'^W$*&. d^Jk ? k ^TKI - ast* r% x I- /fflU >l Hfiastf A MAGDALEN'S LIFE BY GEORGIE YOUNG. , Si.oo. COPYRIGHT BY GEORGIE YOUNG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. To E, Gertrude Tlnayer One of God's Noble Women This YolUirqe Is Lovingly Dedicated by trie Hutrpr 2047658 Only a Magdalen, I heard a man say Who made her a Magdalen, tell me, pray? Who taught her to sin, who led her astray ? Who found her an innocent, trusting child ? Who left her to death, all sin-defiled ? O, what deceit in human hearts lurk ! Blush for mankind when you look at man's work. INTRODUCTION. My object in giving this sketch of my life to the world is two-fold. First, to awaken in others, who are to-day as deep in the darkness as I was, the glad consciousness that with God's help they, too, can come into the light of a pure life. Sec- ond, to arouse in people who have no feeling but condemnation for these women a desire to aid in lifting them. GEORGIE YOUNG. ' PREFACE. "***** When waking up at last, I told you I waked up in the grave. Enough so ! it is plain enough so. We wretches can not tell out all our wrong Without offense to decent, happy folk. I know that we must scrupulously hint With half-words, delicate reserves the thing Which no one scrupled we should feel in full. Let pass the rest, then ; only leave my oath Upon this sleeping child man's violence, Not man's seduction, made me what I am. ***** And you call it being lost, That down came next day's noon and caught me there Half gibbering and half raying on the floor, And wondering what had happened up in Heaven, That suns should dare to shine when God himself Was certainly abolished. " MARIAN ERLE. CHAPTER I. I was born in South Creek, Bradford Co., Penn., April 8, 1858. My father was a suc- cessful lawyer, and but for his death six months after my birth this book would never have been written. My mother was left a moderate amount of means, but with six children the oldest not yet ten years of age, and a gener- ous nature ready to aid those whose need seemed greater than her own this soon / melted. In 1 86 1 mother moved west in response to a request from her father who lived at , 111. Her hope was to make a home here for A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. her children. My earliest- memory is of my mother earning our living by going out by the day among the neighboring families. Her one desire was to keep us together till we were old enough to care for ourselves. One by one the older children made homes for themselves, not one helping to support the three younger ones still dependent on mother's care. When I was eleven years old mother's health failed and she was forced to break up the home. My mother's faith in God was sublime. During these eleven years of strug- gle I never knew one day nor one hour when her trust in God failed her. Many times after working hard all day she had to put us to bed after a supper of only bread and sweetened water. Always first asking God to bless us and thanking him for the mercies I\Q provided for us. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. My father had invested some money in real estate, but at the time of his death it was worth but little. Mother decided not to sell this as long as she was able to work, knowing it would increase in value. My oldest brother, now about twenty years of age, told mother if she would send him east with authority to sell this property he would make a home in Michigan for her and the younger children. She, as guardian, signed away our rights, thus giving him entire con- trol of the property. I would gladly pass over this act of my brother in silence, but it is necessary to speak of it as it gives the key to his future treatment of my mother and me. He went east, sold the property and on his return in- vested it in milling property, and to-day is one of the rich lumber merchants of Michigan. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. For three years after obtaining- the money, he left us in Illinois, writing to mother he would send for us as soon as he was able. Mother went to work for her board, sending me to an uncle, six miles from Malta, to stay a few weeks, intending to find me a place near her to work for my board and go to school. My Uncle was not at home, and my Aunt told me I must go back. I knew Mother could do nothing for me, so I started out to find myself a place to work; remembering what Mother had often said that God would always take care of the fatherless, I prayed to Him every step of the way back to Malta, to help me find a place to work. I asked every one I met, if they knew of any one who wanted a girl to work for her board? I found a place, or rather a lady who found me on the street, took me home with her and A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. kept me three months. I wrote to my Mother telling her not to worry, that I had found a place, and would come to see her as soon as I could earn enough money to pay my fare. Mrs. Sutton (this was the lady's name) was very good to me, dressing me better than I had ever been dressed before ; at the end of three months she took me to see my mother and offered to adopt me. Oh ! how often I have thought of that time in my life, how changed my whole life might have been if Mother had consented to my going with her ; but she believed the son who had gone to Michigan would soon send for us. She said : "I can not give her up, she is my baby;" then turning to me she asked : " Do you want to leave Mother ?" Of course I said no. What child wouldn't? Mrs. Sutton moved soon after that to Denver, 10 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. Colo., and I remained with mother. A short time after I got a place in the country to work for my board. The people were poor farmers but were very kind and good to me. One night overhearing Mr. Purcell telling his wife he must hire a boy to keep the cattle out of the corn, I waited till he had gone to the barn and then asked her if he would pay the boy. She said, "yes, fifty cents per week." I told her if she would let me do it I would get up at four o'clock with the milkers and get my milk pans washed and my morning work done and then take the children down with me and watch the cattle myself.. By doing this I would still be able to do the same work I was then doing for my board and earn fifty cents a week besides. This small amount looked like a great deal of money to me. She was willing to let me try, and the next morn- A MA GDALEN ' S LIFE . 11 ing I was up long before daylight, washing my milk pans at the spring, then the breakfast dishes, and altogether happy at the thought of earning some money. What would I not buy mother ! Eight weeks I worked like that and then the corn was all picked. How I did work ! Did you ever keep cattle out of a cornfield ? Of course I could not wear my shoes that would not pay the stubble would wear them all out ; and so, day after day, I ran through the stubble, cutting my feet at almost every step, and asking God to "keep the snakes 4 away. At night, after the work was done, I would bathe my feet at the spring to relieve them, careful not to complain or they might send for the boy. What would not my four dollars buy ? I got on very well till the frosts came, 12 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. then I made me a nest in one of the straw stacks, and would cover my feet with the straw and thus keep them warm. The last three weeks it was not much trouble to keep them in the stubble they almost seemed to be sorry for me, or else they had been driven back so often they thought it useless to make the attempt. The first of November, Mr. Purcell took me to town to see mother. He told her he would keep me that winter and send me to school. This was a great joy to mother as the letter from the son in Michigan had not come and her health was very poor. She thanked him, with tears in her eyes, for his kindness to me. That winter I had three weeks' schooling and the next spring they gave me 75 cents a week, as I was then old enough to wash and A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 13 iron and do many things about the house I could not do the year before. In July, Mrs. Purcell's sister came from Aurora, Illinois, and they did not need me. Mr. Purcell took me ten miles south to his brother's farm, I worked there till May, 1872, when I started for Michigan with Mother. When we arrived at Sand Lake we found my brother was engaged to a lady of that place, and from the first he made us feel we were in the way. Many Sand Lake people will remember the bare-footed girl who used to take a ten-quart pail and go out into the marshes and pick cranberries, and sell them for two cents a quart. My brother gave us barely enough to pro- vide for the table. Mother often said to me, " when you have a home of your own then poor old mother will come and live with you." 14 A MAGDALEN S LIFE. CHAPTER II. My second brother, two years older than I, who worked nights watching the slab-fires around Stone & Seeley's mill, was saving every penny he earned to come to the State Fair at Grand Rapids that fall. He saved enough money to take me with him. I thought of it day and night, Grand Rapids to me holding almost everything there could be to see in the world, and so on Sep- tember 25th, 1872, I came to Grand Rapids for the first time. I had never seen a street car everything was new and strange ; after a while my brother left me sitting on a bench A MAGDALEN'S LIFE 15 and told me to be sure and stay there until he came back. Not far from where he left me was one of these round-about swings, I looked at it for some time, thinking I could go nearer and see just how it looked and what made it go round and round and then come back to the bench. I went but when I tried to find my way back I could find no empty seat and no bench that looked like the one I had left. I was completely turned around that sense of being alone, every face strange, terrified me and I commenced to cry. It was growing dark, people were leaving the grounds and hundreds passed me with just a glance, more with not even that. At last a young looking woman came to me and asked me what I was crying for, I told her I lived in Sand Lake, that I had lost my 16 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. brother, and I did not know what to do. She said don't cry any more I will take you home with me and to-morrow we will find your brother. This woman's name was Jennie Holden. Even now I blush to call her woman. Bad as I have been, no girl can add to my dark record by laying her ruin at my door. I have learned since that day, that there are fallen women who delight in adding one more to their ranks, in making as many outcasts as possible. She was of the class who take up that life from choice God pity them. One word more of Jennie, she is living to- day, or was a few months ago and keeping a house of ill-fame in Leadville. Her boarders were three of her own sisters. