"Hold on," said Dollie, at the same time looking at a beautiful gold watch on her breast, "I think I will have time before the train comes [the depot was but a block away] to tell you my story….
"When I was fourteen years old, I had the misfortune to lose my dear mother, who died in childbirth. Father was a very hard-working man, a mechanic. He broke up housekeeping for two reasons: First, because mother had been very indulgent, so that I didn't know the first thing about domestic duties, so wouldn't have been able to even get him a decent breakfast. Next, because everything spoke to him of mother, whom he fairly idolized. I used to see him evenings when he came home from work to the place where we boarded. Seldom in the mornings. Guess I was too lazy to get up in time for anything but a hasty breakfast, then hurry off to school.
[Illustration: "EVERYBODY HELPED GREASE THE HILL I WAS SLIDING DOWN. I
SOON REACHED THE BOTTOM">[
"We used to have Friday evening dances in our neighborhood, which I attended with my classmates. My but I loved to dance! It got so that Friday evening wasn't enough, so many a time found me with some of them at a hall down-town enjoying the public dance. The school-dance was always private. It didn't take long for some one to turn my silly head and make me believe he was dead in love with me. What did a little fifteen-year-old fool like me know, with no mother to teach her, and no woman to take a real interest? That wretch could fill me with, and make me believe, the biggest lies you ever imagined, and I drank it all in as though it were gospel truth. To this day I sometimes wonder if all men are liars.
"I'm not going to mince matters. I fell; and pretty soon everybody was helping to grease the hill I was sliding down. In consequence, I soon reached the bottom."
"Some one told father; but I denied everything, yet I was so afraid he would make the statements be proven, that in my fright I ran away, and I have never seen him since. He's dead now. Poor father! I expert that, with his other sorrows, this trouble finished him.
"Two years later found me in just such a place as you have discovered me today. One afternoon, a sweet-faced Salvation Army lassie called. She talked as only you people can talk. I was but seventeen, still tender-hearted (wish I was yet); so it was not difficult to yield to her earnest persuasions to kneel beside her while she prayed. There was another girl in the room at the time, but she had a caller, so got up and went out. I learnt my first prayer from that Salvation Army girl. It was 'Our Father.' I used to see it framed on a wall in a house where my mother visited, but never did I understand it till that day. Then she asked me to talk to God in my own way. I felt sorry for what I'd done, and the life I was leading, and said so; so when she explained how God would forgive me, I believed her and told her I'd quit if she'd take me away, and she did. I left with her about dusk. She took me to her lodgings and for several days I shared her bed and board, until she got me a situation to do light housework at fifteen dollars a month. Light indeed! It was the heaviest, washing included; but I did as she suggested—prayed to God to help me as I worked, and he did. They were Jewish people and so did their own cooking; otherwise I couldn't have kept my job.
"Never shall I forget the joy of receiving my first month's wages. As I looked at that little sum in my calloused hand, I said, 'Dollie, it's the first honest money you ever earned; doesn't it make you feel good?'
"Before long my Salvation Army friend was called away to another field of labor. I promised to write to her, and to this day I am sorry that through my own carelessness I lost track of her. But I always did hate to write letters, so it's all my own fault.
"A girl told me of a nice place out near Golden Gate Park; only two in family, and twenty-five dollars a month. I called on the lady and she hired me. My but she had a dainty flat! One peculiarity I couldn't help noticing. She was always afraid some one was deceiving or going to deceive her, and would often make the remark, 'No one ever gets the second chance with me, no indeed.' And I used to say to myself, 'I wonder what she would do if she found out who Dollie was?' She was a Christian. No, I'll take that back. She called herself one, and was the secretary of the ladies' aid of her church. Sometimes we had teas for them, and then she would take them all over the house and brag on my work and me. I knew how to cook pretty well by this time. She taught me. There was nothing I did not do to try and please her.