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The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917, March 14, 1917, LAST EDITION, Image 7

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Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1917-03-14/ed-2/seq-7/

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HER VIEW OF LIFE MAY WARP;
BUT IT'S 2 TO 1 JENNIE'LL
COME THROUGH 0. K.
(This little playlet will be staged
March 29. In the meantime, the plot
can be revealed. Here it is.)
Cold, hungry and crying a little be
ijause she was so hungry and so lone
some, she walked along the street
A man asked her what was the
matter, and, because he was a young
man, she listened to him and let him
buy her some hot chocolate and bis
cuits in an ice cream parlor.
Later he met her several times.
He treated her to ice cream or more
substantial things to eat, which she
always accepted, for she was hungry
nearly.all the time. While he bought
he food he fed her hungry soul with
kindly words. And he never talked
of anything that was wrong.
She was only 15 years old. Unlike
most girls of her age she was unhap
py, for she felt the world was mis
treating her, was not giving the
pleasures and joys that girls of her
age should have.
She thought the world was bad
mean because it kept her poor and
always hungry, but wicked thoughts
were foreign to her clean child-mind.
That is the story of a little girl
who was.
Jennie is still 15. She looks just
as sweet and good as she did the first
time, she dressed up in her poor
"best" to meet the kind young man
on the street corner.
A child may disobey or be at fault
and not be guilty of doing a wrong,
because it did not understand. Jen
nie does not understand why people
should not think her just as good as
he ever was, because ' she did not
want to do wrong, she says.
When Peter Peconlas invited her
to his room she went because she
was hungry for some one to talk to,
and she trusted him because he had
been so good and Wnd.
All'this is the story Jennie told in
morals court yesterday when she
appeared as a witness against three
people charged with leading her
astray.
. In- a very low voice she told the
story very well until the part where
she made the second visit to Peter's
room. Then she looked wonderingly
around at the mass of faces and peer
ing eyes that closely encircled her as
she stood before the judge's bench
and became dumb.
"Come up here and tell me," said
Judge Harry Fisher.
He seated her beside him, leaned
over, very close, so she could whis
per in his ear and only a few could
hear. Then he drew out the rest of
her story.
On the first visit to Peconlas' room
he suggested no wrong, she said; he
only told her he loved her. She had
never thought much of love, never
imagined any one would want to love
her, for no one seemed to have a
kindly care for her. But it made her
feel good to think now that some one
did care. -
It .was on her second visit, she
said, that the kind young man made
the first advances.
Jennie we have called her. We
didn't want to tell her real name, be
cause she's only 15, and girls of her
temperament can -forget and easily
live down the past if gossiping
tongues will let them.
'We called her Jennie, because, sit
ting in the witness chair she was so
small, so prettily made, with her
piquant, child-like face, wide eyes
wondering because they did not un
derstand, and golden hair caught to
gether with a ribbon and hanging
down her back; she looked just the
way we imagined a girl named Jen
nie ought to look. So we call her
that for the story.
Peconlas, who lives at 316 W. 22d
st, is the man she accuses. With a
man named Lehmann and Leh
mann's wife, who keep a rooming
house at 2121 Michigan av., Pecon
las is accused of contributing to the
girl's delinquency. Jennie said sh.9

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