Evening star., 1922-03-26
RICH WOMAN SEEKS SON
IN BOWERY:: POOR ONE
STARTS WEST FOR HERS
Continued from First Page. }

out of New York in a poor bedraggled
motor car which she bought wisn her
savings. carrying everything she owns.
and ready to back her belief against
the hardships of the road.
Mrs. Duffield, whose seventeen-year-
old son Gordon rebelled against school
life in Plainfield, n. j., and fed to the
Bowery, let her presence be known
here on her arrival and the boy re-
sHonded with telephone calls. But
always. after telling her he would
come to see her. he failed. Tonight his
mother appeared on the verge or
breakdown and feared approaching
illness would force her to return
home tomorrow.
She picked up her search today at
the point il left off last night. when
telephone call from her son was
ira ced to a drug store on oth avenue.
Frail, still youthful in appearance
despite the worry she has experienced
she entered squalid roOming houses.
rubbing shoulders with unkempt men
some of whom leersd at her. She
never fiinched
She mingled with the flotsam and
jetsame of Bowery life, asking if any
one had seen boy OF fiVe ket nine,
dressed in a faded blue suit.
At one restaurant she was told that
boy answering the general descrip-
tion of Gordon had washed dlshes
there-up to yesterday. AT squaild.
25-cents- "a bed rooming house, not more
than two blocks distant, she was IN
formed that a youth who might nave
been Gordon had slept there-up to last
night.
At another restaurant sleepy
habitue reused himself enough to tell
the mother that "a kid like that guy
But at Cooper Union. which for eight
days has been the center OF her
frantic search. there was no sign or
her boy.
Gordon, SO he has told her over the
telephone. is trying personally con-
Quoted experiment. He wants 10 ex-
perience real poverty, to see what 1t Is
like.
But he wants to be good to me.
know he does" she said, Il can't be-
lieve he wants to make me su1er. he
may be starving. l know he has no
money. If he would only come ana see
me-"
And Gordon, with an air of bravado.
breezeS into a pay station telephone
different one each night-calls up his
mother. calls her mons" promises to
go at once to her hotel and see her
and each night leaves her to sit with
eyes glued on door which never
opens.
In Henry street tenement, diff
ferent scene.
A few days ago Mrs. Whitaker told
her neighbors that at last she had put
away enough pennies to make possible
her journey into the west and tonight
she was pushing forward with her
plans just as determinedly as if the
west were only as big as Central
Park.
Four years ago, in Oklahoma City,
she separated from her boy Sidney
who is two years older than Gordon.
The lad drifted up to the wheat belt
and his mother to New York.
Seated in her dingy tenement. up
three flights of stairs, she told news
pa per man that when she drives out of
New York Tuesday, with a few gallons
of gasoline in the tank of her car. she
first is going to strike out for Kansas
City.
For it was from Kansas City that
Mrs. Whitaker last heard from her
son. Later she received word from an
employment agency in Sapulpa. kans..
that a boy resembling her son had
signed from there for work in the
Kansas and Missouri wheat belt. So
after Kansas City, Sapulpa.
Il can find him., she said, II know
can. because know it in my mothers
mind.
!, "You see this picture. 1t is the last
one 1 ever had of him. / am taking
1t with me. Somehow. when l see it,
feel more certain he is going to be
waiting for me-"
The heart of Henry street goes with
her. More than that, a small purse
will be given her. for although the
neighbors can afford only a few pen
nies, they are gathering those that can
be spared.