[NOTE TO THE READER: I hope you read the first chapter for if you didn't, you will never understand this chapter.]I had now been gone over forty eight hours from the juvenile home. Looking over at the park I could see several kids still playing there. It must have been getting close to supper time for the park had thinned out some.
I tried to move a little bit so I could see better but a pain shot up my back. It seemed if I laid still and kept my mind off of the pain it wasn't so bad. Whenever I moved, it was in my back I felt most of the pain. I must have been black and blue about everywhere, anyway I felt that way. I had taken my pants down a little bit to look, from what I could see there wasn't a clear area on my backside. I had a large bruise on my stomach about an inch or so below my ribs. I couldn't see my back very good for it hurt too much to turn and look, it hurt bad enough I really didn't need to look. I could tell my legs were swollen. I knew my right eye was, it was swollen shut. I must have looked like a mess. I was thankful none of the kids at the juvenile home could see me. I guess I was thankful no one could see how I looked.
Back at the orphanage after I had gotten a whipping I hated to take my clothes off in front of the other kids. The welts, the black and blue marks. I always tried to keep that side of me turned from the other kids. Sometimes though I had welts everywhere so at times it had been sort of difficult to hide. At the juvenile home it was worse, I had to take showers there. That meant I would have to stand in front of the other boys as we took our shower for all of them to see the welts and bruises on my body.
Normally I was always proud of my body, the way I looked and all. I was starting to grow pubic hair and I hated that. I didn't like hair on my body as some of the other boys had. One boy in my cottage had hair all over his body even up his back and was already shaving. The only hair I really had, was on the top of my head. It was kept cut above my ears, never long in the back. I had tried combing my hair several different ways, straight back and even parting it down the middle like my real dad had worn his hair. My cottage mother though had gotten mad at me for combing it differently every day and told me to make up my mind which way I wanted it, then to comb it that way every day. Now I always wore it parted on the left and flipped back on the right. There wasn't much to flip back though, they wouldn't allow it to grow that long, maybe a couple of inches. It never got so long it would hang down in my eyes. Now I was about five foot three or four inches tall. Weighed maybe hundred ten, maybe fifteen pounds. I always was sort of a light weight. Not very muscular but I wasn't a weakling either. I had seen other boys fight but I had never been in a fight. When it came to fighting other boys pretty much left me alone. I don't know but maybe it was I stayed pretty much to myself, (most of the time they kept me isolated from the other boys) can't get into many arguments that way. I never felt I had anything to prove. I never seen any point in fighting. It wasn't that I had ran from any fights, it was I didn't get myself into situations where I would have to prove myself. When I was covered with bruises I was never too proud of how I looked. I had seen bruises on other boys but I had pretended I hadn't seen them. I guess that was the way it was with other boys after I had gotten slapped, a whipping or worse. Yes I was proud of the way I looked when I wasn't covered with marks from a beating. I was proud of how straight I stood and walked.
I had always looked at others lips when they spoke to me. I never looked in an adult's eyes. Mainly it was because of my hearing, I couldn't understand them unless I could read their lips to facilitate my hearing. But then, I was afraid to look adults in the eyes for fear of seeing the disapproval and hate there. There were several times being able to read lips as far as the other side of the room was an advantage to me. Especially if it were adults and they were talking about me. All of the other boys had to look the adults in their eyes but the adults knew it was difficult for me to hear and understand. So looking them in their eyes was overlooked in my case.
The park had been empty now for almost an hour. The sun had gone down but there was still a glow in the western sky. It must have been after nine but still I waited before going to the park.
It had been two days since I had last eaten and that had only been bread and milk at my last noon meal there in isolation. I knew I would soon have to go and find food somewhere. I knew if I could find a grocery store, they sometimes threw out food I could eat. That was one of the ways I had gotten food in Rock Island when I had ran away from the orphanage. I didn't want to walk around the downtown streets at night though. A boy my age would draw a lot of attention walking alone in the middle of the night. I would have to wait until the day time when I wouldn't be so noticed among all of the other people on the streets.
It was now dark enough for me to venture out into the park. So cautiously I left the protection of the shed, looking first to the east then to the west as I crossed the narrow dirt road that separate the shed from the park. Once across the road I slipped in among the bushes that would give me cover almost to the fountain. Between the bushes and the fountain was a clearing of about twenty feet. I knew it would be hard for anyone to see me as I crossed the clearing for the bathrooms afforded me a dark background, anyway from the highway and the houses on the other side of it. I felt any danger to me would come from that direction. After getting a drink of water I stopped off at the rest rooms before working my way back to the shed.
