The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 14, 1902, Page 10

THE SUNDAY CALL: ! N Provisiona] Commandzr of the Pagific Qeast Divisicn of 1the Salvaticn Rrmb. soon surprised to find arising within or how the woman ever never v subject—m per s absence of « of ride of bir for that the Slums s closely c vious to her a des r themselves hope died tcism, love he ruling shame and rate, she as she there re- this lovely per- ze of its creator, es of this r Homeric only tells ays, but of who suc- of the the ratio r rielded to the enchant- ce, squandered their | that was best her behest. And ad blighted their hed to scorn their them to the pitilessly cast she lowest, t of her desire to but there was that sed them to seek her he warnings of their aware of the import- avoided tte ed her beauty, =x who spoke he Red Devil t jealous awe of the Slum of her when she boasted that no man ever came under her fluence who did meet & violent death at his hands of others, end in the penite y or insane asylum or become dependent upon public charity. And- her boast held good until she met Edmund Vance Raine. “Tony Ed” her rivals soon called him because of a re- finement of manner and speech not com- mon to the element among whom he was thrown when he fell under the blandish- ments of the “Red Devil.” He impressed ber differently from any man she had / Ek G TOGETHER > had s the rim of ugh she was c 2 pon him with a shock his curlosity quickened that his gaze w sa gent embarrs and the flush t h anger as shame. h her old c o~ : CHRISTMAS NIGHT TH PRODIGAL PRAYED WITH WIS ¥ o AND THE LASSIE WHO HAD ey SAVEDY HiM EORGE ERENCH. dropped her eyes sment that was cdest little affectations that had rarely —— -t herself to do when she first iter of a group of roistering youths. v 1 ed wine glass their eyes met’ ik s that her exceptional beauty not of su prise, but held his e became as ct of w purely and entirely, not r prospective victim to. her eharit 3 ance, but while she knew that his eyes fixed upon the ili-suppressed snicker that went o f the envious told her tha he had failed of her Eing instantly mounted 3 her cheeks culating daredevil seif struggled n her for mastery and she shot him a look that was f ehalle halt defiance, but he met her eyes again with the same calm impersonal scrutiny as before—met them squarely, and held them for the space of a dozen—to h tense, eager heart—thumpirg seconds, and then as her ey once more fell before his steady gaze, he smiled a quizzical, m g sciousness that not only he but the women she had aiways Vol e elected to desplse knew it as well. S And in that one swift ficeting incident, mysteriously allurine, notwithstanding its unexpected termination, o mava plete metamorphosis was wrought in both, though, at the time it was in no wise fully comprehended by elther. ngled with a strange desire to seek refuge in flight from the tumultuous train of emotic that now assailed her was the ever growing consciousness that he had not only proved his mastery, but by some vague indefinable quality, which in her suddenly awakened imagination she deified beyond his actual merits, he had brought back memories of a dead and for- Botte st—memories that stirred her to unrest, memories that revealed the glaring contrasts between life as she had once lived it and as she was living it now, in a garish way she had never understood before. > was as new to the Barbary Coast its, where she reigned supreme, and s inexperienced in its devious ways and s utter lack of moral code as she had been in those old days—not so very long ago—before her wild abandon had won for her her strange fateful title; but in that one moment, while his eyes seemed t> search into her very soul, she knew it was in power to make her a good woman again, if he would. The next moment the feeling that she was, not al- together, dead to shame was swallowed up in a fit of pique, that grew into jeal- ous resentment. Two Salvation Areny cadets had en- tered the huge, seething, brilliantly light- ed dance hall, and utterly oblivious to the bolsterous singing and noisy ha- rangues going on all about them wera proceeding quietly to sell the War Cry, when a big, brutal looking man, sullen and sodden with whe'y, lunged toward the prettiest and off gi d her a dellberate insult. Taken suddenly aback by the unexpect- edness of the assault she retreated pre- cipitately before him, when on the in- stant young Raine rose, interposed be- tween them, shoved the hulking brute back a pace or two, and when he rushed forward again, with an angry snarl and a reeking oath, felled him ‘with. two swift, swinging blows. The fight that followed proved his prowess and showed the metal he was made of. It also opened his eyes to the turgid features of a Barbary Coast dance hall, and showed him wherein lay the magic power that supplemented the merely physical beauty of the “Red Devil of the Slums.” She commanded a dozen men to her gid in restoring peace, and when the police entered to quell the disturbance she had already chained the interest