Part 6

"The super he teched his forrard, an' gin the chaplain a side look, an' sez he, 'Ah, yes, I see!' An' then, willin' to pacify the poor creetur, he turns to him as pleasant as can be, an' sez he, 'You mistake me, my friend, I'm not the doctor, but all the same I've come here to help you, an' what may I do fur you to-day?' The little feller looked at him a minnit, kinder troubled like, an' then he fetched a sigh, and shook his head, an' sez he, 'Physic's _no use_, I'm _tuckered out_!' 'But mebbe now,' sez the chaplain, 'I may be able to do some little thing fur you outside. Ain't there some one there you'd like a visit from now?' sez he.

"'Outside?--_out--side?_' sez the little man, puttin' his skinny hand to his forrard, as ef he wanted to remember suthin', but couldn't fur the life on him. 'Out--_side_--o-u-t--side? Du tell, is it there, _now_? I wouldn't 'a' thought it, though; I ain't heerd nothin' on it fur--fur'--countin' his lean fingers, an' rubbin' his forrard again--'fur fifteen year!

"'_Outside, eh?_ an' is Deely there now? She was a hansum gal when I merried her. I sot the world by Deely! Le's see; she was goin' to Californy, Deely was. I wonder if she's got there yit? I hain't heerd a word from her fur fifteen year. But Benjy knows all about her. Benjy's my fust cousin, doctor. He said he'd come an' see me, but he hain't come yit. He's busy, I s'pose, and can't git time.' An' arter he'd fumbled a spell in his breast-pocket, he pulled out a dirty scrap o' paper with some writin' on it, an' handin' on it to the chaplain, sez he, '_That's_ where Benjy lives, doctor. He said he'd come an' see me, an' let me know 'bout _her_; an' I've waited fifteen year, doctor, an' all that time I hain't heerd a word from Deely! Mebbe,' sez he, lookin' into the chaplain's face kinder wishful, 'Mebbe sometime you'd go an' see Benjy _fur_ me, and ask him if he's ever heerd from Deely sence she started for Californy. Fifteen year's a long spell to wait,' sez he, heavin' another sigh, 'an' I'm clean _tuckered out_.' I seen a tear drop on to the chaplain's white necktie, an' sez I to myself, 'he's a thinkin' o' his _own_ wife' (a pretty, chipper little lady she was, too,--I see her one day in chapel), an' sez I, '_he'll go!_'

"Well, the super, he told the little tuckered-out creetur to go back to his cell. So he crep' back, as still as a mouse. He didn't lay down, fur I watched him. He skulked into a corner, an' crouched down on the floor ezackly as ef he was tryin' to tie himself up into a hard knot, an' there he staid, as still as a stun image. Arter that, I heerd the super tellin' the chaplain that the man had turns o' bein' out o' his head, an' he'd come up to be treated fur it.

"'His name,' sez he, 'is David Sweeney. He's an American, an' in fur twenty year fur highway robbery. No mortal knows how he come to do it,' sez he, 'for he had a good trade, an' plenty o' work at it, an' had allers borne a good character, an', only three months before, he'd married the very girl he wanted, Delia White, as pretty as a pink, an' smart as a steel trap. Some folks thought _she_ might 'a' ben at the bottom on't, for she was a toppin' gal, an' mighty fond o' gew-gaws, an' he'd 'a' cut off his right hand to please her. I should say she turned out a poor bargain, anyhow, for he's never set eyes on her sence he come to the prison. I remember folks pitied the poor feller a good deal at the time, for he was young an' this was his first offence; but highway robbery's bad business,' sez he, 'an' if a man _will_ foller it, why then let him take the consequences, _I_ say.' Next arternoon the chaplain he come up to the hospital agin', an' went in an' talked a spell with the little tuckered-out man. I couldn't hear what he said, but arterwards I heerd him tell the super how he'd been to hunt up the 'fust cousin' who, as nigh as he could come at it, kep' a grocery store on Cambridge Street fifteen year ago; but he'd moved to Vermont, bag an' baggage, years ago, an' nobody round there had heerd a lisp from him sence. Well, next day Deely's husband got wild as a hawk, an' had to be locked up in his cell, an' afore he was fit to go round loose again I'd got peart, an' gone down. An' purty pleased I was, too, I tell you, for the warden he gin me a runner's berth, an' that ain't to be sneezed at. Well, I should say it wa'n't more'n six months arter that, when long in the edge o' the evenin' I was sent up in the third tier of the north wing to kerry some apples that one o' the instructors had brought in for a prisoner belongin' to his shop. When I come to the right door I was goin' to hand 'em through the gratin', but, not seein' nobody, I coughed to let the feller know I was there; an' then, hearin' a rustlin' over on the bed, I peeked in, an there, as sure as eggs, was the little 'tuckered-out' man, tied in the same old hard knot, an' with the same old, lonesome, hankerin' look on his wizened little face! When he heerd me, he riz up, and come forrard, an' when I gin him the apples he kinder perked up a minnit, but before I could turn round he drapped on to the bed agin as dismal as ever, an', as I come away, I heerd him a moanin' to hisself, 'O Lord! O Lord! tuckered out! tuckered out!'

