Gilded Needles (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) Read Online Free Page A

preferred them.
    At one time, Daisy had sold these purgative drugs through an advertisement also. It read:
    Madame Shanks’ female antidote. The only reliable medicine that can be procured; certain to have desired effects within 24 hours, without instruments or injurious results.
    Since the medicine sold for $ 7 . 50 a bottle, and the ingredients cost only thirty cents, Daisy could realize a fine profit. But when her mother pointed out that some women who purchased the medicine might otherwise have come to her for a much more lucrative abortion, Daisy left off distribution of the home remedy.
    The nature of Daisy’s service was of course known to the police, whose headquarters was but a few streets distant, but officers happily took bribes. Lena Shanks was also a steadfast contributor to the coffers of the Democratic Party. The politicians did not consider it inconsistent to beg financial support of a household that had no voting members, and Lena had never drawn attention to this inequity. The contributions to Tammany Hall, and the double eagles that were dropped into the cops’ pockets, she considered simply to be in lieu of municipal licensing. Abortion was adjudged by the state of New York to be manslaughter in the first degree, punishable by an imprisonment of between four and seven years but Daisy had never associated the appearance of a policeman with the possibility of arrest. There was carefully no mention made of the West Houston Street address in the advertisements that were published in the Herald , and Daisy and her mother considered this circumspection enough.
    Daisy picked a piece of work from her mother’s basket, and sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth.
    “Where’s Louisa?” demanded Lena.
    “Gone to see ’Lotta.”
    Lena jerked her head upward. “What about that one? She dead too? Don’t want to send boy and girl out again tonight.”
    Daisy giggled. “Course not, Ma! Quiet now. Gave her laudanum with the medicine.”
    “Shouldn’t mix,” said her mother harshly, and tossed a handful of threads into the fire.
    “Oh, Ma, you didn’t see her! Never saw anyone so nervy! If I hadn’t given her laudanum, I’d have been up there all night!”
    “Watch out, Daisy, she’ll end up like the other. Too much medicine for the other and she’s dead,” complained Lena.
    “No,” laughed Daisy, “Dollie’ll be back on the stage tomorrow night. I can tell when the medicine’s going to take. It was that waiter-girl that caused me the trouble tonight. Waiter-girl looked strong as the Female Amazon in the Dime Museum. Gave her a dose that would have aborted the Rock of Ages. Five hours, and all she wanted was a plate of hot corn. She could as well have swallowed rose water. I wanted to send her away, but said she wanted the forceps.” Daisy shrugged. “Rob runs out of the room when he sees that blood, but Ella’s ’cute, and claps a pillow over the girl’s head, prevent her from screaming—girl had lungs fit to make a bellows out of. Don’t know if she died of the bleeding or the pillow.”
    “Always Ella knows what to do,” said her grandmother.
    “Yes,” said Daisy, “but won’t never make a physician. Once Rob gets so he don’t mind the blood, he’ll be the one to have by me when I’m working. His heart’s in it and the ladies like him. If I could have had him by me tonight, with the actress, I maybe could have saved the laudanum.”
    “Boy is fine with the ladies,” said Lena, “just like you, Daisy. But girl belongs to me. Already she knows about gold and silk and sew secret pockets. Girl’s good to have by me all day.”
    When she had given over her active practice in abortions, Lena Shanks had quickly established herself as a fence; this was a transition that was accomplished easily and with speed. Many of her former customers were thieves, and known to Lena as such. She let it casually be known among these women that she was in the market to purchase whatever