never stopped wheeling it until she
had compassed the entire six miles. She and Joe rented the old room
and went to housekeeping. The rich and respectable husband made every
effort to persuade her to come back, and then another series of
efforts to recover his child, before he set her free through a court
proceeding. Joe, however, steadfastly refused to marry her, still
"sore" because she had not "stood by." As he worked only
intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the police to do
much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support the humble
menage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and by washing "the
odd shirts" of the lodgers. For five years, during which time two
children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the taunts of
her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to give
help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her course
with no shade of regret or sorrow. "I'm all right as long as Joe keeps
out of the jug," was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps,
but genuine and "game." Her surroundings were as sordid as possible,
consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap "furnished rooms"
in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better
days. But Molly's heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was
never desolate until her criminal lover was "sent up" again, this time
on a really serious charge.

These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which
each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in
which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection
arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there
who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl
who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and
goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion
of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to
marry her, these are also impressive.

One of our earliest experiences at Hull-House had to do with a lover
of this type and the charming young girl who had become fatally
attached to him. I can see her now running for protection up the broad
steps of the columned piazza then surrounding Hull-House. Her slender
figure was trembling with fright, her tear-covered face swollen and
bloodstained from the blows he had dealt her. "He is apt to abuse me
when he is drunk," was the onl