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 17 Think of this all you who read these lines, if you have daughters, if you have sisters, think of another soul as pure that day as any one of them, alone in a city for the first time in her life and in the hands of such a woman ! She took me home with her, gave me something- to eat and talked very kindly to me in order to learn all I had to tell ; that I was fatherless and ignorant of the world in every respect. Early in the evening two men called, one of whom she introduced as Mr. Bell, a friend from Chicago, the other as Mr. Young. At this time she was not keeping a public house of ill-fame; apparently everything was respect- able, she was living with her mother and little sisters. She was of that class of prostitutes who seem to have been born with a natural tendency to vice. There were five girls in this 18 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. ' : family and to-day every one of them is a pros- titute. This evening as I sat and listened no thought of evil entered my mind. I thought the reason they laughed and talked so freely, was that they were old friends and then it was in a city perhaps that was the way peo- ple did in the city. Mr. Charlie Young was very attentive to me in his conversation, none of which I under- stood. My thoughts were far from them, with my mother, thinking how sleepless the night would be for her, not knowing what had become of me. After they had gone, she told me how sorry Mr. Young and her friend felt for me when she told them my story that they were coming the next day to take us out to the grounds, that she had promised Mr. Young I A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 19 would ride with him so he could, if possible, find some of my friends. Of course I was very glad to do anything she said was she not my friend ? Poor foolish girl, I did not know then what perfidy existed in the world I did not know women could lose all sense of shame and seek to drag others down into the lowest depths of Hell with them, and I thank God that of the class to which I belonged there is not one in five hundred that will. At nine o'clock the next morning- a double carriage drove up in front of her house. On the way to the fair Charlie Young plied me with all sorts of questions and without any trouble found out what little there was to know of my simple history. I remember how I told him in an artless, childlike way that we were very poor, and that I loved my mother 80 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. dearly, and that sometime when I had a home she would live with me. After driving round the grounds for some time, they proposed going into a canvas show, perhaps I would see some one there who knew me. Of course it is unnecessary for me to tell you I could see no one I knew, and so night came again and .no hand was near to save me from the Hell toward which I was being led, all the more surely because I knew it not. After leaving the grounds they drove over on the west side of the river. As we passed a large two-story house, Jennie said "Well, Charlie, are you going in to see your Aunt?" "No, I guess not, he replied." As we drove on, he asked me how I liked the looks of that house ? Then he told me he owned it and let his aunt live there until he married. Then they A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 21 took us back to Jennie's, saying, as they left us, they would come back and bring her some tickets for Black Crook at Luce's Hall, that night. Thus did Jennie deliberately set about to work the ruin of a soul. She told me how wealthy this Charlie Young was, that he wanted a wife and asked me how I would like to get married ? What if I was only fifteen years old, she said, that was nothing girls often marry at that age. You say your brother is not kind to your mother, why don't you get married and bring your mother to a home of your own. She talked on this way till Charlie Young returned then she made an excuse to leave the room for a few minutes. He immediately began to urge me to marry him. He said "if your brother cared for you he would have A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. come to the city to-day to find you ; if you will marry me I will take you to Sand Lake to get your mother and she can always live with you much more he said that I do not re- member. I was so frightened me get married I thought! why it was only yesterday I was running barefoot through the woods picking berries! Then he said, "think of your mother what you could do for her I did think of her if I could only see mother happy once more, if I only could see her in a home such as he had shown me I would do anything that was right even get married, for of course you must realize I knew nothing of love. So they took me, those fiends in human form, to the home of Judge Putnam, Jennie telling me, at the last moment as we stood on the steps of the judge's house, to say I was A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. seventeen years old. " But I am only fifteen," I said. "Yes, I know," she answered, "but say you are seventeen, it will sound better." So we went in ignorance and innocence led by wickedness and cunning. But I was so hopeless of ever seeing mother, and now this man was going to marry me and give us both a home, so I kept saying mother, mother, over to myself, and thanking God who had sent him to take care of us for did not God know, did He not watch over the fatherless? Judge Putnam asked me how old I was. I looked at Jennie and said seventeen. He said "you are young to be married." It was all I could do to keep from crying. Oh, if I only had cried in that pure home, with help so near. How easily I could have been saved all the bitter experiences I have since passed through. But I never dreamed of wrong at 34 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. that moment I was thinking of what I would be able to do for mother, for would I not be married and have a home of my own ? In my short life I had never heard of an evil woman. I was an ignorant country child. I knew my sisters were married and had homes and I thought if a man asked you to marry him he must be the one God had sent to make you a home. Remember I had never had a mother's constant care and advice, only what she could give her children in the morn- ing and evening. I do not remember of one day my mother did not go out to work when she was able ; often she would go to work be- fore we were awake, leaving our breakfast and the open bible on the table together. So the words were spoken that made us, in the eyes of the law, man and wife. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 25 So the law was made an innocent party to a terrible crime. Why did he go through the legal form of marriage ? I could never under- stand how anything that bears the name of man can marry a girl with the deliberate in- tention to work her ruin. I can not answer- still, in after years, when looking back to see just where the sin in my life began, I was glad to remember that I was innocent then and pure in thought. I knew no evil, still he could not have ruined me without that form of marriage. 26 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. CHAPTER III. The morning papers had a notice of the marriage. His mother, who lived on the cor- ner of Crosby and Turner Streets, one block from Jennie's, sent word to Charlie to come home. He was gone an hour or two, then came back after me, saying- : " Come with me to my mother's house ;" but how changed he looked sullen and sneakish. The thought came to me at once, perhaps his aunt don't .. * want to move what else could it be. I soon knew the reason ; his mother was waiting for us with two or three of the friendly A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. neighbors who had read the notice and were anxious to see Charlie's new wife. Mrs. Young was a tailoress, taking work home from the clothing store of Houseman & May. I shall never forget the little room into which he took me. Pants and vests lay around on the table and chairs. As we en- tered the room Mrs. Young put on her glasses she was holding in her hand, and gave me a long look, then said : "So this is the girl you have married where does she belong who do you expect will support her?" As Charlie did not answer, she directed her conversation to me, saying : " Did Charlie tell you he could not support himself, that he lived on his father and mother, doing nothing except run the streets ?" I looked at my husband of one day his A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. eyes were cast down to the floor and the evi- dent truth of what his mother said was like a knife to my heart. I burst out crying, and kneeling down at her feet I begged his mother to send me to my mother. I wanted to see mother once more and die. She said, "don't act like that ! What kind of a girl are you to be away from home alone ? and what were you thinking of to marry a. man you don't know ? How old are you ?" Fifteen last April" I answered ; "then you told a lie, for the paper says you said seventeen." This touched me I did tell a lie, I thought, that is why I am in all this trouble. I looked at Charlie Young to see if he would not tell his mother the truth, that they had told me to say I was seventeen not one word did he say, and young as I was, my contempt for him was so great I could not A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 29 speak or try to explain what did it matter ? all had happened that could. Little did I think that that was only one day of long years of suffering. The next day I had a high fever, and toward night I grew worse, calling for mother to come and save me. Dr. Prindle, the family physician, was called in ; he pronounced me very ill. This sickness lasted two weeks, then I was able to walk around. Mrs. Young asked me if I could work she said I must find a place to work as they were too poor to care for me, and they had written to Sand Lake to my brother and received no answer. I told her I could woik, but how could I find a place to work? She told me to go to the Bridge Street House and ask for a place there. I went, and taking a chair in an unob- served place, sat there hour after hour, not 30 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. knowing- to whom I should speak. Finally, as it was growing dark, a lady who had passed through the room several times, asked me if I was waiting for some one ? I said, oh no ! I want to find a place to work ; she replied : "we need no help at present." I returned to Mrs. Young and told her that they did not want- me. The next day she took me down town and showed me the block where I would find an intelligence office, saying, "tell them yeu are a poor girl and want a place to work." I went up the stairs but did not know one office from the other, and through ignorance stumbled into