Chapter 4: 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.

Scrub women came at dawn, to be sure, and smeared its floors with sour mops, and occasionally a janitor brushed the cobwebs off the ceiling, but the grime was more than surface deep, and every nook and cranny held the foul odor of the unwashed, unkempt current of humanity that for so many years had flowed through it. Ghosts of dead and gone criminals seemed to hover over the place, drawn back through curiosity, to relive their own sorry experiences in the cases of the young offenders waiting before the bar of justice.

On the bench at the rear of the room the delegation from Calvary Alley had been waiting for over an hour. Mrs. Snawdor, despite her forebodings, had achieved a costume worthy of the occasion, but Uncle Jed and Dan had made no pretense at a toilet. As for Nance, she had washed her face as far east and west as her ears and as far south as her chin; but the regions beyond were unreclaimed. The shoe-string on her hair had been replaced by a magenta ribbon, but the thick braids had not been disturbed. Now that she had got over her fright, she was rather enjoying the novelty and excitement of the affair. She had broken the law and enjoyed breaking it, and the cop had pinched her. It was a game between her and the cop, and the cop had won. She saw no reason whatever for Uncle Jed and Dan to look so solemn.

By and by a woman in spectacles took her into a small room across the hall, and told her to sit on the other side of the table and not to shuffle her feet. Nance explained about the mosquito bites, but the lady did not listen.

“What day is this?” asked the spectacled one, preparing to chronicle the answers in a big book.

“Friday,” said Nance, surprised that she could furnish information to so wise a person.

“What day of the month?”

“Day before rent day.”

The corner of the lady’s mouth twitched, and Nance glanced at her suspiciously.

“Can you repeat these numbers after me? Four, seven, nine, three, ten, six, fourteen.”

Nance was convinced now that the lady was crazy, but she rattled them off glibly.

“Very good! Now if the little hand of your clock was at twelve, and the big hand at three, what time would it be?”

Nance pondered the matter deeply.

“Five after twelve!” she answered triumphantly.

“No; try again.”

Nance was eager to oblige, but she had the courage of her convictions and held her point.

“Wouldn’t it be a quarter past?” suggested the examiner.

“No, ma’am, it wouldn’t. Our clock runs ten minutes slow.”

The grave face behind the spectacles broke into a smile; then business was resumed.

“Shut your eyes and name as many objects as you can without stopping, like this: trees, flowers, birds. Go ahead.”

“Trees, flowers, birds, cats, dogs, fight, barrel, slop, mud, ashes.”

“Go on, quicker—keep it up. Nuts, raisins, cake—”

“Cake, stove, smoke, tub, wash-board, scrub, rag, tub, stove, ashes.”

“Keep it up!”

“I dunno no more.”

“We can’t get beyond ashes, eh?” said the lady. “Now suppose you tell me what the following words mean. Charity?”

“Is it a organization?” asked Nance doubtfully.

“Justice?”

“I dunno that one.”

“Do you know what God is?”

Nance felt that she was doing badly. If her freedom depended on her passing this test, she knew the prison bars must be already closing on her. She no more knew what God is than you or I know, but the spectacled lady must be answered at any cost.

“God,” she said laboriously, “God is what made us, and a cuss word.”

Many more questions followed before she was sent back to her place between Uncle Jed and Mrs. Snawdor, and Dan was led away in turn to receive his test.

Meanwhile Uncle Jed was getting restless. Again and again he consulted his large nickel-plated watch.

“I ought to be getting to bed,” he complained. “I won’t get more ‘n four hours’ sleep as it is.”

“Here comes the Clarke boy!” exclaimed Nance, and all eyes were turned in the direction of the door.

The group that presented itself at the entrance was in sharp contrast to its surroundings. Mac Clarke, arrayed in immaculate white, was flanked on one side by his distinguished-looking father and on the other by his father’s distinguished-looking lawyer. The only evidence that the aristocratic youth had ever come into contact with the riffraff of Calvary Alley was the small patch of court-plaster above his right eye.

“Tell the judge we are here,” said Mr. Clarke briskly to his lawyer. “Ask him to get through with us as soon as possible. I have an appointment at twelve-thirty.”

The lawyer made his way up the aisle and disappeared through the door which all the morning had been swallowing one small offender after another.