It hadn't started getting chilly yet but I knew it wouldn't be long before it would. When I had gone to the bathroom earlier in another section of the shed, I had found a piece of canvas and some old gunny sacks, so I knew I would sleep a little warmer than the night before. Closing off the end of my hide-out I rolled up in the canvas and quickly fell asleep.
Awakening the next morning I had now slept in the shed for three nights and it had been three days since I had last eaten. Maybe it was hunger that had finally drove me out into the park during the day. I don't know for sure what it had been but I went out during the day to get a drink of water and stayed to talk with a boy about the same age I was. We talked for awhile and I felt I could trust him. Again probably my hunger or it could have been I needed someone to talk with. Being alone was not all that much fun. I suppose it was loneliness more than anything, the worst enemy of a runaway. At first I had been cautious not really telling too much. I had told him my first name. His name was Roy and he lived about three blocks from the park. After we had talked for a while, maybe for about ten minutes, he asked me about my eye. It was still almost swollen shut. I told him a man had hit me. He wanted to know why a man would hit me. I had told him "He just hit me." I really didn't want to go into it much for I would have to tell more than I really wanted to.
We had talked on for the better part of an hour when he asked me where I lived. I had been at a loss for I didn't know what to tell him. At first I told him I had ran away from home and I hadn't anything to eat for about three days and asked him if he knew where I could get something to eat. He told me if you ate sandwiches and drank pop it would make you feel full. He then told me to wait in my hiding place and he would go home and bring me some sandwiches and pop. He went home and soon returned with the food.
We sat there and talked as I ate. I broke down and told him I hadn't ran away from home but the juvenile home in Toledo. He knew where the juvenile home was for he had seen it several times before. As it turned out we were only fifteen miles from the juvenile home. I told him that it had been a man at the juvenile home who had hit me. I pulled up my T-shirt and my pants down a little and showed him the bruises on my back. I had a large bruise on my arm he could see without me pulling my T-shirt up. Even three days after the beating it had been still very painful to pull my shirt up.
We went on talking for the most of the rest of that day. Mainly me telling him about the juvenile home and what they were doing to me. I had told him I had been adopted once before and how I would like to be adopted again. I had told him how I had ran away and went to Sioux City and how my dad had turned me in.
For the next few days he helped me hide out. He would bring me food each day and we would run around town together. I felt safe with him. I felt so safe with him one time we had gone into the back of a grocery store and we stole a watermelon. The first thing I ever actually felt I had stolen. Well actually he carried it but I had been with him. As we were leaving the store by the back way a man was going in. He asked ,"Did you boys steal that melon?" I had a scared feeling in my chest but the boy laughed and quickly replied, "We sure did." The man must have thought we were joking for he laughed and said, "Those are the best kind of melons for they always taste better when they are stolen." He was right that was the best tasting melon I had ever eaten.
I was happy those few days doing things with the boy. We had even gone fishing once in a creek just north of town. Being with him took my mind off of the juvenile home and made me feel I would never be going back. I guess I got to feeling so good about being with him I broke two cardinal rules of a runaway. Don't get careless and don't stay in one place too long. I guess though loneliness is a runaway's worst enemy.
Each night I would sleep in my hiding place and each morning he would come back to be with me. One day about a week after I had met him, he didn't come at his usual time. I waited until late afternoon and he still hadn't come. I decided to walk over to his house for it was only about three blocks from where I was hiding.
I had now been hiding behind the lumber for about eight or nine days. I hadn't taken a bath since I had left the juvenile home and I was still wearing the same clothes so I was getting pretty dirty looking.
I had slipped out of my hiding place closing the end off before I left. Then looking around to be sure no one had seen me I went to the street west of the shed, which was also the highway through town. At the first street on the other side of the railroad track I would turn east and walk two blocks to his house. I had crossed the tracks and was about halfway to the street I wanted to turn east on when a man stopped me on the street. He told me he was the town marshal. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when he told me he was the marshal. I had walked right up to him for he had looked like everyone else on the street. He didn't have a uniform or a badge on. He wanted to know my name and where I lived. I told him my name was Jessie Ross not telling him where I lived
He again asked me where I lived and I had told him, "On a farm west of town." Telling him it was about a mile and a half to two miles out of town. (By now I had made up a story in case anyone should ask me where I lived.)