prosecuting Attorney Burlin- game's office. He kindly asked if there was anything he could do for me ? I told him I was a poor girl and wanted to find a place to work, he replied, you have made a mistake, t,his is not the intelligence office. You look A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 31 young to go out to service have you no home ? These were the first kind words I had heard for days, arid I burst into tears. He gave me a chair and questioned me I told him all ; he questioned me very closely in regard to my brother, saying, "you must let your brother know at once." I told him I knew my brother would not let me come back, as he had never wanted me or mother there, and I would rather not have mother know of the trouble I was in, as she could not help me. He called Sheriff Haynes into his office and they decided to take me to the only place they knew of open to friendless girls the county jail, until they investigated my story and in- formed my brother where I was. Mr. Burlingame said "the child must be A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. mistaken ; if her brother knew this he would come after her and take her home." So they took me to the jail. I would like to say that in all these years I have never for- gotten the kind words of Mrs. Haynes. She said to keep up good courage ; I would soon be sent to my brother. "Never be a bad girl," she said, "they are often brought here and locked up, but they soon die. When Mr. Peck, the turn-key, came to lock the door at night I begged of him not to lock me in that place and asked him what I had done. He said "you have done nothing to be locked up for, but we have to lock up every one that is brought here and there was no other place for you." The next day I was sick. Dr. Wooster, county physician, was called and a bottle of medicine was sent into me. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 33 Then the jail was no place for me ; what was to be done with me ? The morning papers had given an account of an impromptu marriage, stating that Charlie Young was one of Grand Rapids' sharpers who ought to have been in state prison long ago, and that I was of respectable family in Sand Lake. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest, but when the officer went to serve it he had disap- peared. An appeal was made to the benevolent ladies of the city, and I was represented as a girl sorely in need of assistance. But no help came, and because there was no other place I was taken to the poor house. Of course they could not keep me at the jail as I had com- mitted no crime. I was simply sick and friend- less. The doctor came to see me once after I was taken to the poor-house. After leaving 34 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. me there a week Mrs. Young came after me, Mr. Burlingame having told them that if they did not do something for me Charlie would be traced, brought back and imprisoned. Mrs. Young said she was perfectly willing and talked so kindly to me in the presence of the officers that I thought I must have been mistaken in thinking she told me not to come back that day she showed me where to find the intelligence office. But I soon found I had not been mistaken. Never in my life had I had such a scolding, but it did not hurt and cut as sharp words had always done before. I was fast learning that mother's God did not keep the fatherless out of trouble. When that hope began to wane the first hardness took its place. She accused me of being a wicked girl to try to have her son arrested, and I thought to myself yes, I A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. . 35 must be bad. I have been locked up in jail in the poor-house. She must be right. * Have you ever been in a poor-house not as a visitor but as an inmate? I had a pie-tin and iron spoon to eat with. It was nothing unusual for some one at my side to fall over in a Jit. This all happened to me before I had committed one criminal act, and yet society wonders at the increase of prostitutes. Mrs. Young told Mr. Burlingame she could not afford to pay a doctor and Charlie had gone to Canada, so Dr. Wooster attended me through my sickness. As soon as I was able to walk, I com- menced to work for my mother-in-law, carry- ing pants and vests that were finished to the store and returning with more to make. Mrs. Young had sewed a wide tuck in a water- 86 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE proof dress of hers and given it to me to wear, as I was destitute of clothing. I tried not to mind what was said to me I must deserve it all. Every night I prayed God to forgive me for telling the lie I did about my age and to make me a better girl, so. Mrs. Young would like me and not. send me back to the poor- house. A month or six weeks after I was taken from the poor-house Mrs. Young said she expected Charlie back and she hoped he would come and take care of me. " Oh, send me back to the poor-house ! " I said, in pas- sionate terror, for a sense of horror seized me at the thought of living with that man. What to do I did not know. If he was coming home I must find a place to work for myself. So I thought and thought all night, what was the best thing to do. I would not A MAGDALEtrS LIFE. 37 * go to an intelligence office, they might send me to jail. I did not know that what I had already passed through would bar me out of almost every respectable house. I had been in jail, it had all been in the papers, and the brand was almost the same as if I had really sinned. I had not then learned to lie, so I started out one afternoon with a bundle of vests, de- termined to go from door to door till I found a place to work. I met an officer, and being afraid he would know I was out looking for a place and take me to jail again, I ran as fast as I could till he was out of sight. I had never seen such fine looking houses. I stopped at one, rapped at the door, and asked if they wanted a girl to work. The lady said " are you the nurse-girl I expected ?" I did not know the meaning of nurse-girl, so she A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. said "can you take care of children ?" " Oh, yes," I said ; "I have worked out taking care of children" (my mind going back to the corn- field.) I thought if she will only let me work here it will be just like heaven. She then asked me for references. I said " what's that ?" Then she asked me who sent me there if I was sent from the intelli- gence office. I said "no, I am finding my- self a place." Then I told her who I was, and once more by telling the truth was coldly told I was not wanted there. Oh, let me appeal to you for poor friendless girls who ask you to take them in and give them work -do not turn them from your door because they have no references. Do not turn them away with hope dead within them do not turn a girl from your door because she does not perfectly understand your work. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. Perhaps she is fatherless and her mother has had to work by the day to keep her little ones together, trusting in God to provide a home for them when old enough to work. Would you not call such a mother a noble woman, and is not her child worth saving ? Still so many do not care, they simply want a girl competent to do their work with- out having to be troubled themselves about it. Then at night they pray the Father to lead them aright and show them the work he wishes them to do, yet they seem to keep as far as possible from the Father's work. Do you think in that last day God will ask for references of some poor girl whose only sin is poverty ? That night I slept on the ground out on South Division street, and still I had com- mitted no wrong, unless it was a sin not to 40 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. have references. I prayed constantly to God to forgive me for telling that lie about my age and make me a better girl. I thought it must be I was a bad girl God would certainly care for me if I was not bad. Many times in my after life I have passed that stately house in this city with fearful bit- terness in my heart, and years after, when trouble that whitened the mother's hair, entered that home, I was happy in my heart to see the lines deepen on her face, for I said to myself, if she had kept me that night, only that one night, my life might have been saved. In those days I thought I was lost soul and body. When I found there was hope for any soul on earth that repented, then the bitterness left my heart ; I could have begged her forgive- ness, on my knees, for the curses I used to call heaven to witness when we would pass on A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 41 the street, she in her lovely private carriage. If her glance wandered my way she would quickly turn her head, lest the look might con- taminate her (for my face afterward came to be known on the streets as a woman of the town). There was no deeper contempt in her face for me, than in my heart for her, for I said to myself, you are good, you belong to the church, you will go to heaven, but if the bible is true and God is just He will ask you, " why did you turn that poor girl from your door ? " God will know, I thought, that I was inno- cent of any wrong that night and looking for work, and then I will have a mother there and she will say to you, " where is my child ?" I knew I would not be tKere but I could almost think how God's voice would say "you lost your children on earth for you were not a 42 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. mother, simply a woman who has given birth to children you had no compassion for the motherless. Will not the results of our acts and words be known on that great day ? the kind words that have kept alive hope, and saved some soul will they not be known ? MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 43 CHAPTER IV. The next morning I was sitting- on the side-walk, hungry and cold, with a dirty tear- stained face. People passed me by, going to their work with tin pails, the factory whistles were blowing, calling those who take part in the busy world to their work. I counted the pails as they passed me, and thought, I have no place in the world even the dress I wear is not my own. I thought of the poor-house it was not so bad as this ; I was not hungry there only afraid of the half-crazy ones who talked to themselves all 44 A MAGDALEK'S LIFE. the time, and looked at one so queer what if Maggie Doyle did have fits there were pota- toes, bread and meat. Yes, I would go back to the poor house ; but how would I get there? It was miles away and I did not know the way. Then I thought I will go back to Jennie's house and tell her I am hungry and ask her to give me something to eat ; so around through the back streets I went, crossing Pearl street bridge, standing a moment to look at the river and wonder if it would be very wrong to throw myself into the water yes, mother had often said, God will take us to Himself in His own good time, and I knew it would be a sin. Perhaps God had forgotten me for a time but he would remember me in his own good time, as mother said. