THURSDAY
What I vaguely guessed and knew and feared, has happened. The Erikson woman did agree to part with her children. Not only that but she seems to look upon their acceptance by the institution as a great favour. The manager saw his chance and is making difficulties. Now the woman begs that her children be taken away and she will attend to herself. If it had not been only yesterday that she seemed so determined not to part with them I would think that prospective matrimony is the cause of her change of heart. The Little God is a mean fellow, and with his dart often poisons a heart; especially a mother's. But after all I know this is not the reason. The woman is too hungry to think of love. Nature is on her guard. She does not want hungry beings to procreate. What is more certain is that she can't stand hunger, can't see her children hungry, and has probably made up her mind that the children's health, life, is worth her unhappiness. There is yet another possibility. Some "Madame" may have learned her plight and influenced her to go the easy way. She is not a beauty, but she is an attractive kind. Blonde, fleshy, round, healthy, a good reproducing animal. In normal circumstances she would be a nice mother of ten children and yet remain rosy and tempting. Under the tutelage of a "madame" she will "go it" for a few years and then finish on the Bowery or in Cuba in a "speak easy." A good many women have of late discovered that they have relatives in Cuba, have given their children to the asylum and have gone to seek their "rich relations." I know that some white slaver is after them. It is easy to get at the objects of charity. They are kept in one district.
However, she did not say that she was going to Cuba so there is no use thinking about it. She told me that she would work as a servant. She thinks she will be an excellent cook. She will sell her household goods (a second-hand dealer will not give her more than ten dollars for them all) and until she finds a place she will board with some kind neighbour. She seems certain that in a few years she will accumulate enough money to bring her children back home and start in some business. This is just why I am suspicious.
As she spoke to the investigator she abjectly degraded and accused herself for not having accepted what "that fine big gentleman" proposed to her.
"I have been a fool—with no brain in head," she continually repeated.
"No understan'—they want me good and children eatings every day. Please—please. No, I no more fool. Take children."
That change of heart in twenty-four hours, in a mother's heart, is due to something else than hunger. As a matter of fact she is not hungry now, neither are the children. There was too much animal life in them. They wanted to play. The mother did not look at them as she looked yesterday. She seemed to want to get rid of them, as though they were a hindrance. They are in her way—in her way to where? Servantdom cannot have had such promise for her as to make her part with the children. Hungry people look differently at their children. They feel themselves guilty when the children have no food, and are apt to look upon their greatest faults with condoning eyes. Mrs. Erikson was severe with them to-day. The children annoy her. She wants to get rid of them.
Although the arrangements were made telephonically in a few minutes, the Manager kept the mother and children waiting the whole day in the waiting room. I know from former experience that this is done in order to impress the woman with the difficulty of placing the children in an orphan home, and so that she will weigh carefully before she takes them out, in case the children complain.