He said something like, "Oh, that old Swanson place?"
I smiled and said, "Yes, that's the place." Thinking I had fooled him. But he said "Well Jessie I think maybe you had better come home with me." Then he took me home with him. You see there wasn't an "Old Swanson Place."
There wasn't any talk about where I was really from or anything like that. All he had done was to tell me to come with him and I had walked quietly to his house with him. I had never questioned him why we were going to his house. Maybe I was afraid of what the answer would have been. Anyway I walked quietly not saying a word as we walked the three blocks to his house. When we had gotten to his house he had introduced me to his wife as "Jessie" then asked me if I liked pancakes. I hadn't eaten all of that day so I was pretty hungry by then. When I told him I liked pancakes he said, "Good for that is what we are having for supper but first you will have to take a bath."
Taking me to the bathroom, not more than fifteen feet from the kitchen, he commenced preparing a bath for me in the tub. As the tub was filling he had turned to me and told me to take my clothes off. He was standing near the faucets of the tub I was standing at the other end of the tub facing him. I had taken my shoes and socks off first then I took my T-shirt, pants and shorts off, always facing him. I was feeling very uncomfortable for I knew the bruises on my back were still plainly visible. The swelling had gone down in my eye but it was still black and blue. As of then the marshal hadn't asked me about my eye.
As I was undressing the marshal was asking me where I was really from. I felt his voice was kind and considerate but I didn't want to tell him I had ran away from the juvenile home though I knew that was where I was going for it wouldn't take much to know where I was from by the clothes I was wearing.
When all of my clothes were off I had turned towards the tub putting my left side to the marshal when the marshal seen the bruises on my back. He had quickly grabbed me by my shoulders and turned me so he could see my back better. He had turned his head towards the bathroom door and in a raised and somewhat alarmed voice he called to his wife, calling her by name, "Come in here and see what someone has done to this boy!"
It had happened so fast my whole emotional system collapsed before his wife came to the bathroom door. When she got there tears were already streaming down my face. The marshal had been still holding me so my back was still towards the door. As she had come into the bathroom she made some sort of exclamation and came to me and put her arms around me and held me tightly to her. It had felt so good to be held. I couldn't remember anyone ever holding me that way before. She had said something but I couldn't understand what she had said. The marshal was talking and I couldn't understand what he was saying. The flood gates opened and the tears came. I cried as I told them everything. I told them my real name and where I was really from. I told them about being locked in Isolation. I told them about Mr. Urquhart and how they were treating me at the juvenile home and I cried. Oh did I cry. Still crying I had pleaded with him not to send me back. I had told them what they would do to me when they got me back to the juvenile home. I had even asked him to adopt me telling him I had been adopted before and I was sure he could adopt me.
It was some time before I could quit crying enough so I could take a bath. Even after the bath it was hard to hold the tears back as we continued talking at the kitchen table. It seemed as if though everything I had been holding inside of me so long was coming out. The tears were still trickling down my cheeks as I begged him not to send me back. Oh did I beg on that night. I pleaded with him not to send me back for I knew what they would do to me when they got me back to the juvenile home. But the marshal had called the juvenile home and told them he had me. They had told him someone would be there within the hour to pick me up. I never held it against the marshal for calling the juvenile home, in a way I knew he had to.
We sat at the kitchen table and talked until Mr. Ladd came for me. As we sat there waiting I had hoped until the last minute the marshal would find a way to keep me and not send me back. And I cried.
When Mr. Ladd arrived I waited in the house as the marshal had gone out on the porch to meet Mr. Ladd and to talk with him. The door was partially open and I could hear some of the things the marshal was saying to Mr. Ladd especially after the marshal had raised his voice. I couldn't hear what Mr. Ladd was saying for he had kept his voice low. The marshal was mad as he said in a loud voice "Don't give me that. You people gave that boy a hell of a beating. You say he has been gone about two weeks, well I'll tell you that boy's body is still covered with bruises." Mr. Ladd had said something I couldn't understand because of his low tone of voice and the marshal had quickly come back at him, "That makes no difference you keep beating the boy that way and you are going to kill him." I had no doubt about that. The way I was feeling, when I went back to the juvenile home they were going to kill me or at least come close to it. It had felt good though to hear the marshal standing up for me for no one had ever done that before.