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 45 So I passed on and went to Jennie's, she gave me something to eat, said she was so sorry for me ; she was going to Jackson in a day or two, " I will' take you with me " she said "we will get a place to work in a hotel, we will never part with each other ; I thought Charlie Young was a gentleman and would make you a good husband. I told her I had on Mrs. Young's dress and wanted to take it back to her, so she gave me a wrapper of hers to wear. I took the dress back to Mrs. Young and told her I was going to Jackson to find a place to work. She said " that is the best thing you can do. Charlie has such a temper and he is coming home. You know you tried to get him into trouble when you went to Mr. Burlingame, and I don't know what he will do if he finds you here. Go away and never come back 46 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. I should think you had had enough of Grand Rapids." So two days later Jennie Holden and Georgie Young were on the train for Jackson. I had on the wrapper Jennie had loaned me, a little plaid shawl, and rubbers over my shoes to cover the holes in the toes. We arrived in Jackson at 5 A. M., Jennie taking me to a house near the prison, saying her husband lived there. I knew afterward this man was not her husband. He was a poor half-witted fellow living with his mother. He had met Jennie in Grand Rapids and afterward written her to come to Jackson ; that she could do well there as he would furnish her a house. I know not the story he told his mother. I know he in- troduced her as his wife and she received her as if she had been expecting her, A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 4? The next day they moved, his mother giv- ing them one bed, a little parlor cook stove, three chairs, a table and some tomato pre- serves. They pinned papers up to the windows for curtains ; they made me a bed in the corner, and for a week we lived on bakers' bread and tomato preserves. Jennie had a dress to make and went down town and ordered a sewing machine, saying she wanted to try it before buying. The firm sent the machine and just as we were nicely started on the dress back drove the wagon with a member of the firm. They took the machine saying, " Did you think you could get away with one of our machines? You are not intending to buy a machine ; you are all packed up ready to move ; where are your curtains and furniture?" Jennie com- menced swearing at him like a pirate. I had 48 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. never seen her act and talk like that and I was afraid. Soon after an officer came and said the man who owned the house said she was a bad woman, and he wanted her to move out. He said the sewing-machine man was a friend of the landlord, and went to him and told him a couple of old cats were living in his house, he had seen one of them in Grand Rapids. I said, "What cats does he mean, Jennie? we have no cats." She answered that is what they call bad women, sometimes. He must mean you, for being around on the streets there, he would riot dare call me a bad woman, for I am married and living with my husband. Then she went on to say : " If we only had some money to keep us till we could find work I would leave my husband, for he will not work." .-/ MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 49 " I know a woman here named Vine Leo- nard, she will let us come there, we will not have to stay but a few days and we would have $25 or $30, then we can get you a dress and clothes to work with." I said: "Why Jennie, I never saw so much money in my life." She answered : " Some girls make that much every day." " What do they work at ? " I asked. " Are you going to be a fool all your life," Jennie exclaimed. "Ask Jim when he comes home to-night, how much money you could make in a day if you went to Vine Leonard's." I did so when he came home that evening. With a coarse laugh he an- swered, " If you take you might make $20." "Take/ 1 I said, "take what?" This was as simple and foolish as I was. Sometimes the thought came to me, this woman does noyalk and act like your mother, 50 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. and then I would say to myself, I know, but she has money and clothes ; and then mother had such queer ideas of her God, she said He would care for all, and still mother had to work so hard ; and when I was at school other lit- tle girls would say, " Look at - , she has one of my dresses on, my mamma gave it to her mamma when she worked at our house." I thought back to the time when I had gone to the church Christmas time, and the tree was loaded with presents for every one except me. I thought Santa Claus put the presents on the tree for every good little girl, and weeks before Christmas I had prayed God to tell Santa Claus I was a poor little girl and that he must bring something nice. This was when I was about nine years old; Christmas came ; my mother went to a Mrs. Bentley's to stay with her baby while the fanv A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 51 ily went to the church. I had been waiting for this night with indescribable desire and longing. Seated with the class to which I belonged, I waited, thinking every doll taken from the tree was the one Santa Claus had put there for me. The loaded tree was re- lieved of its weight of presents ; each little girl in the class had her arms full but noth- ing for me. I have often thought of that night how I wished myself away. The girls would say, " Haven't you anything? look at my doll and picture-books !" I choked back the tears and hard rebellious feeling and started out of the church. Mrs. Tuppen, the teacher, said to me, " Did Santa Claus bring you anything ?" "No ma'am," I answered. " Never mind," she answered, " I will send you something to- morrow. " But what did I want of to-morrow 52 ./ MAGDALEN'S LIFE. I had prayed to God every night I had studied hard in school, and God had told Santa Claus to give all the rest of the girls something, all but me, so when mother came home she found me crying as if my heart would break. She said, "What is the matter with my little girl ?" I cried out " God dosn't love us. He makes you work so hard every day, un- less you are sick, and we have to wear other children's clothes, and they make fun of us at school, and to-day he told Santa Claus not to put anything on the Christmas tree for me." . I never complained to my mother again. She took my hand in hers and knelt down and prayed to God, the tears streaming from her eyes, to bless her child, to take all bitterness from her heart, and lead her in the paths in which she should go, until He was ready to A MAGDALEN'S I.fJ'E. 53 call her home. Then she explained to me there was no such person as Santa Claus ; that only parents and friends bought presents and put them on the tree and that she had no money to buy any. A MAG D ALEX'S LIFE. CHAPTER V. Not a doubt of there being a God came in my mind, but I thought he forgot some of his children, for had he not forgotten me in Grand Rapids ? The preserves and bread gave out and Jennie said " We must do something ; my hus- band won't work and support us both, and I won't leave you. I will pack my trunk and we will go on that to Kalamazoo, and find work there. We started for Kalamazoo and when the conductor asked for our tickets Jennie gave him the check to her trunk, saying we wanted to go on that to Kalamazoo. He came back 56 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. soon, saying " the trunk is light as a feather you must get off the train at the next station. I do not remember the name of the station." We went to a hotel near the depot. The clerk gave us a room and built a fire for us; then Jennie went out in the hall and talked with him a few minutes. After the house was closed he came to the door and called her out ; they locked the door on the outside and I was left alone. I was afraid. I did not move from before the fire for hours ; then the door was carefully unlocked and Jennie came in. I was so glad to see her I thought she had left me. I promised never to cry like that again. She said he was an old friend of hers and had loaned her money to go to Kalama- zoo. So we went to bed, I thinking how good she was not to leave me. The next morning we started again for A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 57 Kalamazooj Jennie paid the fare. After hav- ing dinner at the City Hotel Jennie took me into the sitting-room and said to me : ' " We can not get work ; you have no clothes ; I am going to board, if you want to come, all right ; if not I am going alone and you will have to do the best you can." I begged her not to leave me. " Well, come on then," she said ; "stop crying like a baby be a thorough- bred !' ' So we went down on a back street, (I learned afterward people called it "The Dock" this is the name by which it is known to this day). She took me to a house kept by Alice Burl ; as is the custom of these houses, the house-keeper came to answer the bell ; we were shown into the parlor ; Jennie asked to see the landlady. As the house-keeper left the room I said " What is a landlady ?" It 58 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. was the first time I had ever heard the ex- pression. " Keep still " said Jennie. Just then Miss Alice, as Jennie called her, came in. She had on a long white wrapper and no sleeves. I opened my eyes at this for I was cold with the plaid shawl I had on. She asked " Do you want to get board ?" Jennie answered " Yes ;" then she told her we were from Grand Rapids, her trunk was at the depot. Miss Alice asked how old I was. I told her fifteen. "Won't your folks raise a racket when they find you are boarding ?" I asked why, and then they both laughed. Miss Alice then said " You girls must be tired so you need not come into the parlor till to-morrow evening." She took me up stairs into what seemed to me a lovely room. Jennie made herself at A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 59 home at once, but I kept thinking of that white dress and no sleeves. I said to Jennie "What a funny looking woman, with no sleeves in her dress." Jennie went out of the room and, will you believe me, I knelt down by that bed and thanked God for sending us to such a nice place. I did not have the slightest idea of the nature of the house. Re- member, I had never heard of such things. Ten years later I asked Jennie if she knew how ignorant I was and why she did not ex- plain to me. She answered " Georgie, you were such a big fool in those days ; it was fun to hear you talk and see you look." Sin- stained as I was now, in my heart I thanked God that the foolishness she spoke of was the foolishness of innocence. That night