uldn't do nothing, and they took me down to Jefferson
Court. I hoped I would never see that place again, but there I was with
the girls and the bums and the plain closemen and the cops and the
shister lawyers and the probation officer who knew me at once as your
sister, and I kinda felt I was up against it. But I told my story
straight to the Judge, and the man told his, and of course the Judge
took his word against mine and he fined me ten dollars or ten days. When
I thought of that ten dollars and what it meant and how hard I had saved
and scrimped for it, and how I had gone without things and that Billy
wouldn't have the winter things that he ought to have, I just lost my
head and I told the Judge he was an old fool, that if he couldn't tell a
lie from the truth, he had not orter be a setting up there like an old
brooding hen. I told him he didn't see nothing but crooks, and he
couldn't tell a crook from a decent person and then he got back at me by
saying, "_Did_ I say ten dollars or ten days, I made a mistake, I meant
ten dollars _and_ ten days," and I had to go to the Island. I don't
think I was ever so broke up in my life, it didn't seem I was getting a
square deal. I suppose I did say things I shouldn't have, cause I was so
mad I couldn't see and then I cried all night. I wrote a letter to Mrs.
Smith and told her just how it was and asked her to go and see the woman
I worked for and tell her about it and not blame me. Now, Mrs. Smith
believed me and came over to see me on the Island but that other woman
didn't believe me and went down to the night court and saw the probation
officer and I guess she got the idea you built the Jefferson Court with
your fines. Anyway, she said she didn't want me in her house no more. I
guess she is afraid I would hurt the dishes. When I got out I went up to
see her and her face was hard and nasty and she wouldn't take my word at
all. I asked her if she seen a thing out of the way for four months, if
I hadn't done my work right and if I hadn't stayed in nights and been as
good as any girl she ever had. She said "yes" to them all, but she
didn't believe in encouraging vice and she never could tell what I might
do because I come of a bad family. She got your record from A to Z and
she even knew about father and she acted as if she thought perhaps,
that all the cussedness of the family was stored up in me and might
have busted any minit.

Well, it made me all sore, and I come right down