The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1915-11-26
+ OUT OF THE NIGHT u
THAT COVERS ME
Il THE STORY OF A WOMAN WHO FOUND HERSELF |
N AS TOLD TO ELIZABETH BURGESS HUGHES. \
ILL., At

\ A huge carving knife lay on the
tipsy table. | snatched it up and
sprang toward him. He threw up
his hand and the knife struck his
wrist. A squirt of blood dashed halt
way across the room-toward the cof-
fin where Jimmy lay, for the first
time peacefully out of the family up
roar.
Like frightened bull, the man
gave one below and ran out into the
hall, yelling for help. l turned and
looked at my mother. She was sit
ting up, pushing back her disordered
hair.
why, you hadn't ought to done
that, Lorena," she said, vaguely.
The place sickened me. | went
over to the broken window and began
to climb out upon the fre-escape.
Goodbye, nanny" | said, and
think l smiled at her. 1t must have
been tragic effort. She only
stared, with that vague, indifferent
look, until l disappeared.
Out in the street | drew long
breath. 1t was not quite day. Thick
spangly stars were scattered like an
angelic rash across the face of the
heavens. Even as looked they he
gan to fade. was girl-siXteen
and utterly alone. My body-jt
must be fed and somehow clothed. |
didn't think of my soul. | duobt if
| knew then that ones soul must be
fed, too.
walked up and down the still
morning streets. That scene in the
room l had just left would haunt me
forever-the coffn's disfgured face,
the sobbing figure of my mother
kneeling near him.
Sometimes even now, in the happi-
ness and warmth of these, my later
years, that scene seems to come up
before me and clutch at my throat
| doubt if ever | shall be wholly free
from its memory. In crowd-a the
alter or church-perhaps at an overly
decorouS house of mourning
under the poisoning apple trees OF
April, that old strangling memory
may pounce upon me. 1t is a
bitter thing so to brand the soul of i
child. Somebody, somewhere, | yer.
itably believe, must, in old-fashioned
parlance, ANSWER" for this tremen-
dous wrong.
After a time the streets woke up
and the shutters of slum "candy
kitchen" opening as | passed, | went
in and asked for work. | was not
unfamiliar with the matter of hunt
ing for work. For the past four
years l had been stumbling through
various odd jobs, with Indifferent sue
cess. Things had suddenly changed
| had come alive. must work to
live. Weak and ill-nourished though
| was, the spirit of Goliath wrought
within me- No, they had nothing for
me to debut the cafe next door was
wanting waitress. One had been
killed the night before-fell down an
elevator shaft. | might look in
maybe they'd take me as a tempo.
rary."
l looked in, and they took me. The
Tuning, quarreling kitchen grasped
at the chance. was rather small
but I'd do for today anyway. With
a sense of relief took the big white
apron they provided and began to set
tables under the cooks direction. 1t
was very early in the day, but a
woman covered in spangles, and a
fashy-eyed man were drinking at a
table in the rear. was not expert
enced enough to be fastidious. The
place seemed to be very grand. Now
that | know what it was, | think my
guardian angel must have kept close
to me during the two years that fol-
lowed, for | became a permanent"
Naturally, | learned much that was
evil, but daily contact robbed it of
its novelty. The leering, insulting
men were part of the job. They in
terested me no more than the wall
paper That may have been because
| had no consciousness of sex. My
childhood, deprived and nerve-strain-
ed, had robbed me of the vitality
should have had. 1t was long in re-
turning. Life was such a struggle
to make ends meet that there was no
room for firtations. Besides, | was
not in the least pretty-nOt even at
tractive. But l had brains. | was
waking up to the fact that l had
them, and even the hard, exhausting
work, the long hours of standing and
walking laden with heavy trays, could
not repress the mental energy slow
lily bubbling within me. | must make
something of myself. There was so
much to learn.
With this ambition to spur me on
left the cafe, with its constant de-
mands and late hours, and found a
position as one of seventeen trim
mers" in a ready to -wear-hats de-
partment. The work was confirming
but we got out at six. That left me
, free to attend night school. My
wages were so small that the ques.
ton of sufficient food was a constant
torment. At the restaurant had haC
enough to eat, of its kind, and hal
: shared room upstairs with another
: waitress, a girl to whom may pos
Sibly owe my salvation. She was 81
: questionable that involuntarily
leaned the other way. Now, room
= ing alone in a tiny, rat-infested atti
. room in a very cheap boarding
' house, | was compelled into weaken
/ ing makesshifts for meals, and grey
= thin and listless with the strain of il
t However, one of the statesmen VIII
! occasionally came in to Oversee gu