“We’re all lost,” he managed to tell the officer.
“Yes, we are lost,” said the older of the three girls. “We live way over by Fifth and Harrison streets. We were going to the graveyard to put flowers on the graves, but Jimmie don’t know the way.”
Sergeant Jadwin surmised at once that they were Italian children, though it would have been impossible to have told by their manner of speech. Jimmie cried until the quartette reached the station, where he recognized the locality. The children were soon surrounded by the officers, who were more than amused by the oldest girl’s plain English, and her denunciation of Jimmie.
“He told us he would take us to the graveyard,” she said, her black eyes snapping. “Then he took us away and away,” and she dramatized the description by motioning with the hands the direction which they had taken. “Then, he’s a cry-baby, too,” she continued, “for as soon as he saw he was lost, he began to cry.”
“Can you write your name?” asked James Cummings, the telephone man.
In answer, the child took the officer’s pencil, and, with childish scrawl which was perfectly legible, she wrote the names of the three others, as well as her own name.
“Maggie Saoa” was her own name, she said, as she showed her skill to the officer. Her two companions, she said, were her cousins, Marie and Josie Saoa, who all lived in the same flat at 532 Harrison street. The boy was identified as James Scarcello, who lives at 536 Harrison street. Thee children were taken home by the wagon driver.
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