With a sense of outraged maternity she flung a
protective arm about her son and swept him up the stairs.
"Don't make a scene, Mac darling!" she whispered. "Mother knows you
didn't do it. You go up to bed like a little gentleman, and I'll slip a
tray up to you and come up myself the minute dinner is over."
That night when the moon discovered Nance Molloy in Calvary Alley, it
also peeped through the window at Mac Clarke out at Hillcrest. Bathed,
combed, and comforted, he lay in a silk-draped bed while his mother sat
beside him fanning him. It would be pleasant to record that the prodigal
had confessed his sins and been forgiven. It would even be some comfort
to state that his guilty conscience was keeping him awake. Neither of
these facts, however, was true. Mac, lying on his back, watching the
square patch of moonlight on the floor, was planning darkest deeds of
vengeance on a certain dirty, tow-headed, bare-legged little girl, who
had twice got the better of him in the conflict of the day.
CHAPTER IV
JUVENILE COURT
The goddess of justice is popularly supposed to bandage her eyes in order
to maintain an impartial attitude, but it is quite possible that she does
it to keep from seeing the dreary court-rooms which are supposed to be
her abiding place.
On the hot Friday morning following the fight, the big anteroom to the
juvenile court, which was formerly used for the police court, was just as
dirty and the air just as stale as in mid-winter, when the windows were
down and the furnace going.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46