Part 10

Callahan had just finished washing the dirt from her face when the Deputy made his appearance.

"I gave the order that Callahan's cell should not be opened unless I was here."

"The doctor came, I supposed you sent him, and opened the cell door as I always do for him."

"What way did he come in?"

"Through the front door of the kitchen, as he often does."

I was not sorry for the mistake.

That evening Mrs. Hardhack told me they were determined to break Callahan's temper. They had got her pretty well under; but it was not quite broken.

Her constitution was in a fair way to be broken, her temper might share the same fate. If to teach her to control her temper were what was meant, a very unfit method was adopted to effect the purpose.

How can one person teach another to control his temper when he is ignorant of the way, and does not practice the government of his own?

When I was left alone in the prison, I sat down before Callahan's cell door. I thought over the object of punishment. Is it intended to deter the vicious from continuing in crime? That is the apparent object. Then, ought it not to be adapted to the crime, and administered by those who are free from the same faults? Instead of that, it was left, in this instance, an almost irresponsible power, in the hands of ignorance and cruelty, and if report were not mistaken, of kindred sin.

I thought, some mother's heart is aching for you, poor Callahan; such treatment as you receive here, will never lead you to make it ache the less. Injustice and severity will never soften your heart, or enlighten your understanding. God pity you, and interpose in your behalf!

"What are you thinking of?" asked Callahan.

"How did you know that I was thinking?"

"I looked through the key-hole, and saw you looking straight to the floor, biting your nails."

"I was thinking of you, Callahan."

"You was thinking what a wicked wretch I am?"

"I wish you might become better, and never come in this place again. It is a great deal of suffering for so little comfort as you can take in sin. Won't you try to do better, Callahan?"

"I can't in here. They are just as bad as I am that put me in here, and they'll never make me any better."

There was the injustice for which she had suffered rankling in her heart.

"It is more what we do ourselves than what others do to us which makes us happy or unhappy."

"It's what they've done to me that makes me unhappy, and if ever I catch them ---- outside, I'll pay 'em back,--I will, if I go to h--l for it!"

"Callahan, Callahan, be patient and gentle! Don't think of any wicked things to do outside, but think how to behave so that you can stay there. Remember it was for your own deeds that you came in here. If you hadn't been in here, they couldn't have put you in the black cell. Be gentle and patient while you are here, now that it can't be helped, and never come again."

"For you, I will; and I'll try not to go in the ways that bring me here. But if I should meet them, I know I should forget it all. I should think about it, and it would make me so mad. If I was out of the right way, and got in here, the Master had no right to lock me up here for what I did not do."

I had no justification of that proceeding to offer, so I said nothing more.

"Will you please give me a drink of water?" asked Callahan in a moment.

"Callahan, you know that I cannot! Why do you hurt my feelings by asking me?"

"You have the keys,--you could give it to me, and the Deputy would never know it. If you knew how dry I am you would."

"I cannot, Callahan. When I go out of here I can tell those who make the rules, how hard it is to go so long without drinking, and how tiresome it is to lie, and sit, and stand on the stones, and perhaps they will change them; but I cannot disobey."

"O dear!" she sighed, and began to sing. Every sound went through my heart like the stab of a sharp knife. If that were my child! was the agonizing thought. What keeps my children from such a fate? The loving care of Him who holds the hearts of all in His hand. I could have gone prostrate on the cold stones to thank Him that He had saved them from such a fate, and me from such an agony of sorrow. How can I show my gratitude? By trying to make less hard the hapless lot of the unfortunates around me, and teaching them in the principles that lead to better practices.

My tears almost choked my utterance as I called to her, "Callahan, stop that singing unless you mean to break my heart!"

O'Brien had been standing on the steps that led to the kitchen, only a few feet from me. She came along and sat down on a low stool at my feet.

"How different you are to what I thought you was when you came in here. You stepped round so square and independent, I thought we had got a hard mistress."

"Look here!" said Callahan, "it does me good to speak to you sometimes. It is easier to be patient, and the time don't seem so long. Look here! Do you love Hardhack?"

"I know very little about her."

"I heard her in the kitchen scolding awhile ago, and you took it as cool as could be. If I'd been you I'd put her out. She has no right to come in your place and give orders. It sets me crazy to hear her."

"If I could not keep my own temper when I am annoyed, how could I teach you to keep yours?"

"That's it," said O'Brien. "Hardhack gets mad in the shop, and scolds us, and we scold back; and then we get punished. I wish there was somebody to report her, too."

"Girls, did you ever hear of One who said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'?"

"Yes; but I never saw anybody do it," said O'Brien.

"Did you ever try to do it, Callahan?"

"No! I always thought 'twas all moonshine. It'll do to preach about."

"It will do to practice, too. Suppose you try it towards Mrs. Hardhack, and see how much happier you will feel."

