The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior AnalysisThomas, William Isaac
Science
The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis
Thomas, William Isaac
Female juvenile delinquents -- Case studies; Young women
81. I come to this country when I fourteen years old with my mother and
father and brothers and sisters. My father go back to Italy three years
ago when sick. I work as operator and earn $3 a week. Then I get $6 and
for two years I make $9. I walk with my friend Florence who live in same
street and we meet Frank Marino drinking soda. He ask me if I have a
drink and I say “No”, and he say, “Come on, don’t be bashful, take a
drink.” After we take a drink he say, “I take you girls to moving
pictures.” I say, “No, I can’t.” He say, “Oh, come on; I own a moving
picture place; it do you no harm to go.” We went into a place after a
while. When we come out, he say, “You come again to-morrow; I take you
again.” I say, “No, I can’t go, my mother would not like.” He walk home
with me and I say to him, “If you want to know me, come in; here’s the
house; I live here.” He say, “No, you meet me on Wednesday and I take
you to moving pictures.” I told him “No.” He say, “Yes, you come.”
Florence say, “You go; maybe he’s your luck; you get married. He seem
like a nice fellow.” So I say, “You go with me and I go. I afraid to go
alone.” Wednesday we go again and I not tell my mother. Saturday I go
with him again and Florence too. He introduce her so she had man, called
Jim, to take her. When we come out he say, “I take you now to see my
mother and sisters on Charles Street.” I not want to go; I was afraid,
but he say, “Florence and Jim go too; my mother and sisters want to see
you.”
So we go and he want me to go upstairs and I say, “No, I afraid.” He
say, “Oh, you have a bad mind; you think bad. My mother is upstairs
waiting for you; come on.” I step into the hall and he shut the door and
Florence outside. Then he say, “Come upstairs; don’t have such a bad
mind,” and I say, “Why not Florence come too?” and he say, “Oh, Jim got
a key, he come.” We get upstairs, he push me in a room and lock the
door. He say, “Now I got you here I do what I want,” and I say “No”, and
I try to get out and I can’t. Then he takes out a pistol and hold it
right up against my ear. He know I was a good girl, and I say, “Are you
going to marry me? If you don’t, I kill myself. I will jump out the
window.”
I go home to my mother and I tell her. She faint. I most crazy and she
too. She says, “He must marry you and your brother must not know or he
kill him.” We are a respectable family and my father he has property. I
see Frank after this and tell him he must marry me now that he knows I a
good girl, and he say he would and on next Tuesday we go to City Hall.
He takes out license and we was married by some man there. Then he takes
me to a furnished room. All the time we was in this room he just bring
me things to eat like crackers, cheese and a little wine. He twice try
to make me go on the streets and the first time he beat me and pull my
hair and knock me around; he show me a pistol till I faint on the floor
and then he throw water over me and tell me not to be so foolish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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