“I know the law’s got me,” he cried. “I know it can hang me or put me in prison. But I had to do it. I had to give myself up.
“And to think I never meant to kill him, only to lay him out and make him let me alone!”
Then Charles Hyde cried, not the tears of blessed relief, but the scalding tears of those who must stand helpless and non-understanding before grim-countenanced Fate.
They called her Mandy on the farm and they made much of her.
She was the only daughter the Noyers had and nothing was too good for her. So “dad” said--and mother agreed.
Mandy didn’t realize how happy she was. She was ambitious and wished to see the city. She had an aunt in Chicago, Mrs. H. Bole, of 1856 Dolphin street. Why couldn’t she go to Chicago, study stenography and live with auntie?
Her parents didn’t like to have her go, but she insisted. So they kissed her and sent her away.
She went to the Weston School at 175 North Wabash avenue for some time--and then, last June, she had a quarrel with her aunt and went to live at 1809 West Wilson street.
She made the acquaintance of Thomas Hazen of 4009 Jackson boulevard and Mandy quit the school. Only she wasn’t Mandy any more. Her name was Thelma Beyers.
Hazen and the girl, who is only 16 years old, were arrested by Detective Sergeant George E. McCormick and Mandy wept and told her story.
It had been a gay life, she said, fascinating and swift.
But if mother and “dad” down in Siddon, Ill., will forgive her she will go home and stay there for good.
But Mandy is needed as a witness against Hazen and five other young men for whom warrants were obtained yesterday.
And she will have to appear against the proprietors of the Congress Café, Charley West’s, the Café De Luxe, the Delaware, and eight or ten other cafés which sold her gin fizzes, highballs and other drinks; and against the owners and proprietors of eight or ten hotels that admitted her--a girl just out of short skirts--without asking questions.
Then there is a woman of a good family on the West Side who will be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
So it will be a long time before Mandy can go home.
Michael O’Rourke loved his wife and his two little daughters and their little home. That was in Airdale eight years ago.