"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded through the prison in continuous echoes.

"It has done me good to laugh. I don't feel half so mad with her as I did."

"O'Brien, I came very near sending you to the shop to-day, when you scolded Allen so hard. Be careful or you will change your mistress before you know it. You keep me in constant anxiety lest the Deputy, or some of the other Matrons should come in and hear you. In that case it would be beyond my power to help you."

"If you do send me to the shop you will have me home again in less than twenty-four hours, one of your bread-and-water boarders."

She understood how to meet that threat.

"I don't know but Hardhack will get me into solitary as it is. When she came through the kitchen this noon, she saw me eating a piece of fish with my bread,--we'd been stripping it off for the hash, and I took a piece. She asked me who gave me liberty to eat fish. I told her, nobody. She asked me how I dared to eat that fish without permission. I should have made her a saucy answer only I knew it would make you feel bad, so I didn't say anything."

"I am glad you had so much thought, and exercised so much self-control."

"I wasn't afraid of Hardhack."

"I am glad you had so much regard for me. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to know of your good behavior. Don't you feel better, yourself, for doing what is right?"

"Yes, ma'am; I do! and when you tell me I do right, it makes me feel quite like a woman again; as though I was somebody."

Self-respect goes a long way towards creating good behavior, and commendation given, where it is deserved, produces that effect. I watched for a chance to praise them when they did well, and bestowed the approval wherever I could find the opportunity.

There was no lack of discrimination on their part. They were aware when they committed intentional wrong, and, as a rule, acknowledged it when rebuked in a kind spirit. With the same understanding they appreciated the praise when it was deserved. Gratitude was aroused when it was given, and the satisfaction they enjoyed was an incentive to strive to obtain more.

I had constant proof that the exercise of kindness was far more effectual in getting my work done than that of stern authority.

That afternoon I had wished O'Brien to take more pains with her scrubbing, and had said to her,--

"Your floor looks red and nice,"--the kitchen floor was of brick,--"but do you notice that soiled strip in that corner, under the table? A dingy border spoils all the effect of your labor."

"Yes, ma'am. I saw it when I was scrubbing; but I was so tired, and my shoulder ached so bad that I didn't touch it."

"I am sorry your shoulder aches, and I know you are tired; but I like to see the place look nice."

"I know you do; I'll go right now and take it away."

Kindness begets kindness. There are few human beings so totally depraved, desperately wicked as some may be, who cannot be aroused into appreciation of kind treatment. I have never met with one who could not. So harshness in a superior begets harshness in an inferior; and constant fault finding either arouses anger from its injustice, or paralyzes all effort to do well.

As are the manners of those who lead, so are the manners of those who follow. As a matter of policy, to restrain crime without regard to the teaching of religion, those who have charge of convicts should be gentle and humane.

XIX.

DISCOMFORTS, AND THE END.

A very few days after I entered the institution, I gave up looking for any consideration from any one but the Deputy.

It was a rule of the place to shift every labor, when it could be effected, by the one to whom it belonged, upon some other person. That is, in the female department. The example set by the Head Matron was considered worthy of imitation, and copied with an accuracy deserved by a better one.

To impose upon an officer, ignorant of the ways of the place, was a favorite entertainment of some of the others.

They commenced to hand me along from one to another when I wished for things to use, or for information, giving me a long chase to find it; but a short time, only, was required to extinguish that entertainment. I refused to take orders or information from any one but the Deputy.

My inquiries of him, and statements of what I had been told, exposed them. They got reproof instead of entertainment, which, of course, created resentment that vented itself in a thousand of those little annoying inventions in which unamiable women are so ingenious.

The reprisals Mrs. Hardhack made did not always redound to my inconvenience alone,--my women came in for a share in the retaliation. A new Receiving Matron was told to take no trouble about the dresses of my women in the kitchen,--it was no matter how they looked. The shorter she kept them, the better the Master would like it. The less they had to wear the more money would be saved to the institution. In consequence, dresses sufficient to make them decent were withheld.

I made a statement of some of these things to the Deputy. He said,--

"The Matrons have been in the habit of settling those small matters among themselves."

"So we might if either of us had the authority to dictate. If Mrs. Hardhack has the authority to control, and gives the order that my women are to go dirty and ragged, as you see them, I appeal to you. Just look at them as you see them now. Those dresses are all they have, and I can get no better without an order from you."

He looked at them. The angry color flashed into his face, and his teeth were set together. In about two hours tidy dresses were sent in to my women.

I went on,--

"If she has no authority, but is meddling to make mischief, will you please see that she does it no longer. I know it is not the Deputy's business to be settling these little disagreements among the Matrons; but I have no one else to go to. We have no one to regulate these matters for us but you. You call them small matters; so they may be to one who looks on; but our life, every day, is made up of them. And if you take them home, and make them your own, you will not think them so very small. Neither you nor I would consider it a small matter to go dirty and ragged. Would you allow one of your male officers to keep the men who are under another officer dirty and ragged, out of sheer malice, or for any reason?"

