Chapter 18
Bridgett Gunn's Story

My friend Edna says life does things to you that you never thought you could bear. She said you end up doing things you never wanted to do, because life is so hard.

I'd rather have no husband than have her husband, and so would she. The latest thing he did was get run down by the number seven Street car. Even though the driver rang the gong. At least he didn't give his name for them to put in the paper.

My husband was a quiet, good man, and I'm a quiet, good woman. But it's like Edna says, life makes you do things you don't want to do. The older I get, the more I think I'm just as good as the best woman alive, and just as bad as the worst.

Not that I'm old. But with twelve children I feel old. Six work. But they don't bring home enough pay to feed and clothe us. They're right to call that rope walk a sweat shop.

Nine and ten years old and working night and day. With not an hour to go on the swings, nor an extra penny for a chocolate man or a dolly delight or a stick of licorice.

What I did wasn't right. I know that. But it was just one pot of rum. Not a shebeen. At least I wouldn't call it that. But maybe it was one. It sounds bad when someone else does it, and the papers call it wicked.

But to Bridgett Gunn, when it's herself trying to feed Mary and Amy Jo and Tom and Elizabeth Ann and the twins, it doesn't seem bad.

It just seems like a pot of rum under the bed, that I could have turned into bread and meat if the police hadn't come.