Page:The web (1919).djvu/263

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desperate by circumstances. The A. P. L. first got her a good position; second, advanced the money to pay off the mortgage on the home, she to pay them back in monthly installments; and third, found the people to whom she had sold the bonds, and returned the money of which she had fraudulently deprived them. This girl remained clean and straight, and as a culmination of the case she married a young soldier, whom she met through the A. P. L., who later did his bit in France. We do not know of a prettier bit in the history of the A. P. L. than this.

On March 2, 1918, A. P. L. ran down another one of those cruel rumors against the Red Cross which have been started by pro-German women for the most part. This rumor was first circulated by a young woman, and is of a nature which can not be put into print. The girl, when found, confessed that she was guilty. She also confessed that she was hitting the high spots in the city, having left a country home to get acquainted with the bright lights. The A. P. L. did not kick this woman down and out, either, but gave her a hand-up. Two weeks later she came to the Division Office with tears in her eyes, apologized for the false rumors which she had set going, and implored that she might be allowed to do something for the office of the division.

A war plant making areoplane parts kept turning out defective work. The A. P. L. put a woman operative in the factory. She chanced to be a young woman of a wealthy family, accustomed to the luxury of a beautiful home, but she took to the overalls and dirty work as a duck does to water. She was in the factory three weeks, located the trouble, and it was adjusted.

A telephone call reported that a house was being burglarized. An A. P. L. man at the phone remembered that a deserter had been sought for at that number. In thirty minutes the house was surrounded. They did not catch the deserter, but they did get the burglar.

A dangerous type of service was the raiding of I. W. W. headquarters. Sometimes these were boarding houses where thirty or forty of these people would be gathered together. When such a place was surrounded, the suspects would pour out of the windows into the arms of the operatives. This meant occasional fights, and there was danger in the work,