"Well, arter that, I seen him consider'ble, off an' on, an', somehow, he 'peared to take a shine to me, an' we got to be purty good friends. He wa'n't a grain out o' his head now, but uncommon dismal, an' enjoyed purty poor health, I should say from his looks, though he didn't complain to nobody. One night, long 'bout Christmas time, I was sent inter his wing on some arrant or other, an', as I was goin' kinder slow past his door, I see him beckoning to me. I wa'n't apt to go agin the rules, but, thinks I, 'twon't break nobody ef I stop a minnit, an' jest say a word to this poor creetur. So I looked sharp, an' seein' as nobody was twiggin' me, I went up to the gratin' an' shook hands with him, an' sez I, 'I hope I see you well, Sweeney.' Sez he, 'No, not _very_ well, Hiram, an' here's my goold ring,' sez he, 'an' I want you to keep it fur me. I sha'n't have no use fur it fur some time.' So he put the ring on the little finger o' my left hand, an' a tight squeeze it was, too. 'Twas real Guinny goold, with two hearts, an' a 'D' cut inside on't. He wa'n't a grain flighty that night, but sich a sorrowful look as he gin me, when he put that ring on my finger, you never _did_ see. An' then he shook hands with me agin, an' sez he, 'How dretful long these nights be, Hiram. But they'll get shorter arter Christmas, won't they? Good-by, Hiram, God bless you!'

"Well, to make a long story short, next mornin' airly, while the men was bein' rung out, I was a settin' things to rights in the warden's office, when he comes runnin' in in a great fluster, an' sez he to the deputy, 'Sweeney's fell from the third corridor, an' I guess he's 'bout done for. He's up,' sez he, 'in the hospital. Send for the doctor, an' the crowner, too, as quick as possible.' I was dretful flurried, but I got through my work somehow, an' by'm by I went inside to clean up the passage, an' when I see some spots o' blood there, I knowed what _that_ meant. Arterwards, I heerd the warden an' the chaplain talkin' it over, an', as fur as I could larn, the little 'tuckered-out' man never spoke to nobody arter they took him up, though he lived half an hour. The crowners they sot on him, an' brung in a verdick of '_death by accident_,' but _I_ hed his goold ring on my finger, an' I knew all about _Deely_. 'An',' sez I to myself, 'some accidents is _done_ a _purpose_, I reckon!'

"Next day was Friday, an' a feller who'd had a visit from his sister come along feelin' purty chipper, with a big bowkay in his fist. He pulled out a spice pink an' a couple o' sprigs o' rose geranium, an' gin 'em to me, an', thinkin' they might come in play, I put 'em by, in a bottle o' water.

"Well, long in the forenoon, I had to kerry some truck to the hospital, an' I took my little posy along. There stood the coffin, all ready for Tewksbury, for the warden was away that day, and they wa'n't goin' to have service over the body, as most ginerally they do. I asked the super ef I might look at the corpse, and sez he, 'Certainly, Hiram,' an' he steps up to the coffin an' lifts the forrard kiver, an' bless me! ef I wa'n't beat! There lay the little 'tuckered-out' man, as smilin' as a basket o' chips!