"They could not do it,--I should not allow it."

"And you are there to see it, and have the authority to prevent it. And as you have undertaken to do the duty of the Head Officer on this side, I see no other way but to appeal to you in these cases of ours. I have no authority to prevent the mischievous interference of Mrs. Hardhack; and to aggravate, in return, I cannot. She has the advantage of me in the disposition and ability to do so. She has ample opportunity to meddle with the affairs of the other Matrons, because they are sent to her for instruction; and also to give her interpretation of the Rules. Mrs. Hardhack is not so much to blame for what she does. She is only following the bent of her own disposition, as the opportunity to do so is given her. The Head Matron comes to me, and says,--'Control your own place. Mrs. Hardhack has nothing to do with it. If she makes trouble with another Matron, she shall surely be discharged. She has been discharged three times, and begged herself back; but if we say to her, go again, she will surely go.' Then she goes to Mrs. Hardhack, and says,--'You go over to the wash-room and tell the Receiving Matron about her place. You know all about the Rules and things better than I do. I don't know what I should do without you.' That pleases Mrs. Hardhack, and she meddles with everything, and makes trouble all around."

"I will do all I can to help you."

"I know; but I am tired. The care is altogether too much, and the mismanagement of the place makes it intolerable. Explain to the Receiving Matron, if you please, that she is under obligation to wash and mend the clothes of my women the same that she does the others, and give them out another dress when one fails."

"I will do that."

That night I was speaking of the severe labor required of the officers in the institution to Mrs. Hardhack. She turned to me, and said roughly,--

"I find it easy enough."

It was just the right moment for me to tell her why she found it so much easier than the rest of us.

"You may well find it so, in comparison with the rest of us. You have an hour more of rest in the morning than I, and an hour more at night, making nine hours of rest from labor in the twenty-four, instead of the seven that I have. During those nine hours you are entirely free from care, and sleep in a quiet room in the house. During the fifteen that you are on duty you have the entire help of the only Relief Matron in the institution, which ought to be divided among us all, so that you can go out when you please."

"Perhaps, when you have been in the institution as long as I, you will get as many favors."

"I could not take them, if I got them by robbery. I could not enjoy my liberty if the work which belonged to me were imposed upon another, making her burden double, for me to have it."

A smart rap was all the woman could feel. I really grew in her esteem by cutting her up with my sharpness, and she attempted to ingratiate herself into my favor. I will relate how, and how I discovered it.

The next night I was called to lock a woman in solitary. She walked into her cell in silence, and I as silently turned the key upon her. I did not ask the Deputy why she was put there. She was brought up from the shop, and I supposed some miserable tale was appended to her incarceration which I did not care to know.

The next morning, when I went to give her bread and water, she asked me,--

"Do you know what I am in here for?"

"No; I haven't heard them say."

"It was for mocking you. I know it was wrong; but the others did it, and I did it too, and I got caught."

"Who caught you?"

"Mrs. Hardhack. I know it was wrong, I was foolish, but I'll never do it again. The others did it, and so I did it, too."

"And you hadn't courage to do right when others were doing wrong. You are a brave girl! Do you know that there must be order kept in this place, and that there must be rules in order to keep order, and that you must treat those who have the rules in charge with respect?"

"Yes, ma'am; and I never will do it again. Will you get me out?"

"I'll try; but you must always treat me with respect, and all of the other officers in the same way. I shall never intercede for you again."

"I will never give you any reason to."

When the Deputy came round I asked,--

"Is Mary Muran in solitary for mimicking me?"

He said, "Yes."

"Was it for the second offense? Had she been admonished once?"

"She knew better."

"Your Rules and Regulations make no conditions that they know better. They shall be admonished once, and, for the second offense punished."

"They wouldn't do exactly the same thing twice, perhaps; but they would do something as near like it as they could."

"We have no help for that, if we obey the Rules."

"We should be constantly admonishing."

"Wouldn't that be better than constantly punishing? Isn't it better to err on the side of mercy than on that of severity? It seems to me a very severe punishment to put upon a girl for so slight an offense. I think I could have administered a rebuke that would have prevented her repeating it towards me. It really makes me very unhappy to think she is locked up there for a disrespect shown me."

"If you are satisfied with the punishment she has had, you can let her out."

"Indeed I am!"

If she had been one of my women perhaps I should not have reminded the Deputy that he had transcended his orders. Mary Muran was a shop woman. When she was released from her solitary confinement she would return to the shop. Mrs. Hardhack would call him to account for letting her off with so slight a punishment. I gave him an answer for her.

I went directly to the girl's cell.

