Evening star., 1936-04-30
INSTALLNIENT XIII.

for some time under surveil-
L lance by the police. Counter
felt money and Tony had seemed to
be strangely connected. and it was
upon the less important suspicion that
police had broken into T'onys place on
a bitter Winter morning to find datty
sick and alone in a filthy bed with a
poisoned baby dead and rolled up in
old blankets in fruit box nearby,
and every evidence of hunger, cold,
penury, illness, animal-like ignorance
added to the open evidence of crime.
Tamara had attended the court ses-
sion several days before to hear the
testimony that proved that Hatty had
asked a neighbor how a person could
kill baby, and had herself bought
the carbolic acid from which the 4
week-old child had died. She had
seen the faces Of the jury as they
listened.
''Oh, dear, I wish I didn't care!"
Tamara thought, as the district at
torney began his onslaught viciously,
reminding the jury that no life was
safe while friends incarnate like this
murderess were at large, and moving
on through the sordid details of her
youthful degeneracy, her petty thefts,
runaways, escapadeS-her final COM
plete abandonment of morality as
shown by her joining this man, this
thief, ex-convict, forger :.
mo hope! George must know
there's no hope" Tam thought as the
imprisoned eloquent phrases went on
and on. And she could have embraced
the newspaper man nearest her for his
thoughtful whisper at the highest
point of the attack. Lay of, Mullins.
1t won't get you anywhere!"
When Mullins sat down, wiping his
brow after IS minutes of denunciation,
George quietly stood up. For a few
dreadful minutes Tam thought that
his manner indicated that he had
completely lost interest in Hatty. had
abandoned hope. George was thought
full, almost distracted In manner; now
and then he looked at Mullins, but he
was facing the jury, and his appeal
was, of course, made to them.
This girl, had she fully understood
what it was all about, could have pre-
sented a case for herself that would
have kept her from ever seeing the
inside of this court room," George
said But Hatty Elliot is not expert
enced in legal matters, and she was
bewildered by the thunderbolt that
fell on her"
The splendid, unstrained voice went
on, not so much persuasive as reason
able; there was restfulness about it
after Mullins pyrotechnics. Tamara,
listening intently, as every one else
was listening, felt her heart begin
to thump- -thump-thump with the
painful beginnings of hope. George
couldn't-it wasn't possible-it simply
couldn't be that Hatty Elliot had a
chance.
. and this neighbor-not the
State witness she was later persuaded
to be. but friendly neighbor when
she used to visit Hatty Elliot-told
you herself how she accented that
phrase" George was presently saying
This neighbor Ella Carlingsen. was
on this stand for an hour, and for
that whole time that one phrase, those
few words, were under discussion. She
didn't change the intonation, did she?
She's simple woman herself, she
didn't realize how the police had in
terpreted that phrase when they first
wrote it down; it was just words in
a strange tongue to her. She says
that she went over to see Hatty Elliot
the day the baby was two weeks old
The girl had no money, no fire, no
food; she was nursing her child. Ella
Carlingsen tells Hatty that children
are terrible care and expense and
commiserates her, and Hatty says,
ELLA, how could any one destroy a
baby?' Not, ladies and gentlemen
what it means when you leave the
accent off, is it? Write it down and
1t says, How can I kill this child.
how can I destroy my baby?' But
say it as Hatty Elliot said it, and as
Ella CarlingSen has accented it every
time she repeated it, and you have
something different. Then you have a
girl OF 20, ignorant, cheated out of
youth, victimized by circumstances
and society and vice into life not of
her choosing, life not the most
hopeless idiot would choose, and be-
trayed into motherhood, she who has
told you that she never had a little
baby in her arms until then. A girl
whose child is born on bitter Winter
morning in shanty without heat,
without food. without care.
And yet she loves this child so
dearly that when neighbor, herself
poor, slips in with half a bottle of
milk and some bread she finds this
baby at Hatty Elliot's breast, and
Hatty was crying and there were
tears on the baby's face, and one of
them touched his mouth and he kind
OF made a face and the young
mother says to Ella that a girl she
knew in the Rescue Home told her
she had killed her baby, but how
could any one destroy a baby?' She
sort OF laughed when the baby made a
race, the neighbor says, as every
mother In the world laughs when her
child is safe at her breast. Ella saws
tnat she herself has got job in Colma
and Is going away, and she gives
Hatty a dollar, and Hatty tells her
that the baby has been born with a
croupy cough. What do you do for
bad cough? Ella says she always
gives her children vaseline, just plain
vaseline, in their mouths, and the fol-
lowing day Hatty wraps herself and
the baby up, and limps over to the
drug store, and with some of Elias
money buys tube of vaseline. She
doesn't know enough to say white