"I suppose I 'peared kinder took aback, for the super he says to me, sez he, 'Don't he look naterel to you, Hiram?' 'Nateral, sir?' sez I, 'an' _that contented_! Why, I never should ha' knowed him, ef I'd met him anywheres else!' Well, the super he kind er smiled, an' walked off, an' I stood there a minnit or so, a lookin' at the corpse, an' a thinkin'; an' sez I to myself, 'We know pleggy little 'bout t'other world _anyhow_. The Scripters, now,' sez I, '_doos_ say that arter death there ain't neither merryin' nor givin' in merrige. Howsomedever,' I sez, 'I'll put my spice pink an' my geranium sprigs inside the coffin.' An' I did. An' then I pulled off the goold ring with the two hearts an' the 'D' inside on't. 'Fur,' sez I, 'though I won't ezackly go agin Scripter, I'm sartin sure that Sweeney wouldn't lay here _that_ smilin', ef he hadn't someways, in t'other world, got wind o' Deely.' So I slipped that ring on to his stiff merrige finger, an' as I shet the coffin up, an' come away, I e'en a'most thought I heerd him larf right out."

A PRISON CHILD.

At an age when most children are tenderly wrapped in the cotton-wool of domestic seclusion, that golden-haired toddler, the warden's daughter, a motherless little creature, escaped from the careless durance of a busy maid of all work, had become, comparatively, a public character, and, no longer a private baby, had been tacitly appropriated by an entire prison community.

"Taking her walks abroad" in the roomy guard-room; pattering right and left, on tiny aimless feet, she peered curiously up and down and round about. With childish wonder (herself "the cynosure of neighbouring eyes") she peeped through tall iron gratings into mysterious corridors, with their endless stretches of dusky cells; at dizzy flights of iron stairs, where--pannikin in hand--listless men trod, day after day, the same weary road. More intently she looked into the shifting panorama of human faces, ever unfolding beneath her innocent gaze. Faces of prison visitors, of prison officers, and instructors; faces of that motley throng behind the bars; faces hard and evil, reckless and defiant, cowed and sullen, or sorrowful, shamed, and forlorn; yet none, among them all, turned disapprovingly upon her, the prison child, the single sunbeam, the one pure and beautiful presence in this attainted, unlovely place! Convict fathers,--hungry for baby faces, foregone through their own graceless folly and crime,--catching a passing glimpse of the golden head, a distant flutter of the white baby gown, were, for the moment, glad and blest.

Although, in the main, light of heart,--as are all young creatures drinking their first sweet wine of life,--little Mabel was not, altogether, as the outside children, who breathe untainted air, and have never neighboured with the wretchedness of that "black flower of civilisation," a criminal prison. Looking into hard, despairing eyes behind the guard-room grating, her own would sometimes fill with sudden tears; and marking, in dull procession, the tread of listless, joyless feet, the lithe young figure, with the springing step, would often instinctively slow itself to sympathetic rhythm.

But, when grown in grace and in favour with God, and the prisoner, Queen May, now a sedate maiden of five summers, had coaxed old Peter Floome, the prison runner, and her _self_-elected nurse, to her royal wishes; when lifted proudly in his arms she was permitted to pass bodily into the prison yard, that hitherto unexplored region,--to make a royal progress through the entire round of the workshops,--scattering, right and left, gracious smiles and pungent checkerberry lozenges saved up for this great occasion; when she was triumphantly borne to the underground prison kitchen, there to be handed gingerly around among as many aproned cooks as might have served "Old King Cole," at his jolliest, and was munched and kissed by lips,--presumably not morally of the cleanest,--yet what, indeed, mattered this to the uncritical child? The convict, like "Cathleen's dun cow," "Tho' wicked he was, was _gentle_ to _her_;"--then it was that the glory of the occasion, and Peter Floome's pride in his beloved nursling, rose far beyond the high-water mark of words!

And here let it be stated that Warden Flint's baby daughter had, in the prison, another friend far more eligible than that brain-cracked convict, Peter Floome.

He was a prison officer, to wit, that notable turnkey who keeps the guard-room doors. His not over-euphonious name was Timothy Tucker, and, though a bachelor of fifty, and a very dragon at holding a door, to little birds and little children the turnkey's heart was as wax.

Soon after his instalment in the guard-room he had, with Warden Flint's grudging permission, hung, high in its tall window, five small bird cages. In these, three yellow canaries, a Java sparrow, and a dainty pair of love-birds, all optimistic creatures that--

"Neither look before nor after, Nor pine for what is not"--

hopped as contentedly, or sang as rapturously, as if the prison were indeed (as fabled in convict slang) "the palace." As for the prison child, from the first hour of her appearance in the guard-room, she had commanded the turnkey's susceptible heart. His "little Blossom," he had called her, and when, later, she imparted to him the pretty abbreviation of her name, it was he who wedded the two charming words, and so made the "prison name" of the warden's daughter, May-blossom. Seldom was the genial, child-loving turnkey too busy to pilot the small, tottering feet across the guard-room floor; to hold her high in his arms to "'ook at tunnin' birdies," or to lift her, in dizzy delight, to her favourite perch, his tall desk, by the rear window, commanding all the fascinating bustle of the prison yard. And when from prattling infancy she had advanced to garrulous, inquisitive childhood, it was he who lent an ever-ready ear to her thousand and one questions.