"You can go, Mary, and I hope you will never do so mean and foolish a thing as to mimic a Matron again."

"I never will, and I shall always remember this kindness in you."

I never knew her to require reproof again, while I was in the institution. It was like the experience I had with every other prisoner. There are, undoubtedly, those who return kindness with ingratitude, but I never saw the kindness fail to produce good behavior while there.

The long day's work, the night vigils, and the damp, noisome air of the prison, were telling upon my health. I was getting an intermittent pulse; chills and fainting every other morning.

I asked the Housekeeper to let me have a cup of tea at half past six. Unless I took it then, I was obliged to wait another hour, because I must attend to giving out the breakfast of the prisoners. In doing that duty I was made a three hours and a half watch before I had anything to eat in the morning. She had given her permission for me to have it; and I had availed myself of the privilege.

One morning after setting my women about the work I wished to have done, while I was gone, I went in to breakfast.

Supervisor arose about that time, and made the important discovery, to her, that the fire had gone out in her furnace, and her parlor was cold. This was in May, consequently the weather was not very inclement.

Her parlor was directly over the prisoners' kitchen; her front door over the kitchen door. The steps that led up to her apartments went past our windows. She often ran down these steps, and looked in the window to give an order about the furnace. This morning she did so, and, not seeing me, inquired where I was.

"Gone in to breakfast," was the reply.

Annie O'Brien, who had charge of the furnace, brought me the order as soon as I went in.

"Shall I have time to do it?" she asked.

"No; it wants but eight minutes of breakfast time. It will take all of that time to "dish up" your mush, and get your coffee ready. It will take half an hour to clear the furnace and light the fire. I am sorry; but you will be obliged to wait till after breakfast."

Supervisor grew impatient, and the more impatient she was the colder she grew. Her comfort was the first thing to be attended to in that institution. The prisoners might go without their breakfast,--the Matrons might faint away for want of food,--it was only paying her proper respect to light her fire, as soon as the order was given.

I was in her power, she could retaliate upon me.

That evening I met her in the officers' dining-room, and asked her if she wished me to keep a three hours and a half watch before breakfast. She replied,--

"It has been done thirty-three years."

"Great changes have taken place in the world during the last thirty-three years, and many more might be effected with advantage," I remarked.

"I don't see how you can find time to go to breakfast at that hour."

"I should not find time at any hour unless I took it."

"That is so; but they were dishing out when I went down. You ought to be there when they are dishing out."

"I suppose so; but I have an order to be in the prison a large part of the time, at all three of the meals, when they are dishing out, and they are obliged to do it without my oversight." Doing your duty, I would have liked to have added.

"Most of the officers like to go to table with the others for company."

"I did not come here for society. In wishing to breakfast earlier, I was not consulting my taste, but trying to take care of my health. Unless I am made somewhat comfortable, I shall break down, and be obliged to leave."

"Comfortable!" she echoed. I was not surprised that the word sounded so strangely to her, connected with any other person than herself.

Discipline had become a mania, and it was applied as severely to the officers as the prisoners, so far as it was in her power to effect it.

The whole study, it appeared to me, was to keep them on duty all day, without relaxation; and they were cut off from every means of enjoyment which was not connected with their care.

There was a common sitting-room where the male officers and Matrons sat and talked together, when they were not on duty, when I went there; but that was taken away, and made into a bed-room, so that there was no place for them to meet except in their own bed-rooms, the halls, or on the grounds.

If human ingenuity were to set itself to work to invent a position of unmitigated discomfort, that prison life would give some excellent hints. The heads of the establishment were certainly very keen in discovering ways to circumscribe the comforts of its inmates.

I made a statement of my circumstances to Supervisor; not with any expectation of obtaining any consideration, but merely to place my view of things before her.

"You cannot wonder that I do not consider that I am made comfortable when you think of my seventeen hours of labor in the day, to which is added the care of the prison, nights."

"The care of the prison, nights!" she echoed, and turned up her nose in disdain.

I did not explain; but reminded her that the Housekeeper had two hours and a half more rest in the morning than I.

"I am glad she can have it; and it would be only kind to give me my tea a little earlier, as I cannot have it."

"She has to be up nights frequently."

"No oftener than I, and not so late. I lock her women up after she dismisses them from her kitchen."

"I shall lose a good Housekeeper if you have your breakfast before the rest. She won't stay if she is obliged to get it."

"She told me she was willing I should have it."

"She is unwilling now."

I readily saw why she had become unwilling. She herself had made up her mind that it was not to be given me, because I delayed the kindling of her fire, and she had made the Housekeeper unwilling.

"You had better keep her. It is doubtful if I could remain with that favor. It is with great difficulty that I get through the day now, with the help of a tonic that the Doctor has given me."

I sent in my resignation the next morning. I told the Master that I would stay till he could find some one to take my place.