I was surprised when; a couple of days later, two policemen
came and took Tom, Al and me to juvenile Hall. Everyone treated us as if we
were little criminals and the judge was serious when he considered our cases.
The solution was simple. Tom and Al had a complete set of parents, who promised
to supervise the boys better and so the boys were released in their custody.
But what could my Mom promise the judge? Her work-worn hands
were full already. Somehow she would find more time to pray but prayer counts
only with God! At the ripe old age of eleven I was sent to a reformatory old
age of eleven I was sent to a reformatory, called the Boys Aid Society. It
might better have been called The boys Aid to crime. High walls, rules, coarse,
unfeeling guards were to make of me the man my Mother’s love couldn’t or so the
judge reasoned.
The Boys Aid was a big house on the corner of Baker and
Grove streets in San Francisco.
Each morning the boys, most of them under fourteen, dressed in the cold of the
dormitory and then lined up in the fog in the play yard until they were called
to breakfast. The yard was about one hundred and fifty feet long and fifty feet
wide, with five or six swings and a large sand box at one end. Around it was a
fence of solid boards, thirty feet high. That was so no one could look in at
the forlorn boys and the boys could not see out at a cheerful world. We didn’t
talk much as we waited in the early morning. It was too cold and lonely in the
misty fog.
When we were called to breakfast I ate because I was a boy
and hungry, not because the food was appetizing. The cooked dried fruit tasted
like the sulphur that had been used to cure it. The fried much and dark syrup
wasn’t too bad. But the hot chocolate was an excuse for nothing.
And the grim day matched the breakfast. The rules and the
surly guards gave everything a sulphur-like taste. If only someone had cared
for us, even a little. I missed Dad and the warmth of his voice. I missed Mom
with her gentle touch. Mostly I missed the felling of belonging so I decided to
run away. I was a sturdy boy and made it over the wall. Then I bummed my way to
where Mom and Paul and my sisters lived. It felt good to be home!
Mom wept over me, and fed me, then she sat in a straight
chair, with me standing in front of her. She looked at me, with a sad
expression on her dear face, and said, “Now phil, you know you don’t want to
make trouble for Mother. And you know that I’m not able to watch you as I’d
like to. The law has provided this place for you, and the judge will be cross
at you and Mom because you ran away. Phil, won’t you go back, to please Mom?”
But mom, honest, it’s awful, I fumbled, just sick at the
thought of going back to the dreary place.
But phil, if you stay there, you’ll go to school regularly,
and you won’t have to play on the streets and get into trouble when Mom is late
nights and I know you’re being taken care of right. Phil,
She kept on talking to me until I couldn’t say no to Mom. I
know Mom would never have sent me back if she had understood what she was
sending me into. But she couldn’t hurt anyone and she didn’t expect anyone to
hurt her little guy. I went back and learned what punishment really was!
The guard. A big, burly man, took a strap about three feet
long with holes in it about the size of my little finger. Those holes could
raise blood blisters on a boys hand I was forced to hold out my hand while he
gave me thirty-five licks with that strap. Hatred seethed within me and I
flinched with pain but I took the whipping.
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