The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-21

many cf the human values
 rated or ssused iust ss the up North or in ether portions oi country. I was raised to the helisi msn are dangerous. treacherout frivolous-but that . giIi's desti to be the mate of one Of them.
 My mother had married whAz was something like fifteen, and died when I vas lsss than that. father. . Frsnch,Itslisn brute wit last word in the customs of the of those Latin countries in slave children to their parents, had me so terrorixsd throughout my childhood and young wonanheod that I lived Ike . trained yeuns bear.
 ! am sure that hs killed my mother with abuse. though he loved her with . passion which probably few Ansle-gaxons can comprehend. He idelized ne, too, because ! locked like her and because ! was his. t is hard to explain how he could adore me and maitreat me. but those who understand will need no ansiysis. and those wha dan't wouldn't accept one.
 ! worked for him at hems. kept house, waited on him hand and foot and night and day. when he was drunk or soher-- and did sweatshep sewing the rest of the time, so that I prac- ticaily supported him from the time was twelve.
 He spent his life svagseFiHg and bullying aud playing esrds around the dingy saloons In the French quarter, and his ccmpan- ions were low river rats and worse in those days, ten years > ago, when New Orleans had an underworld of international characters that perhaps wasn't equaled on this hemisphere.
 He was an absolutely unneral man, who sneered openly at the conventions and accepted meth ,ods of civilized thought.
 He saw me growing into ma ture femininity, and it kept growing on him that I had a arket value. His bestial cro- .nieS used to look atm with un-| mistakable desire, and he meas ured life by the same elemental impulses, regarding those, who didn't as either fools or liars.
 It chanced that the foreman of the shop where l got nay work : and delivered it became infatus atsd with me when l was acarce. ly fifteen, He sased himself into our family life. made g close friend and warm ally of my father by lending hipa . few rneasly dcl- lars. and he made my life one amending torture with his crude advances and rude eveFtures.
 He was . married man, there fore did not dc ne the compli- ment to offer nae honorable mst- rimony. I ceuidR't hit him on the head with a chair, as I warmly longed to do. because my father approved him and be- calss my earnings depended on him.
 When his approach became uA, besFable. takipg the manifesto. tioH of actual physicsl struggles. teld my father would have to ordeF this man out. Ne looked at Iae as though l had gene mad. WhatH Drive away our bread and butter, his friend and ready lender? l was crazy.
 As well aa I knew my father, even I was dWmbteuudsd. It be- gan to dawn on ne that he was willing to sacrifice me to this sws for the. sake ef few paltFy q, dollars weren't ss plentiful then but even se--lt was ghastly,
 We quarreled. ! was soundly { manded to keep friends with this to forget ray high-sounding non was right and what wasn't.
 I tock my bruised body to b prayed aad wFunS my hands. ' should have run away-gopa than
 But that Is easier said than dol my father and-wstrangeF than tha would sell me for the price of q -I loved him. Besides, this wa never known any other, MoFec and stoIidly obstinate. perhaps. h daring. And, as stEoeious ss wh sounds to yeu--and now appear region and In thst spirit in whic the whole neighhcEheed were el with ell tho facts, l dare say n would have sided with me.
 Nevertheless. before l fell asle oath on nay mothers soul that I
 By tact I kept the foreman at while. but he--emboldsAed by a { exchanged with my father mea tain--stiIl was determined to c Hsved waa bis,
 oas sIsHing. whi!s we were