Upon our discovering that she came from Oakland, Alameda County, I was
requested to remove her early the following morning to that place. Poor
wronged child! She was perfectly pliant in my hands. I felt as though I
could not be tender enough. On the train she told me her story.
Her father and another man were hung by a vigilance committee in
northern California for highway robbery and murder. The shock and
horror of this cost her mother her life. Martie was an orphan as soon
as she came into the world. Her grandmother cared for her two years,
and then she died. On her death the baby was placed in the Salvation
Army home for homeless children at Beulah. At the age-limit (fourteen)
she was hired out as domestic for a lady about to become a mother, who,
as soon as able again to resume her household duties, discharged the
girl. Then Martie began to drift. No one really cared for the poor
wronged child. For about a year she procured one temporary situation
after another in inferior places, visited cheap vaudeville shows and
dances, and made the acquaintance of undesirable people, amongst whom
was the young man now awaiting trial for vagrancy in San Jose.
Upon reaching Oakland, I at once repaired with my charge to the office
of the chief of police. He referred me to the mayor, who, in turn,
referred me to the supervisors. Not knowing any of the latter, I threw
myself on the kind mercies of the chief, who, after much difficulty,
succeeded in locating one; and late in the afternoon I procured a pass
for Martie into a certain ward of the county infirmary of Alameda
County.
Rest assured I did my utmost in the short while at my command to convey
the Master's message of love and pardon for her and "whosoever will";
promised to write, also soon to visit her; and then, my heart heavily
weighted, bade the poor, wronged girl farewell. It was indeed and in
truth farewell. I never again laid eyes on her, for she disappeared
within two days, and not until I read two years ago of her death by
carbolic acid, did I learn the ultimate fate of this another victim of
pre- and post-natal conditions.
In consequence of this and other similar cases that were being refused
the home, I realized that we must have a sanitarium on our grounds as
soon as the bulk of the debt had been wiped out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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