But my joy over the fact that my little one had not had his mother's wickedness revealed to him was of short duration. I had brought the child to Detroit, where I had begun preparations to make a permanent home, honestly, I hoped. Several persons there owed me money, and among them a barber I had befriended. I tried persistently to get from him what he owed me, but without success.
When I returned home after a little trip I was compelled to make to New York, my boy came up to me, crying, and said:
"Mamma, I don't want to live around here any more."
I wondered what could have caused the poor boy to speak that way, so I patted him on the back and said:
"Why, what is the matter, dearie? Don't you like this street any more?"
"Mamma," he sobbed, "I heard something about you which makes me feel awful bad, but I know it isn't true, is it, mamma?"
"Tell me, child, what is it?"
"Well," he answered, "Mr. Wilson, the barber, asked me the day after you left to go downtown on a trip with him, and I went along. He took me into a large building which I heard was the police station. He asked a man to let him see some pictures, and when he got the pictures he showed me one of them which he said was you; and he said you were a thief and the police had to keep your picture so they could find you when you stole things," and then the boy began to sob as if his poor heart would break.
The man had taken my boy down to the police station and had shown him my picture in the rogues' gallery. And again the realization was forced in on me by the reproachful gaze of my boy that crime does not pay.