Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/294

 that night she had started for the home of the girl whom she was to visit—the girl not having attended school that day—and while passing a house in a respectable residential district, about five o'clock of the winter evening, darkness already having fallen, a woman came to the door and in great distress told the girl that a baby was sick, that she was alone, and implored the girl to come in and care for the baby while she ran for a doctor. The girl complied, and on reaching the door, was immediately seized, drawn into the hallway, her cries smothered by a hand in which there was a handkerchief saturated with chloroform, and she knew no more until she regained consciousness in the place where the social worker had rescued her.

Here his direct recital ended. I put to him two or three questions: Who is the girl? Where is she now? Where is the house into which she was beguiled? Where is the brothel in which she was imprisoned? He had answers for all these. The girl's name could not be divulged, even in official confidence, for the family could not risk publicity; the house where she had been summoned to care for the ailing baby was the home of wealthy and respectable people, who had been out of town at the time, and their residence had been broken into and used temporarily by the white slavers. As for the brothel, the social worker, by methods he did not disclose, had compelled the proprietress to leave the city, and the place was closed.

Such was the amazing adventure of the social worker. It was easy to imagine the effect of it when