"Children, now, _is_ curus," said Mr. Tucker to his landlady, over his evening pipe, "they beat birds all holler! There's May-blossom, now, only six years old, an' she sticks _me_ sometimes, she _does_, an' no mistake!"

The train of thought, leading to these frank observations, had been started in the good turnkey's mind by the recollection of a recent theological skirmish with this astute little being, in which (to use his own forcible words) he "had ben most gol darn'dly beat." This embryo free-religionist having insisted upon being told "Why, if God, _certain true_, loved everybody, an' was bigger an' stronger, an' ever so much gooder than _other_ folks, He didn't stop people's being bad, so's they had to be put in prison, without little children to kiss, an' kittens to play with, an' strawberries an' cake, an' things to eat?" Ah, little soul! too soon perplexed by the ancient riddle; why _doesn't_ He--why, indeed! Young and old, wise and simple, we are all guessing together; and no man solves the immemorial puzzle!

Peter Floome--when, upon a Sunday, the prison chaplain exhorted his not over-heedful flock to pious dependence upon the divine care--was wont to make his own disparaging comments upon the well-meant, but often inapplicable discourse. "'Tain't a grain o' use" (said this volunteer critic, to his fellow-convicts) "o' the chaplain braggin' _in here_ 'bout Providence, an' sich. Most prob'ly th' Almighty _is_, more or less, round 'tendin' to things; but, nat'rally, the devil takes charge o' prisons, an' runs 'em putty much his own way."

Peter, having had a good twenty years' stretch of prison life, his experience undoubtedly counted. His utterances were, however, to be taken with that corrective grain of salt with which one wisely qualifies the statement of the "crank;" for though, in the main, mentally sound, through long confinement, and much hopeless pondering, Peter Floome's brain had taken a decidedly pessimistic twist, and, in prison circles, he was unanimously dubbed "a crank." It was after the death of Warden Flint's wife, that Peter's theology became a shade more optimistic, for then it was that the warden's year-old daughter, by the tacit consent of all whom it might concern, fell to his especial care.

In his capacity of runner, Peter had, comparatively, the freedom of the prison, and was particularly detailed for duty in the warden's household. The child--with that unaccountable choice of favourites inherent in her kind--had taken famously to her convict dry-nurse. It was the sudden rising of this new star on the runner's narrow horizon, that inspired the following harangue: "Ef th' Almighty, as I say, don't jest _put up_ in prisons, Himself, leastways He _does_, now an' agin, send little angels, an' _sich_, to keep up a feller's courage."

Peter and his "little angel" might now often be seen together; for the child, following hard upon his heels, had one day slipped furtively through the guard-room door, and had thus become a regular _habitué_ of that semi-public apartment.

Ten summers of this exceptional child-life had passed over May-blossom's golden head, when Destiny (that other name for Providence) suddenly removed her to an environment far more kindly than that in which her sweet young eyes had opened upon this many-sided existence. But, to explain, we must escape at once from prison.

* * * * *

Here, in the soft September sky, not the faintest speck of a cloud may be seen. The river, broken into endless ripples by a crisp west wind, glances like molten sunshine; and not many rods from its pebbled shore, behold that goodly sight, an old colonial homestead!

Four generations of Parkers have lived their lives in this ancient dwelling beside the Saganock, which has all the well-to-doativeness (if one may coin a word) inherent in the ancestral homes of such favoured children of men as have much goods laid up for many years. And here, upon "the stoop," in after-dinner ease, sits the mistress of the mansion--Miss Paulina Parker. Miss Paulina is the last of the Parkers. In her snowy gown and gauzy dress-cap, she is, to-day, dainty as a white butterfly. Far and wide is she known as the Lady Bountiful of Saganock; and a dearer, lovelier old maid the sun never shone upon; and, though her sixtieth birthday falls on the twentieth of this very month, you would not take her to be a day over forty-five! The lean, gaunt old body, rocking beside yonder window, in the kitchen ell, is Harmy Patterson. For the last fifty years Harmy has cooked and saved for the Parker family, and still considers herself in the prime of her usefulness. She is reading the Boston _Recorder_, to her _confrère_--Mandy Ann, the second girl; who, all agape, swallows the delectable murders, marriages, and deaths that spice its columns. Reuben, the hired man, leisurely running a lawn-mower past the open window, pauses beneath it, from time to time, to solace himself with some especial tidbit of horror. While Miss Paulina, in pensive reverie, looks out on river and sky, and marks how, in the Saganock burying-ground, a maple or two has prematurely reddened, she is suddenly confronted by Harmy Patterson, newspaper in hand, spectacles pushed over her brown foretop, and cap-strings flying in the wind. Excitedly indicating, with her long forefinger, an especial column of her favourite journal, she pantingly exclaims: "Fur pity sake, Miss Paulina, du jes' read _this_!"

