"I want to stay here," the boy said, and with a jerk he freed himself from my hand. "I want to watch the boys play--run on the skates," and he turned away to watch one particularly able boy as he made fancy figures with his feet.
"Where are your skates, Mike?" I questioned.
From the empty lot flew a ball. Mike caught it and was about to throw it back when one of the boys called out:
"Hi, Hi, Mike--charity kid--hurry up. Throw the ball here. Hurry up."
Angry, Mike threw the ball in the opposite direction and flashed back a short sentence that gave his opinion about his insulter. A fist fight was the result and the poor lad would have gotten the worst of it had not his mother suddenly appeared from behind, and hitting the aggressor and the child she separated them and took her son home. He wriggled as though he wanted to go back to fight, but his mother had him well in hand. I followed them. At the entrance of the hall I waited a few minutes before knocking at the door, listening. The mother scolded, the boy cried and a little girl's voice pacified.
"Yes, sir," the woman answered, and as she spoke she removed her coat and rubbers.
About thirty, care-ploughed face, weak eyes, colourless lips, stooped, narrow, short of breath.
"Could we go into another room or would you send the children out so we can talk at our ease, Mrs. B.?"
The woman thought for awhile, then she beckoned to the children, who went into another room. I came straight to the point. I claimed that I was from the Gerry Society and that the children were not well taken care of.
"Where are you the whole day? You leave the children on the street, their shoes are torn, their clothes not suitable to the season--they are hungry, dirty."
The woman cried, whined. She was a poor widow. Charities gave her too little and all the rest of the story that I expected.
"But where are you the whole day long and late at night?" I insisted.
She gave a thousand explanations, none of which were true. The last one was that she went to neighbours in order to save coal. At this point the boy came out from the other room. He looked determined, and he had a little book folded in his hand.
"Mamma lies. She goes out for business. She sells laces and curtains."