They had talked for several minutes out there on the porch then they had come into the kitchen where I was still sitting at the table, turned halfway in my chair towards the door. At any time I could have ran through the house and out the other door but I didn't. I suppose it was due to the conditioning I had been through as I grew up. Whenever there was an adult around I did what was expected of me. I had never fought back at an adult and except for a couple of times at the orphanage I had never ran from an adult no matter how fearful or painful I thought the immediate future would be.
I could easily see Mr. Ladd was angry with me. He had also showed signs he hadn't liked being rebuffed by the marshal. And it was all my fault and I fearfully knew I was going to pay dearly for what I had done.
Mr. Ladd seemed to have been in a hurry to get on the way back to the juvenile home for after a few quick short words with me he had told me to get out in the car. The walk to the car had been silent, I could feel his heated anger as he had walked along side of me. Again, knowing what was ahead for me I could have ran for he wasn't holding onto me in any way but I didn't.
It had been dark that night as we started back to the juvenile home. For my part the trip had been very quiet for I knew very well what laid ahead for me. But Mr. Ladd had a lot to say as we turned out onto the highway and left the town of Traer behind us. Mainly how I was always running away and telling stories. I had tried to tell him the marshal had seen the bruises on me first. But he had gotten very angry and I had thought he was going to backhand me there in the car. After that all I could say was, "I'm sorry Sir I caused so many problems."
Mr. Ladd parked the car on the street near the hospital where only a few days before I had crossed the street and ran away. By the time he had gotten out and around the car I was already a half dozen feet up the sidewalk walking towards the infirmary. He didn't need to tell me where I was going for there hadn't been any doubt in my mind, I was going to Isolation. We went through the same procedure we always did, they didn't find it necessary to tell me to strip and take a bath. They didn't tell me I wouldn't have any pajamas to wear in Isolation, so after stopping at the office to tell them I was ready I walked nude to the stairway leading down to the isolation rooms. All they had to do was tell me which room I would be in. Once I knew that I walked to the room and after waiting for the nurse to unlock the door I went in, seeing the mattress on the floor I picked it up and dragged it out into the hallway without being told.
There was one thing good about having other boys in Isolation with me and that was they would always have us drag a mattress in after the evening meal for us to sleep on. But when I was alone there was no mattress for me.
By now it was around the end of July near the first of August and I had been in the juvenile home almost two years. In those two years I had ran away thirteen times. Each time staying in Isolation for two weeks doing the same things, thinking of the past, thinking of my brother, singing songs and crying. Yes I did a lot of crying there in Isolation. Each time though during those two weeks I would block it out of my mind until the afternoon of the fourteenth day when I would hear those hard heals striking the floor as steps approached my door. The day when Mr. Urquhart would come with his board. Somewhere deep in my mind I always knew he would be there with his board, it had always been the same only each time it would seem to be a little worse. It was no different this time as I had sat nude on the floor with my back to the wall, my arms wrapped around my bare legs. There was always the fear first as I heard those steps in the hallway then the tears soon started as I heard the key in the lock. I had stood with fear running through me some fifteen feet from the door with my back to the wall. He walked into the room with his board some five feet from the door, stop pointed to an area on the floor with his board and told me, "Get over here and grab those ankles. I'm going to break you of this running away."
Yes it had always been the same. Telling the marshal in Traer hadn't improved my situation any. I don't think the beating he gave me that day was any worse than the last time but it hadn't been any easier, it had ranked right up there with the last one Mr. Urquhart had given me.
Maybe Mr. Urquhart felt I didn't remember my way back to my cottage, it had been almost two months since the last time I was there, anyway he escorted me all of the way holding onto my arm. Entering Turner Hall I went to the utility room and got the scrub brush without being told. Then I dry scrubbed the floor until Mrs. Urquhart told me it was time to get ready for the evening meal. With the pain from the beating it had been fairly painful to be down on my hands and knees dry scrubbing the floor but that hadn't been a choice I could make.
This is the way it went for the following week my spirit all but broken dry scrubbing the floors. I never talked to anyone not even the other boys as we had gotten ready for meals or at bed time. I sat alone at a table in the dining room, where I always had to sit for they would never allow me to be with other boys my own age. My thoughts were only of the long ago past. At a time in my life when things had been somewhat different.