of the turbulent crowd upon her- self with a spirited song. “You had better leave here at once,” ed smile and ‘turned an indifferent shoulder to her next It was her first defeat and she knew it, but jt was not that realization that stung her to the quick s much’ as the chn- A R NEEL O ML MR DO T Ha said Raine to the Salvation Army lassle when the melee was ended and his van- quished foeman had been borne away to the police station. *“This is no place for a woman like you.” She smiled almost pityingly upon him. “I am in far less danger than you are here,” she answered, looking at his ex- cited, drink flushed face. /‘As you see, we army lassies never lack for valiant defenders, even in the haunts of the very lowest. While as for you—whom have you to protect you against yourself?” “But these drunken men—such insults” =he began wildly. “They have much more power to drag you down than to interfere with us in Qod’s work,” she answered, mildly. “You would best go home now,' she added a moment later, when he would have expostulated rurther, “and never come here again. You don’t know the dangers and the degradation of the slums as we'do. Thank you again for your chivalry. Good-night.” And the “Rpd Devil” from the plat- form where sHe had been watching them eagerly, realized at last, even while she » i Bl A sang most thrillingly, the vast gulf that lies between vice and virtue. The man who had coolly resisted all her charms but a few moments before now raised his hat reverentially and without so much as a glance at his mocking compenions strode toward the door. Breaking off abruptly in her song she rushed across the hall and intercepted him before he could mount the stairs to the sidewalk, ‘‘Are you going?’ she asked, softly— oh, so softly—almost appealingly, in a voice that was new to herself. He ‘stopped and stared at her coldly, and then, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders, climbed the steps withou* a word. At the top her voice arrested him once more. ““Will you come again,” she called, with an eagerness she could scarcely conceal— an eagerness that surprised her more than it did him, upon whom its real meaning was utterly lost for the moment. “No,” he answered shortly, and rushed after a swift flying car golng uptown. For a few moments the ““Red Devil” stood where he had left her like one in a daze until the prescnce of the Salvation Army lassle, passing on her way from the dance hall, roused the intolerance she had always felt for religion of any sort into a deminant hatred. The simple tribute he had paid—that all men pay to virtue triumphant, stabbed her to a jealous fury. “You!” she cried." “If you ever Inter- fere in my affairs again, I'll mark you for life. Don't forget that: I'll mark your baby face so that no other man will " ever want to take your part because you ere good. The army lassle looked at her in mild surprise. The ‘“Red Devil” was not new to her. She knew her whole dark history, but thix was the first time the ‘‘cadet” hzd ever attracted the slightest ‘ notice from the slum's, queen in any way, and row in this first and final test of strength beiween these two women, so strangely et at the extremes of vice and virtue, o i i The photographs on this page, made by Bushnell, were all specially posed for by members of the Salvation Army immediately under command of Colonel French, to illustrate his own story from real life. HE e ey KR CHEIST MAS In that one stirring episode a complete revolution had been brought about in the “Red Devil's” views of existence In general and her own actions in particular. She uttered a curse upon the lassie’s head—vowed 'she wouldn't go to a prayer- meeting; but she did, just Edmund Raine, who had sworn to himself that he would never visit the slums again, after vainly trying to forget the haunting pic- ture of the “Red Devil” as he saw her last at the bottom of the dance hall steps, looking up at him appealingly, finally ylelded to her blandishments, And then followed the old struggle of a good man trying to raise a bad woman to Lis own level in modern society. He failed, not because she did not want to be raised, but as so many have failed be- fcre him—because the allurement of the slums was greater than his own moral stamina, and she fell back with him into her old life, because her courage de- serted her when she learned that Christ's edmonition to the ancient judges, “Let him who s without sin among you east the first stone,” is still an adage un- known and unpracticed of men — and women, too. And with the knowledge that he had fafled; that he had squandered the sav- ings of years of his widowed mother and sister, which they had scraped and pinched to send him to college, in idle dal- liarce, in pursuit of a fleeting phantom of the slums, until at last, leaving the two loved ones who were so pathetically dependent upon him in miserable destitu- tion, he plunged deeper and deeper into excesses of all kinds. A wandering spirit seized upon him. All through the Pacific Coast States he followed the fluctuating -fortunes of a gambler. Drink, however, got such a hold on him that he lost the nerve and ccolness necessary to win and he was ccmpelled to seek other ways of gaining a living. Sometimes he worked in log- ging camps, sometimes on the railroads and agaln as a bartender. At last, how- ever, he became a mere Barbary Coast “rounder,” a hanger-on at the ‘‘dives.” His brutalities had become such that even the “Red Devil,” who, out of her iove for him, had endured much, could stand it no longer and left him. For a time she was completely lost to her old haunts, but one night shortly be- fore Christmas the tumult of the dance hall that had known her in the days of her greatest notorlety was suddenly huehed to stillness by a cry of rage, a blocd-curdling oath, a woman's shrill #creams of terror and the crash of a beer glass thrown with terrific force. Iivery couple on the floor fled in in- stant alarm and from vantage points of comparative safety turned to view the gcene. In one corner of the hall two men were enraged In a, flerce fight about a woman. 1t was the “Red Devil” again, >, SH= L (OURSTISNINGL>_INTO_HIS B>Es waTh the lasste felt her power rise supreme. and she shrank away In mortal fear when In the awe-struck silence that fell upon “Tcny Ed” whipped out a glittering re- the spectators she answered softly: volver and tried to skoot tie man who “Come to our meetings. God will help had roused his ealousy to flaming heat. you"” That was all—but it was enough. But just as he raised the weapon to fire, a siim, girlish figure clad in the uni. form of the Salvation the same little lassie that had vy P in his first fight on the night he had made his entry into the slums, stepped Letween the angry combatants. At sight_of he lowly revolver and with s staggered unsteadily to the “Red Devil” whirled a look half amaze t slowly turned to shrinking aw of the reproachful eyes turned r oW It was the e of virtue and vice emoticns that had breast at that f of power on the night when she had met the man whom love had now dragge down to her own level assailed her again, ‘and the hot words would have uttered died upon her lips. At last her g she hung her head. “And have you so soon forgotten your promise to God?” the lassie cried more in appeal than con ation. “Oh sh: shame, to be so weak. Come, back to the fold an a nercy, bef For on watched 3 baggard, gure among them, an then she moved slow the door. The lassie wheele 3 “Would you be a murderer?” she asked. “Think, think what that means. A mur- derer. What would your mother say if she saw you here?” He raised head with a ery of anguish. A er! How dreadful the name sounded ear he had come to bringing t elf. Ha sprang to his 3 ared ab room wi a hunted look in his eyes and then rushed up to the steps from unders ground maelstr in the darkness of the Through the gathering storm of & Christmas morning, all unmindtul of the heavy downpour, a little band of Salvi tionists marched cheerily along the al most deserted street to thelr reguls place of meeting, In the square befors the City Hall, thelr tambourines clinking merrily in rhythm with their lusty volces raised in praise of God. Not a’ solitar al was In sight as they. formed thelr little circle, but as they knelt for prayer on the dripping cobbles, the swinging doors of a near-by saloon were thrown open with a crash and a seedy looking man was thrown out bodily upon the sidewalk for “bracing” a cus- tcmer for a drink. It was “Tony E@" ir. the last stage of his degradation. Unsteadily, painfully he got upon his feet and ‘stared stupidly about him. Life had lost all its rose color for him, and when he moved over toward the kneeling Balvationists it was more to bDe near eomething h ‘than . for any interest he felt in their proceedings. But at the curb he stopped and straight- ened up with an exclamation of surprise and gladn There before him was the “Red Devil of the Slums” d in Salvation Army costume and kneeling in rain on that bleak Christmas day. She looked ques- tioning beseeching! into his eagerly, almost He would have rushed toward her In wild greeting had his joy not be lowed up in a new and gres Kpeeling beside t other figure—an aged, ing in earnest prayer, and when. she raised her head in answer to the “Red tDevil's” voice, speaking in her ears news she had waited so long to hear, the eyes of mother and son met for t tirst time in years. “Mother!” he crie “Ed, my boy, my own prodigal, come back from the grave,” she sobbed, and as they stood clasped in each other's arms the amen at the the prayer of the rain soaked Salvationists came like a benediction. Then back to the headquarters he marched with them through the drizzle and the cold, with the glad hallelujahs ringing like Christmas chimes in his ears; back to a rousing meeting in praise of God’s great mercy, back to a life he n‘t thought dead for good. Together on that Christmas night, in a spirit of thankfuln with all the elo- quence of a sincere purpose, the prodigal prayed with his mother and the lassi who had saved him. - trame