Sam Scott sent back a look for an answer, and the questioner sneaked away.
I shook with the cold morning air, for I brought no wrap. One woman, who carried a baby dressed only in its nightgown, stared at me, and I saw her hastily throw her apron over her head and go out, running against the door as she turned. Soon she came back. I noticed her eyes were very red. She brought me an old pieced bed-quilt, and told me to put it around me to keep me warm; to take it with me, and if I didn’t have a chance to send it back I needn’t; and abruptly as she came she rushed away.
The train arrived and we entered the smoking-car, leaving Sam Scott on the platform. I looked at him and endeavored to speak, but the words stuck in my throat. He guessed what I wanted to say, and stammered,
“Now, you, missis, keep still will you. I know, don’t I—how that blamed sun does hurt my eyes!” and he began gouging one eye with the knobby knuckles.
Arriving in Buffalo, I saw drawn up in the depot yard a patrol-wagon, with three brass-buttoned officers seated therein. I knew they were waiting for us, and that Bilkson had telegraphed for them, possibly to deepen my humiliation. As we descended from the car, Bilkson called out in the direction of the officers,
“Here they are, and you’d better look out for ’em! Just look at me all chawed up. An awful fight we had!” And surely he looked as if he spoke the truth, for a half dozen dirty men had contributed a dirty handkerchief apiece to tie up his broken head. “Take no chances, or you must run your own risks,” he continued.
At this one of the officers went back to the patrol-wagon and returned with handcuffs.
“Here, old gal,” he said, “we’re used to sech as you—the worse you are the better we like you! Spit and kick and scratch now all you want, but put on the jewelry just for looks, as it is Sunday morning, you know.”
I felt the cold steel close with a snap around my wrists, we were pushed into the wagon, Bilkson climbed on the seat with the driver, and amid a general yell from a party of street gamins we dashed up Exchange street. The bells were ringing, calling worshipers to church. Children dressed out in stiff white dresses, women daintily attired, family groups, we passed on their way to church, and they turned to look with wondering eyes.
At Michigan street I saw coming toward us a form I knew full well, the first and only face which I had seen—it seemed for years—which I might truly call friend. It was Martha Heath, walking briskly forward, going I knew to a mission Sunday-school on Perry street, where she taught a class of grinning youngsters. She, too, looked at the patrol-wagon with its motley load, and I saw she did not recognize me. I thought of calling to her, but the restraining influence of the officer’s club, who sat close to me, froze the words on my lips. Still she looked. I held up my hands showing the handcuffs in mute appeal. I saw the books drop from her grasp. Her hand went to her head in dazed manner—she reeled—staggered—and grasped a friendly railing as we whirled by.