Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/751

 TIVO WEEKS IN DEPARTMENT STORES

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uproar which followed was mob-like in its intensity. The boys were going to shoot the offender, they said, but he only smiled, secure in the justness of his attack. The case was afterward reported to the managers, but no reparation was ever made. The girl was unable to work the next day on account of the soreness of her back. In addition to the physical discomfort she had to endure, she lost a day's wages. From that warlike atmosphere we went forth into the night, and many of us had o go alone. That night I felt timid ; so I asked if anyone was going my way. A little cash girl of only thirteen years spoke up and said : " I'll go wid yez." She had eight blocks to walk after she left me. The only mitigating circumstance was her total lack of fear. She was used to sights and sounds to which I was a stranger. There were always men on the street corners ready to speak to a girl alone, and one hesitating step meant danger. Almost every morning the girls had some story to tell of encounters with men of that class ; and that they were not exaggerating was proved satisfactorily to me by an experience of my own. I stepped from the car one night after midnight, and soon found that I was being followed. The chase con- tinued for two blocks, when I staggered breathless into my door- way, with my pursuer not five feet away. My terror had given me power to outrun him.'

I always pitied the cash children. Many of them were too young to be working, but the sin was at their parents' door. They placed on file the required afifidavits,' and the employer asked no questions. One little girl confessed to me that she was not quite twelve years old, but she told me not to tell any- one, because her mother told her to say she was fourteen. This burst of childish confidence came when I was pitying her because she had the toothache. The poor little things always had the toothache. There seems to be something about enforced work that brings on that malady in a child ! But their trouble was probably more real than imagined. They often carried

'This happened during my second week.

"The child-labor law of this state requires all children under sixteen to file affi- davits sworn to before a notary public.