we were awakened by the ringing of the door-bell, and soon a voice in 60 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. the hall calling, " Come, girls ; gentlemen are in the parlor." "What's that, Jennie?" " Keep still ; we don't have to get up." Jen- nie went to sleep, but as long as I could hear a sound I was too frightened to close my. eyes ; finally the sounds were hushed and all was silent, but not until daylight came creep- ing in through the closed blinds. I tried to sleep, but thoughts of mother came to me and made me heart-sick. I heard a clock strike hour after hour, until nine o'clock. I wondered why Jennie did not wake up. I knew if I disturbed her she would be angry, so I laid quite still until the clock struck ten, then I thought, what can have happened, perhaps robbers had broken in and murdered Miss Alice and all the borders ; so I shook -Jennie and called her to wake up. I believed every one in the house was dead. " After A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 61 you went to sleep I heard men breaking in the doors, and it is after ten o'clock everybody must be ^ead." She answered, "You make me sick, they don't have breakfast here till twelve o'clock." Soon after we dressed and went down stairs. The landlady was not up but the borders were down ready for break- fast. Jennie asked for Miss Alice. One of the girls said: " Oh she had too much wine, she is laid out this morning some traveling men were here from Detroit." After breakfast the girls cut a pack of cards to see who would buy the cigars ; they smoked just like men. I coughed and choked and could hardly get my breath a little close room and five cigars, for Jennie smoked too. They laughed at me and said to Jennie : " Where did you pick that up ? " She replied, " In Grand Rapids, she A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. isn't broke in yet" I could see she was ashamed of me. One of them, a little black- eyed girl, said, "Don't give her a racket, girls, she is a , we have all been there." Another said "I heard her praying last night this is a dandy place to pray in." Then the little black-eyed girl said : " Don't talk like that, girls, she is in hard luck I used to pray myself I had a good mother, and if she had lived I would not be here." Hope sprang up within me. This giri would befriend me and tell me why they ail laughed at me, and talked and smoked like men. So I waited until I could speak to her alone, and then asked her to talk to me and tell me what to do. She took me in her room and locked the door, then asked me why I came there. I told her all that had happened to me and that A MAGDALEN'S LIFE, 63 I did not know what to do. She said : " I wish I could help you, but you must not stay here, this is a bad house and we are all bad girls." Then she explained to me the nature of the house, half of which I could not under- stand. My thoughts went back .to the words of Mrs. Haynes : "Bad girls soon die." I said to her : "I should think you would be afraid you would die." She answered: "Oh, I only wish I could die, one can not always die" Then after thinking a few minutes she said, " I know a woman who used to keep a house, now some of the girls from the other houses on the dock take their meals with her, I will go and see if she will not let you come there to work. I wish I knew of a better place, but you see I am so bad myself, I know of no one else. You must not tell any one, for I 64 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. will get into trouble with Miss Alice if she knows I tried to get you this place. You are not good looking, but she would curl your hair, buy you some slippers and a pretty dress. You are young looking and that is what the gentlemen want." I promised not to say a word, and that afternoon she went to see the woman, Mrs. Rand, and secured the place for me. Mrs. Rand said she could not afford to pay me, but I could come and work for my board. That night we stole out of the house ; Eva took me by the hand and ran all the way with me, so she would not be missed from the house, stopping long enough to say to me, "Remember, never tell I told you where to go, Miss Alice comes here sometimes." I looked after her as she ran back, with tears in my eyes, for had she not helped me A MAGDALEN'S LIFE, 65 get a place to work ; not much of a place, as I soon found out, but " she had done what she could." Years after, when remorse and thoughts of her mother, now lost to her for- ever, had driven her down, down to the lowest depths, when the young, red-cheeked, black- eyed girl of seventeen, as I first saw her, had become the outcast of the lowest dives, drink- ing, smoking a pipe, taking opium when she had money to buy it, she was picked up by the police in Grand Rapids. The morning papers told of a "degraded specimen of humanity " that had been picked up that night, and would have her trial the next morning. It was Eva Bell. I paid her fine and had her taken to the U. B. A. Home, where I paid her board and doctor's bill. We Jboth knew she was dying. Once before she died she 66 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. asked me to bring my mother's bible and read to her and pray for her, which I did as well as I could. Afterward, when I looked at her dead dis- figured face, I repeated the words she said to me so long ago: " I wish I could do more for you." The papers called my act charitable, but how little it was compared with what she tried years before to do for me. I clothed and buried her body with the wages of sin ; she tried to save my soul. A MAGDALEN S LIFE. 87 CHAPTER VI. Mrs. Rand had quit keeping house from lack of support. She asked me if I had any clothes. On my telling her I had none she gave me some to work in. The next day, Jennie, having heard from one of the girls who took her meals there where I was, came after her wrapper and shawl, saying I was too ungrate- ful to have friends never to speak to her again. Mrs. Rand kept a class of boarders from the lower houses, yet she was apparently respectable (that was saying but little for her in that neighborhood). 88 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. She had a trunk of clothes which had be- longed to a girl who had poisoned herself, and for whom she had cared and helped to bury. She asked me if I would be afraid to wear the clothes ; I said no, I was more afraid of not having anything to wear. So she took the things out of the trunk, hats, shoes and dresses. She had me try them all on, and I thought what a good woman she must be to give me these clothes. After a day or two I said to her, " didn't those clothes fit me good," she an- swered yes, I wish I could sell them to you, you need clothing so badly, and they are all made and so cheap. My heart bounded at the thought of having a trunk all to myself, but how could I pay for them. She said you are very foolish not to get a good place "to board and get you something to wear. She gave me what she called a little good sound A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. (5U advice. She said: " You cannot cook, you have nothing to wear ; I feel- sorry for you ; of course I will let you stay here, but you need money. I know of a nice place for you to board where the woman would be as good to you as if you were her own child. I will see her for you if you will go, and get her to buy this trunk and clothes, then you can pay for it as you can," with these words she sent me to bed. I was weak with the thought of how friendless I was. What if this woman should turn me out upon the street and take her dress from me, what would I do ? As Eva had said, " one can not always die." If death had been offered me, young as I was, I would not have hesitated a moment, but I thought to kill one's self is a sin, that I know, but the other sin, though my soul revolted at the 70 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE thought, I had never been told in words (remember) what a terrible sin it was. Mrs. Haynes had said bad girls did not live long, and Eva had said we are all bad girls here, this was all the light I had on the subject. I argued think of it argued with myself about it. I thought of all I had passed through, the condition I was in, and then said to myself, "Why not?" all has happened to me that can, if I die, so much the better. I can never see mother again, I am so far away. I was dazed. If any one had told me I was ten thousand miles from mother I would have believed them. What was the difference, ten thousand or fifty, I would never see her. I could find no place to work ; no one wanted me; every one was so different from mother. Yes, it must be this woman knew best ; then what could I do if she turned me out, what would become of me? A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 71 So the next day I was at Mrs. Thomp- son's with the dead girl's trunk of clothes. My name was placed on the housekeeper's book opposite my name was a debt of $40, due Mrs. Rand trunk and clothes to be held until all was paid. And, now, I will touch as lightly as possi- ble on events (as I have no desire to make this book sensational). I realize how delicate the subject is to handle, and how incompetent I am to write upon it, yet I hope I will be able to write so that no one need take offense. Little or nothing has ever been brought to light concerning this life ; many girls are led into it blindly few by choice. Christian people refuse to listen, simply, and become acquainted with facts, while young girls in every city are ignorantly walking on to the life they will lead till they are lost in this world and in the world to come. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 12 Has society held out the same hope to them it has to the drunkard, the gambler, the murderer that their souls could be saved ? No, it has not. The years go by, remorse and sin do their work, and no prayer has been said over our dead ; we have lowered them into the grave with our own hands. Who made this law that our sin was so much greater than any other; that there was not even hope for the soul ? Did you ever hear of a beath-bed scene, where a fallen woman has been prayed with and expressed forgiveness, and believed siie was forgiven ? Still the murderer walks to the gallows, singing and praying, saying he is happy. The papers tell how the priests labored night and day with this man, and were so happy that at the last moment he had repented, and been saved. But the "women of the town" die and are buried without a hope. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 73 Society has made this law against us. A short time ago a woman died in this city who had given large sums of money to the Little Sisters of the Poor to help support their Home for the Aged. She had also bought a lot in the Catholic cemetery, but when she died this church refused her' burial in conse- crated ground. I do not believe consecrated ground would save that woman's soul but think of the attitude of society? It refused her burial in a lot her money had paid for, yet would accept large sums of her sin-stained money to build their Home and Church. