by that moral
compulsion, by that overwhelming of another's will which is always so
ruthlessly exerted by those who are conscious that virtue is struggling
with vice, her mind gave way and she became utterly distraught.
A poor little Ophelia, I met her one night wandering in the hall half
dressed in the tawdry pink gown "that Pierre liked best of all" and
groping on the blank wall to find the door which might permit her to
escape to her lover. In a few days it was obvious that hospital restraint
was necessary, but when she finally recovered we were obliged to
admit that there is no civic authority which can control the acts of a girl
of eighteen. From the hospital she followed her heart directly back to
Pierre, who had in the meantime moved out of the Hull-House

neighborhood. We knew later that he had degraded the poor child still
further by obliging her to earn money for his drugs by that last method
resorted to by a degenerate man to whom a woman's devotion still
clings.
It is inevitable that a force which is enduring enough to withstand the
discouragements, the suffering and privation of daily living, strenuous
enough to overcome and rectify the impulses which make for greed and
self-indulgence, should be able, even under untoward conditions, to lift
up and transfigure those who are really within its grasp and set them in
marked contrast to those who are merely playing a game with it or
using it for gain. But what has happened to these wretched girls? Why
has this beneficent current cast