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Overview
FOREWORD
THE great fire that followed the San Francisco earthquake had burned itself out. Half the city was a seared waste of smouldering ruins. Though the sky by night still reflected the red but dying glow of the wall of flame that had leaped from block to block like a pursuing creature of prey, the undevastated remnant was safe.
Those of us who had lived through the four unforgettable days of chaos just passed, began to look about us once more with seeing eyes. Men smiled again, as amid the ruin, they planned the reconstruction of a city more beautiful than the one they had lost. The indomitable spirit of a people united by a great and common disaster rose undaunted and hope mastered despair.
For the moment all men were equal. Gold had lost its value. Food, first of all necessities, was not for sale, and master and servant, banker and laborer, millionaire and beggar, waited together at the relief stations for their equal daily ration.
Every park, every square, every plot of ground was covered with the improvised camps of the refugees. One hundred thousand people had fled from their homes before the incredibly swift sweep of the fire. They had fled with only such possessions as they could throw together in a moment and carry on their backs. With this inadequate material men built such makeshift shelters for their families as individual skill permitted. Each man was “on his own,” the sole protector and provider for his mate and children.
Out in Golden Gate Park one Sunday afternoon— the fourth after the earthquake—I came upon a rude but comfortable refuge with a blanket forming each of three walls and a tarpaulin for a roof. Before the uncurtained entrance a man sat cross-legged with a little child on his lap. With masculine clumsiness he was trying to fashion a rag doll from a torn piece of sheeting and a bit of blue ribbon. The tot on his knee watched, smiling, with eyes wide with excitement and pleasure. Nearby, three other kiddies—the eldest not older than six or seven—sprawled on the grass, playing contentedly.
Something prompted me to pause. The man looked up and smiled.
“Some job for a mere man, this is,” he said, indicating the caricature of a doll on which he was working.
“Not so bad, evidently, from your little girl's viewpoint,” I answered, with another glance at the glowing eyes of the waiting child. “But maybe her mother will improve on it.”
“I'm the only mother there is in this camp,” he answered. Then, as if he sensed my curiosity: “You see, pardner, none of them is mine.”
“None of them yours?” I echoed in amazement.
“Not one. I picked them up, lost and crying— poor, little stray lambs—during the fire. And now it's up to me to take care of them. I'm hoping their folks, if they're alive, will wander by my nursery and find 'em. If they don't—well, I guess we'll stick together, eh, little pals.”
That was my first meeting with the strange but, to me, wonderfully human character I have tried to picture with photographic accuracy in the following story. I have hidden his identity under the name “Boston Blackie.” To the police and the world he is a professional crook, a skilled and daring safe cracker, an incorrigible criminal made doubly dangerous by intellect. To the world “Boston Blackie” is that and nothing more. But to me, who saw him in the park, caring, tenderly as a mother, for the forsaken little children the fire had sent him, “Blackie” is something more—a man with more than a spark of the Divine Spirit that lies hidden somewhere in the heart of even the worst of men. University graduate, scholar and gentleman, the “Blackie” I know is a man of many inconsistencies and a strangely twisted code of morals—a code that he guards from violation as a zealot guards his religion. He makes no compromise between right and wrong as he sees it. Principle is, to him, a thing beyond price. Today “Boston Blackie” would go, smilingly content, to a lifetime behind prison bars rather than dishonor the conscience that guides him.
And shall we judge him, you and I? When prompted to do so, inexorably there rises in my mind the picture of a man, grave faced and kindly, sitting cross-legged on the grass and making a rag doll with loving hands for a lost and homeless little child. It was Christ who said: “Suffer little children to come unto Me” and “Even as ye have done unto the least of these so even have ye done unto Me.”
With these words before me I halt, leaving the verdict to God Himself,
JACK BOYLE.
March 1, 1919.
THE great fire that followed the San Francisco earthquake had burned itself out. Half the city was a seared waste of smouldering ruins. Though the sky by night still reflected the red but dying glow of the wall of flame that had leaped from block to block like a pursuing creature of prey, the undevastated remnant was safe.
Those of us who had lived through the four unforgettable days of chaos just passed, began to look about us once more with seeing eyes. Men smiled again, as amid the ruin, they planned the reconstruction of a city more beautiful than the one they had lost. The indomitable spirit of a people united by a great and common disaster rose undaunted and hope mastered despair.
For the moment all men were equal. Gold had lost its value. Food, first of all necessities, was not for sale, and master and servant, banker and laborer, millionaire and beggar, waited together at the relief stations for their equal daily ration.
Every park, every square, every plot of ground was covered with the improvised camps of the refugees. One hundred thousand people had fled from their homes before the incredibly swift sweep of the fire. They had fled with only such possessions as they could throw together in a moment and carry on their backs. With this inadequate material men built such makeshift shelters for their families as individual skill permitted. Each man was “on his own,” the sole protector and provider for his mate and children.
Out in Golden Gate Park one Sunday afternoon— the fourth after the earthquake—I came upon a rude but comfortable refuge with a blanket forming each of three walls and a tarpaulin for a roof. Before the uncurtained entrance a man sat cross-legged with a little child on his lap. With masculine clumsiness he was trying to fashion a rag doll from a torn piece of sheeting and a bit of blue ribbon. The tot on his knee watched, smiling, with eyes wide with excitement and pleasure. Nearby, three other kiddies—the eldest not older than six or seven—sprawled on the grass, playing contentedly.
Something prompted me to pause. The man looked up and smiled.
“Some job for a mere man, this is,” he said, indicating the caricature of a doll on which he was working.
“Not so bad, evidently, from your little girl's viewpoint,” I answered, with another glance at the glowing eyes of the waiting child. “But maybe her mother will improve on it.”
“I'm the only mother there is in this camp,” he answered. Then, as if he sensed my curiosity: “You see, pardner, none of them is mine.”
“None of them yours?” I echoed in amazement.
“Not one. I picked them up, lost and crying— poor, little stray lambs—during the fire. And now it's up to me to take care of them. I'm hoping their folks, if they're alive, will wander by my nursery and find 'em. If they don't—well, I guess we'll stick together, eh, little pals.”
That was my first meeting with the strange but, to me, wonderfully human character I have tried to picture with photographic accuracy in the following story. I have hidden his identity under the name “Boston Blackie.” To the police and the world he is a professional crook, a skilled and daring safe cracker, an incorrigible criminal made doubly dangerous by intellect. To the world “Boston Blackie” is that and nothing more. But to me, who saw him in the park, caring, tenderly as a mother, for the forsaken little children the fire had sent him, “Blackie” is something more—a man with more than a spark of the Divine Spirit that lies hidden somewhere in the heart of even the worst of men. University graduate, scholar and gentleman, the “Blackie” I know is a man of many inconsistencies and a strangely twisted code of morals—a code that he guards from violation as a zealot guards his religion. He makes no compromise between right and wrong as he sees it. Principle is, to him, a thing beyond price. Today “Boston Blackie” would go, smilingly content, to a lifetime behind prison bars rather than dishonor the conscience that guides him.
And shall we judge him, you and I? When prompted to do so, inexorably there rises in my mind the picture of a man, grave faced and kindly, sitting cross-legged on the grass and making a rag doll with loving hands for a lost and homeless little child. It was Christ who said: “Suffer little children to come unto Me” and “Even as ye have done unto the least of these so even have ye done unto Me.”
With these words before me I halt, leaving the verdict to God Himself,
JACK BOYLE.
March 1, 1919.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940015253450 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | OGB |
| Publication date: | 08/27/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 749,412 |
| File size: | 340 KB |
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