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 75 CHAPTER VII. That night at Mrs. Thompson's, a crowd of the vilest-looking men came in. I was too frightened then to judge, but never since have I seen such looking faces. Mrs. Thompson was called "mother" by the girls, so you can see how low she had fallen, when she would let the poor girls call her by that sacred name. The men also called her mother. And I learned afterward that the public called her "Old Mother Thompson." She said to me : " My dear, make your- self at home with the gentlemen ; don't be afraid." They smoked and drank whisky, the 76 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. girls drinking with them. Then one man said, "let's have some music." Then another called out, "Yes, give us a song, girls. Mother, make the girls sing. Where are you, Mother ; come and make the girls sing." Mrs. Thompson came in and said, " Ma- mie, dear, sing for the gentlemen." Mamie was known as " The White Fawn." She was a tall blonde. When I had had more experience, I found that her habits of intem- perance had barred her from the better classes of houses of ill-fame. Mamie had a good voice and sang song after song, the men giving her drinks and money "for luck," as they called it. After each song she said, "This is the last I will sing for you." Finally she said, " I am going to Elkhart, Indiana, to-morrow ; a friend of mine is going to keep me." A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 77 I kept out of sight as much as possible. When at last the room was cleared of half its occupants, a half-drunken man espied me. He said, "Who is this, Mamie? Come out of that corner and take a drink." Taking- the bottle of whisky from his pocket he started toward me. I ran to Mamie, crying, " Don't let him touch me." She protected me, saying to him, " Don't make her drink, she is a new girl ; she hasn't good sense yet." Then to me, ' ' I believe you are sick ; go in my room and lie down, if you want to." So she took me in her room. She said, " You will have this room after I am gone, so don't cry. Lie down and when the house closes I will come ; you can lock the door if you want to." I had hardly turned the key when the house shook, and I could hear people running about, then a man's voice, saying : " She stole 78 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. a dollar from me ; I will knock her head off if I don't get my money back." I could hear a girl crying- (for by this time they were all in the sitting room) and swearing, and telling Mrs. Thompson, who had come in to .see what the trouble was, that she did not take a cent of the man's money ; that he slapped her in the face and dragged her around the room by the hair. He insisted she did take the money, and said : " Mother, I don't want to raise a racket in your house, but this thing has robbed me, and I want my money." It was all finally quieted down, Mrs. T saying, "You know, Bob, you have always been used like a gentleman in my house, and now you come here and get the girls drunk and get to fighting, and try to get me into trouble. I did not think this of you ; there is A MAGDALEN'S LIFE 79 a ' cop ' outside, and the house will he pulled if there is any more noise." So Bob said he didn't care for the dollar, but he wanted them to know he was no "spring chicken;" he didn't want to get the house in trouble, as she had always used him right. Then the men went away, and the house was closed. As soon as Mamie came to the door I turned the key, for I was sitting close by the door, frightened almost to death. I asked her if the man almost killed the girl ? She laughed, and said, " No, the girl is all right ; she took the money ; that is the way to do ; steal every cent you can from a man ; Mother knows how to fix things ; the girl never gets the worst of it." It's a tough place here, tho' ; what made you come here ; you don't drink, and you are young. You ought to be in a first-class 80 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. house, but not here. Girls get drunk here every day. I can't keep from drinking ; it's o-ot the best of me. If I could I would be in o a better house. " I am going to Elkhart, to-morrow ; if I had any money I would take you with me. I know of a good place to board there, and the landlady wants a girl. This friend of mine keeps a grocery, and has rooms over the store. If you only had some money." "But," I said, "even the clothes I have on are not mine." Then I thought of the clerk at the City Hotel; he had told me if ever he could befriend me he would ; perhaps he would give me the money. Mamie then said: "They beat you in selling you those clothes. They are not worth $10. Keep what you have on ; you worked hard enough to pay for them. She never did anything for that girl they be- A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 81 longed to. The rest all threw in to buy her a coffin." I thought a few minutes, then said : " Don't you think I could get a place to work in Elkhart ? " "I don't know," she answered ; "perhaps Miss Rett would let you work for her. You could not get a decent place after being in a sporting house." I told her that I thought the clerk at the City Hotel would give me a ticket, so we planned that I should go and ask him for the ticket, and then wait at the depot for her. At last she came, saying, " Mother almost had a fit when you did not show up ; but she will not lose anything ; she will send the trunk and clothes back." I was only too glad to get out of Kalamazoo. Mamie's friend did not meet her, as she expected. The disappointment made her want to drink. I begged her not to, but she 82 A MAGD ALEX'S LIFE. said, " Oh, you don't know how terrible it is. You would drink if you had the blues as I have." There were no hacks ; the depot was closed after this last train. The street lamps were out, the stores all closed. We went down the street to her friend's store. She rapped at the door. After a moment or two a voice said, "What's wanted?" She said, " Let me in." He soon came and opened the door. She went in, saying to me, " Come in." He looked displeased to see me. She began to upbraid him for not meeting her at the train. He answered, " Do you think I want to go to the depot to meet you well-known as you are here ? I supposed you would go over to Rett's and stay till I could see you." Turning down the light he told her to come up stairs, A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 83 and she told me to wait ; she would go and see what he had to say, and then come and take me to Miss Rett's, as I could not go alone it was such a rough place, unless one knows just where they are going so many railroad men and no officers. I sat down on a box, and she followed him down the store. As I sat there alone I tried to think it out : What had I done to be in such a condition ? I thought first of the lie I had told, then of the jail and poor-house. When I thought of the clothes I had on, I said to myself: " I stole these clothes ; she did not give them to me. I must have stolen them. Mrs. Rand never promised me anything except my board. Yes, I stole them. I was everything bad," I said to myself. Mrs. Haynes said bad girls did not live long. So I prayed once more the last time for months. I prayed God not S4 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. to let me see my mother once more, with all the. sin I had committed, but to "let me die." There was a big dog chained in the corner ; he had liad his supper or he would not have lain so quietly after his master had gone out of the store, but / had had no supper. I was faint with hunger. I could smell bread, and not far from the box, on which I was sitting was a barrel of crackers. I knew crackers were in the barrel, for my hungry eyes had discerned them as Mamie and her friend were talking. I thought if I only had some, but that would be stealing. Then I laughed; stealing? Had I not stolen all the clothes I had on ? But this was the first conscious theft. Then I looked all around, and whis- pered to the dog, that had opened his eyes : " I am hungry ; I am hungry ;" then I A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 85 laughed again. The dog could not under- stand ; he was not hungry. No, I said to myself, God has provided for him. He feeds the birds, mother used to tell us, but He has forgotten me. 1 am hungry. What do I care, suppose some one does find me stealing crackers, and put me in jail. I will not feel these pangs of hunger, so I took off my shoes and crept carefully up to the barrel, put my hand in, took one out, stuffed it in my mouth, and got back to the box and put my shoes on as quickly as I could. I waited a few minutes, nothing happened, off came my shoes, and this time I filled my hat full. I had had nothing to eat since morning, and it was now long past midnight. Did you ever steal anything to eat ? If you have, you know just the feelings I had as I stuffed cracker after cracker into my mouth, 86 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. and choked them down with no water, until I could hardly breathe. After I had eaten all I could out of my hat I took what remained and hid them around in the lining of my hat, for, I said to myself, I stole them. I am a thief, anyway ; what use to put any back ; I stole the hat full? That theft was my first conscious sin. I was so horrified at what I had done, after my hunger was appeased, that I stood in my own estimation as wicked as it was possible to be. I was not the pure girl in thought that was taken to jail in Grand Rapids. I was a thief. A MAGDALEN* S LIFE. CHAPTER VIII. The next morning Mamie came down stairs, saying, " My head is as big as a tub. I drank too much whisky last night, but I was mad to think he would send for me and then not meet me. Come, we will go over to Rett's. I was glad to get out, for I thought any one can tell a thief, and if he looks at me he will know I stole the crackers. We went way outside the city where there were no sidewalks. Elkhart was a small town, and although on account of being a railroad 88 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. center, this house was allowed there ; still they would not tolerate it down town. No one was up in the house, and Mamie went to one of the windows, calling to Rett to let her in ; a window was opened, and then the door ; we went in. Mamie asked her for board. The woman said, I have room for you. I looked at Mamie. She said, my friend wants me to stay here a week or two and then he will keep me. Rett said, Irish Ann is living up the railroad track, perhaps she would take her in. So Mamie said, I will take her up there and and be back in time for breakfast. We went about a mile up the track to a little house with three