We, too, were dedicated to help such women, and each day brought more to the doors of our clinic than we could provide instruction for, from all over the country and of all classes. Some weeks so many Italian women crowded in that we had to employ an interpreter. Then droves of Spanish or of Jewish arrived.
Merely judging by the letters that had come to me I was prepared to find many psychological problems presented. I often thought of the high cost of small families for women who had more or less restricted their procreative powers through other means than contraception. Although the size was limited, it was frequently accompanied by marital unhappiness and hidden psychic disturbances. But the kindness of Dr. Stone aided immeasurably in our informal “court of domestic relations.”
One hot July day when I was coming out of the clinic I saw a woman, obviously pregnant, carrying a year-and-a-half-old baby, dragging another one, only a trifle bigger, crying behind her. The little girl’s shoes were too short and were pinching her toes. I squirmed myself, remembering my own squeezed feet as a child. I caught up with her. “Can’t I carry one of the babies? This one seems tired. Which way are you going?”
“Can you tell me where the jail is?”
“The nearest one is on Spring Street, I think.”
“No, there’s a jail somewheres around here.”
“Didn’t you get the address?”
“Yes, but I left it on the table.”
“What do you want a jail for?”
“My man’s there.”