Promptly acceding to the request of the old body, Miss Parker reads attentively the following:

FEARFUL TRAGEDY AT THE STATE PRISON!

As the warden of the Massachusetts State Prison was this morning making his round of observation and inspection among the shops, being in the shoemaking department at about ten and a half o'clock, and passing the bench where one Hodges (a disorderly convict, who, after repeated and severe punishment, had, that morning, been remanded to his shop) was at work, Hodges suddenly sprang upon him from behind, stabbing him with a shoe-knife, and killing him instantly. The assassin was immediately secured, heavily ironed, and committed, for safe-keeping, to the "Lower Arch." The body of the unfortunate warden was removed to the hospital, a coroner summoned, and the inspectors convened. By this sad occurrence a young family is bereaved of paternal support, and the prison of a long-tried and faithful officer.

"Dear me, Harmy, what a sad affair!" cries the compassionate reader; "and Josiah Flint's moth--no; let me see! I have it now. Josiah Flint's _grandmother_ was a--was a Parker, Harmy."

"Yes'm," replies the woman, who has the Parker genealogy at her tongue's end; "an' your pa's was _second_ cousins; an' the warden, ef he'd a lived, would be your _third_ cousin. Law sakes! I mind, as well as can be, young Josiah an' his pa comin' to Saganock. You was a girl then, an' old Josiah, he was minister in Salem, an' his father before him (an' hot and heavy _he_ made it for witches, folks say). Well, he come to Saganock to preach for our minister, an' brung his boy along; an' bein' connections, they was asked to put up with us. Sakes alive! I remember it all well as ef it want but yisterday. That Sunday we had apple pie an' milk betwixt sermons, an' when afternoon meetin' was out, I gin 'em a pipin' hot supper. Well, the old man was a powerful preacher," rambles on the old retainer, while Miss Paulina, heedless of her chatter, sits pondering the situation. "An' I had remarkable exercises of mind that Sunday; but there! that boy, goodness gracious! didn't he make way with my clam fritters an' gooseberry pie? Well, well, this is a dyin' world; an' now _his_ time's come; an' sich an awful providence, too!" And here, kindly oblivious of the ancient onslaught on her supper, old Harmy drops a pitying tear for the dead warden.

"Harmy," says Miss Paulina, decisively, "Josiah Flint's wife has been dead these nine years, and somebody must see to those poor orphan children. Tell Reuben to put Major into the carryall. I shall take the next train for Boston, and probably stay at the prison till the funeral is over."

In accordance with this humane resolve, Miss Parker packs her travelling bag, and, in her second best black silk gown, sets out at four P. M. for the State Prison. Very cold and gray, in the early autumn twilight, is the residence of the late Josiah Flint, when Miss Paulina Parker alights from the depot carriage at its frowning entrance. A jaded housemaid answers the bell, and ushers her into a slipshod parlor, and thus meets her inquiries for "the warden's family:"

"Famblee, is it, mem? sure, an' it's jist broken up, it is. There's himself (God rest him) as dead as a dooer-nail. The baby wint years ago, along wid the mother; an' the soon he died with the ammonia (pneumonia) lasht fall, whilst he was away to the schule; an' as fur the girl--she's that wantherin', sure, that I couldn't jist this minnit lay me finger on the crather."

Discouraged by this curt summary, Miss Parker half inclines to a French leave of the prison; but inspired by the hope of future usefulness to the small estray upon whom Bridget cannot "jist lay a finger," she resolves to remain, and somehow elbow her way into this dubious and fragmentary domestic circle.

"I am Miss Parker (she explains), the warden's cousin, from Saganock. I have come to stay over the funeral, if you can conveniently keep me.