rooms. " Irish Ann," as they called her, said the boys would raise a racket with her unless she got a girl they liked the looks of ; one that did not get mad if they tried to have a little fun ; one that A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 89 could be one of the "gang." Mamie wanted .me to get a place here, so she said, " Oh, she has been in Grand Rapids." I thought of the "gang" I had seen on the "dock" in Kala- mazoo, and I thought to myself here is where I am to get killed. She had been to breakfast, and did not ask me if I had, so I waited until I could make an excuse to go outside. Then I ate the crackers I had in my hat, for we had had a long walk, and I was hungry. No one came near the house that night. The next day Irish Ann said, " I guess I will take you down town, so that the boys can see you, and then some of them will be up to-night." So we walked through the main street of the town several times,, and then back to her house. That night about fifteen railroad men 90 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. came to the house to have some fun, they said. They kicked the stove over and broke the windows. I ran out of the house and down the track as fast as I could, \\ ithout any hat on my head, or anything around me. I met two men who were Deputy Mar- shals. They stopped me, and asked what I was running for ? I told them, and they said, "We were coming out to 'Ann's.' We under- stood the boys were going to break the house up." They took me back with them. As we neared the house one of the men said, "What will we do, Tom? The man answering to the name of " Tom," said, " Let them give it to her ; she had one chance to leave town ; she knows the boys are all down on her." Just then the gang commenced leaving the house, and the officers went up on the bank, on one side of the house. As the men, A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 91 who had broken every window in the house, passed the officers, one of them said, " Hello, Gibbons." Then "Tom Gibbons" and his deputy went into the house, finding every- thing' broken up, and " Irish Ann " crying and saying over to herself, " I will send every one of you to State Prison." One of the officers said, "What's the trouble now, Ann?" She cried out, " Frank Rollins and his gang have been raising - with me, and broke up all my furniture." He said, "Well, I guess we will have to take care of you to-night ; come, get on your things and come with us." She said " I will not go, and I will squeal o"> you, Tom Gibbons, if you take me down to the lock-up." Nevertheless, two hours later Irish Ann and myself were in the lock-up- a small building having but one room, with a little win- dow near the top, crossed by three iron bars. 92 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. It was such a lock-up as may be seen in any small town where they may be sup- posed to have use for such a place once a week, or such a matter, to lock up a drunken man until he was sober enough to pay his fine, or be taken to the county jail. The next morning we were taken into Court ; the Justice of the Peace asked me where I belonged. I thought a moment and answered, "I don't know." He then asked me, "Where do you live ?" " I don't know," I again answered. He gave me a stern look and said, " We want no such characters here ; this woman you are living with promised to leave town the last time she was arrested." They gave me two hours to leave town, but Ann was given sixty days in the County Jail. Ann whispered to me, " You are in A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 93 luck," but I thought to myself, how I wish I had been given the sixty days. Ann was taken back to the lock-up, and the Marshal said to me, " Come, you better make tracks out of town ; you won't get off so easy the next time." I said, " How will I go out of town ; I have no money, and I don't know the way." He laughed and said, "Too bad about you you can't come the innocent game over me you found the way out to old Ann's all right ;" but, I said, a girl took me out there ; if you don't believe me you can ask her-; she is living at Rett M . " Oh," said he, "so, you were there too ; why did'nt you stay there ? then you would not be in this trouble. She has a little sense." "But," I said, "she didn't want me." " Then you must be pretty tough, if she wouldn't keep you. No use r,i A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. talking to me you heard what the Jud^e said. You better get out of the town before night, if you know what is good for you. Come, come, get away ! I want to lock Ann up, and get through with this business." I went out on the street and walked about for some time, not knowing which way to go. I had had no breakfast. I walked around from one street to another, wondering how do people leave town when they have no place to go. How much better will I be in another town ? Then I fell to wondering what they would do with me if they took me before the Judge again ; perhaps hang me ! I had heard at the time of the Chicago fire they had hung a man for lighting a match. That seemed a little thing compared to all I had done. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 95 Of course I hadn't the judgment then to see what made the difference. Night came. I had had nothing to eat. I was afraid to ask at-any house, for, I thought, they will know I was told to leave town. I did not know but any one who owned a house could arrest me. Officers of the law and the way the laws were enforced were all mixed up in my mind. I thought, the people knew all about it as well as God. I told that lie. I stole the crackers, and I am so wicked they didn't want me in this town. I thought, may-be if I was in another town, perhaps I would dare ask for something to eat. I will go to the depot and ask the conductor if I may ride on his train. I would have walked, but I was faint, hungry and cold. So I went to the depot and waited out- side, till some one- asked me if I was waiting 96 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE for the train. I said, " Yes, sir." He said, " The train is not due till ten-thirty." Then I knew that was the train we came on from Kalamazoo, and if the conductor would let me ride I would be going far away from Kalama- zoo. The man told me to go in the depot and wait. So I went in. Hope had sprung up again. I thought, perhaps if I can get to the next town some one will befriend me. After this hope came to me I was anxious to keep away from the officers. It was an hour and a half before the train would come ; so I sat and thought how I would say to the conductor : " Please let me ride on your train." I thought the conductors owned the trains. So I pictured to myself how, in a strange place, I would go out in the country and find me a place to work. But I would not tell all that had happened to me, or how wicked I A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 97 had been. I crouched down in the furthest corner of the bench in the depot, so the offi- cers would not see me if they looked in at the windows. Overcome by the heat of the room, I fell asleep. The train came and went, and still I slept the deep sleep of exhaustion. Soon the yard-man who had told me to go in the depot came to lock up the depot. " Wake up ! " he said ; " wake up ! Your train has gone." I had been so sound asleep I did not know, for a moment, where I was. I said, "Am I arrested?" He answered, " What is the matter of you ? Are you dream- ing ? Your train has gone and left you ? " Then I understood everything. He looked at me and said again, " You must be dream- ing. Don't you understand ? " What could 98 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. I say? His last words, "Your train has gone," were ringing in my ears. I got up and walked out of the depot. A man passed me with a satchel in each hand. Going to the door, he said, "Are there no lunch counters here ? " Lunch counter ! I stopped and listened. He continued : "This is a fine place everything dead before eleven o'clock." The yard-man told him there was a restaurant down town that did not close till after this train, and directed him where to find it. "All right," he answered, "thank you," and started down town as fast as he could walk. I looked around. There was no officer in sight, so I started after him as fast as I could go. He is a stranger, I thought. I heard him say so. I will ask him to give me something to eat He heard A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 90 me walking behind him, and stopped. I stopped, too. He walked on a few steps. So did I, then he stopped again. The streets were quite dark, and the depot some distance from the business street of the town. I hid near the fence, for I thought I would not ask him till he found the restaurant. He started on again, and so did I. Hearing my steps, he stopped once more, and, this time putting down his satchels, turned and came back a few steps, saying, " Who are you ; what are you following me for ; what do you want ?" Here is my chance, I thought to myself. I answered, " Something to eat ; I am so hungry." "Where is your home?" he asked. " I have no home." "Where do you belong ?" " No place." " How old are you ?" " Fifteen last April." It seemed to me his voice trembled as he 100 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. said, " Come along, I don't care where you belong, if you are hungry you shall have something to eat if it can be found in the town." He took me with him to the restaurant and order ed supper for himself and me. He took me in a little room, with a curtain. He said, "Now, what is your name ?" I told him. " Well, Geor- gie, order anything you want, and I will talk to you after you have eaten your supper, and see what I can do for you." After supper I told him all that happened to me. I have many times since then wondered if he believed me. I don't think it seemed credible to him, through all these places, and still so ignorant. After thinking some time he said to me, " If I paid your fare, and sent you to your brother's home, don't you think he would take care of you." I told him what Mr. Burlin- A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 101 game had done for me. " Then," he said, " I don't know how to befriend you. ! know of no place to send you. " I am traveling for a firm in Toledo. This is the first time I have made this town, so I am a stranger here. I will take you to a hotel and pay for your lodging, and then, some time to-morrow, I will come in and see you. In the meantime I will think what can be done for you." He went out in the other room to pay for the supper. While he was gone I gathered up the biscuits and crackers left on the table, and put them in the top of my hat, and then put it on my head quick, so they would not fall out. He took me to the hotel, told the clerk to give me a room, then, turning to me, he said, " I will see you to-morrow." The clerk took me up stairs, gave me a room, and started 102 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. to go down stairs, but turned back to give me the key of the room. Just as I was try- ing to take off my hat, he opened the door. I was startled, and the biscuit and crack- ers rolled all over the floor. Of course he laughed, but said nothing, as he gave me the key and left the room. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. CHAPTER IX. The next morning I was called to break- fast. Soon after a note came for me, with four dollars enclosed. He said in the note, I must try and do the best I could ; he was very sorry for me, and hoped everything would turn out all right for me. I thought to myself, the clerk told him of the biscuits and crackers, and he will not befriend me when he knows I am a thief. I knew afterward the hotel I was at was not the one where he stayed. Of course I have realized since it would not be just the thing to openly befriend a girl picked up on the street. 104 A MAGDALEN'S LfFE. That afternoon I tried to decide what would be the best thing for me to do. Per- haps, if I went to Toledo I would find people who were very different ; I may find some one like my mother. I started once more for the depot, went into the waiting room, and the first person I saw was "Tom Gibbons." He came toward meat once, and said, "I thought you were told to leave town." I told him of my going to sleep the night before and missing the train. He asked me what place I came from, and I told him Kalamazoo. He said, " Have you any money?" I opened my hand, showing him the four dollars. He said, " I guess you did not sleep much." As he spoke he took the money from my hand. "Now, I will give you one more chance to leave this place without get- ting into trouble again. I will buy you a A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 105 ticket back to Kalamazoo ; the train is due in forty minutes. I will see you on that train or lock you up in a hurry." I made no reply. What could I say ? The most of this was said in a loud tone of author- ity, and heard by the few people in the wait- ing-room. I sat down on one of the seats. I had had no dinner ; only my lodging and breakfast had been paid for at the hotel, so as I sat waiting, I took a biscuit out of my pocket and began eating it. 1 heard the Marshall telling some man he was talking with that I was a "tramp," (was I?) and had been arrested with Irish Ann, in her dive. "I am determined," he said, " to keep such characters out of the town. Elkhart is bad enough as it is." The train then came in. Tom Gibbons turned to me, saying, " Come," and I went with him. He gave the ticket to the conductor, and said 106 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. a few words to him, and then handed me a few cents of change. The train pulled out, and there I was going back to Kalamazoo. When the .conductor came through the train I asked him if I couldn't go to Toledo on the ticket the officer gave him for me. He said, " No, you should have bought your ticket for To- ledo, and taken the Air-Line Road," and passed on. About midnight the train arrived at Kal- amazoo. The hackmen were crying, " Hack to any part of the city." One of them, com- ing up to where I was standing, said, " Have a hack, lady ? " What did I see but the face of the man who had tried to make me drink. He said, " Why, where did you come from ? " " Elkhart," I answered. "Are you going down on the dock ? " he asked. " I know a woman who Vants a girl. Get in the hack A MAGDALEN'S LIFE 107 and I will drive you there." Ten minutes later I was in the house of Minnie Ray, known as " The Cottage." There is no need to go into details. I soon found I was expected to pay my board, dress like the other girls, and not to ask too many questions. Three weeks from that day, for the first time, I owned the dress I wore. I was told I must ask men to drink, and I must drink my- self if asked to do so by the gentlemen ; these were the rules of the house. I had been in " The Cottage " about five weeks, when the women on the dock gave a dance in the back room of a saloon near the dock. At that dance I was asked, nay urged, to take my first drink of whisky. - 1 had been drinking wine when asked, but this drink of whisky 108 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. made me frantic. Ever one was singing, some fighting. The man who had bought the whisky was talking to me, when a girl who said he was her lover walked up and struck me with her fist, knocking me down. The girls all screamed, "A fight! a fight!" and gathered around, crying, " Give it to her ! Give it to her ! " some claiming to be my friends, some hers ; all, as they said, anxious to see fair play. I fought savagely, not caring for anything, or realizing what I was doing, till some one shouted, "Police/" Officers came in and arrested us both. The next morning we were taken in court and fined $15 and costs, or sixty-five days in the Detroit House of Correction. The landlady of the girl who fought me came and paid her fine ; she had a trunk and A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 109 clothes, but I had nothing to secure Minnie Ray, and had run away from Mrs. Thompson; so I was taken to the workhouse just as I had been taken from the dance, with nothing around me, a cut and swollen lip, and a black eye. I was kept in a cell until my eye was better, then taken in the shop and taught to cane chairs. According to the rules, I was not allowed to speak to any one, unless to answer a matron. The first morning I curled my hair, after the line of girls from the tier of cells were in their places in the workshop. I was sent back to my cell to put on a net, and told not to curl rny hair again. There was a Bible in my cell. I read it nights as long as I could see, and thought of mother. When my time was nearly out, one of the matrons, who had, on several occasions spok- 110 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. en very kindly to me, asked me my name, and why I had been sent there. I told her, and she said, " Be a good girl when you go away, '31,' and never come back again." I prom- ised to remember, though I v/as that moment actually wishing I could stay there longer. When my time was up I was 1 given a work-house ticket back to Kalamazoo, and $1.90 I had earned by working over-time. On arriving at Kalamazoo I went at once to Minnie Ray's. Minnie told me she had all the girls she wanted at present, but that I could stay till I found a place. That night a man from Detroit came to the house. I asked him if he knew of any . place I could go, and he told me the best house of the kind in Grand Rapids was Mate Elli- ott's, and he would advise me to go there at once. He wrote a note to Mate Elliott, tell- A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. Ill ing her he had sent me ; so the next day I started for Grand Rapids, arriving early in the evening. She received me kindly, but told me I could not come in the parlors until I had something suitable to wear, like the other girls. The next day a dressmaker was sent for, my measure taken, and two evening dresses, white wrappers for day wear, slippers and silk hose were ordered. My bill was made out and I found myself $60 in debt for clothes, and yet no street dress nothing.! would take with me if I left the house only the clothes I had worn there. This is one of the rules of these houses. She was a very kind-hearted woman, but I had nothing to secure her. She kept what was called a first-class house. The girls were very different from those I had met before. 112 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. They did not drink nor swear. Nothing but champaigne was sold. A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 113 CHAPTER X. Weeks went by. I accepted the only life open to me, thinking I can live if others do. I did not dare even to hope to see my mother again. Many times I would find the girls crying in their rooms. One day I told one of the girls I had a mother. She asked, " Why don't you write to her ? " I told her I did not dare write and tell her where I was." " Of course not," she said ; "write and tell her you are living with your husband, or working out. If I had a mother I would write to her, no matter where I was or what I was doing. My mother died when I was only four years old, and my father gave me away. I have 114 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. never seen him, and do not even know where he is." This was a new idea to me. I had never thought of writing anything but the simple truth to mother how could I ? Still I longed so to hear from her ; it seemed years since I had seen her. After thinking some time I decided to write and not say one word of my trouble. She knew I was married. So that night I wrote a long letter, and sent it in care of my brother at Sand Lake. It was over a week before I received an answer, and then it came from Grand Haven. My mother was with a sister there. The letter was a loving one, as only a mother can write, telling me to put my trust in God ; He would always help me and care for me. She wrote ; " It all seems so strange to me, this marriage of yours you so young A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. 116 and inexperienced ; but I leave everything with God. I could do nothing for you. The prayers I pray for you I know will be answer- ed. Mother can not come to see you; so come when you can and see mother." It was hard for me to write to her that I was living with my husband, still, if I did not I couldn't write to her at all. I soon argued myself into lying to mother. It would make mother happy to think I was in a home of my own ; what difference would one more lie make ? So I wrote to mother regularly ; sent her money, praying God to forgive me if it was wrong to let her do unconsciously what she would not do if she knew use sin-stained A money. When my mother died I reached her bed- side in time for her to put her hands on my 116 A MAGDALEN'S LIFE. head and bless me, saying-, " Jennie, you are and have always been mother's good girl ; God will bless you for being such a good girl to mother." I thought I had made my eternal damnation still more certain by this deception; but what did I care, I had made her happier by it. Now, mother was gone, it didn't matter much to me what I did. I had to put her out of my thought in order to go on with the life I had now come to regard as my business. It is needless for me to open the door of the house of which I was Landlady for ten years, and yet I could show you how the wild revelry of sin does often drown the cry of aching hearts, and quench the sobs of peni- tence and remorse. I could prove the truth of that old statement, " Though I make my bed in Hell, behold Thou art there." [THE END.] '?*- \\ ^i-A^C \fc- ivi i~7* t f *$*'' i^K j,K^\ ^V'-N >ir fj&'Jjf* * *&s&^T&*i&2tz % ^ ^^^?^m ji&'J^TKtt&i%r.