Part 3

She looked at me, but did not stir.

I called again, "Annie O'Brien, come here!"

She said to the women that held her, "Let me go! I will go to her," and she started towards me.

I laid my hand on her pale, cold cheek.

"O'Brien, are you not ashamed to get so angry with that poor, foolish, half-crazed McMullins?"

"Wouldn't it make your blood boil to have any one slap you in the face?"

"Undoubtedly it would rouse my temper for the moment. It is a very mean and wrong thing to strike; but you have behaved no better."

"I was a fool; but I could not help it."

"Yes, you could. Will you behave yourself now?"

"I will do nothing more," and she heaved a deep sigh.

"If you have really come to your senses, go about your work!"

She returned to her work; but in a moment she called to me,--

"You must report me!"

"Yes, in my own time."

"You must report me now; I must be punished. They will blame you if you put it off."

"Would you care if they blamed me, Annie?"

"Yes, ma'am, I should. It is bad enough for me to behave so without making you any more trouble."

"I wish to see you entirely over your frenzy, perfectly quiet, before I call the Deputy."

"I am perfectly quiet," and she went about making her mush.

"Annie, if you will promise me to try to control your temper in future, I will try to get your punishment made as light as possible."

"I will try to do anything you want me to; but they will put it on to me hard, I've been punished so many times before."

I saw that I had possession of her so far as she had control of herself.

"Keep about your work as though nothing had happened!"

"Yes, ma'am."

I went to the door, blew my whistle, and sent for the Deputy. I waited in the entry for him, and stated the case before he went in to punish the women.

"McMullins gave the first blow; you know she is a poor, foolish thing; she has fits. You won't punish her this time, will you? She slapped O'Brien in the face, and she struck back. Won't you let them off this time?"

"I can't. It won't do."

"Wouldn't it make you angry, and wouldn't you strike back if any one struck you in the face?"

"Probably I should."

"You won't punish her for doing what you would do yourself?"

"I must."

"If one is punished both must be. The trouble began in Annie's not having her own things to use. I will see that each has her own things in future, and avoid cause of contention in that way as much as possible. If McMullins should have a fit in her cell, we should both feel bad. Can't you let them off with a reproof this time?"

"I can't. McMullins must not count on the fool's pardon when she fights. If I let her go now she might fly in any woman's face at any time. They never would be safe from her slappings. Don't you think they ought to be punished?"

"Yes, sir; with some kind of punishment."

"If I were to let them off, it would be known all through the prison in two hours, and there would be rebellion in all quarters."

"Subordination must be maintained. I wish there were a different way. I am so sorry to have the poor things locked up."

"I am sorry; but I have no other way."

When he went into the kitchen, Annie O'Brien took off her apron, and delivered herself up to him without a word; but McMullins cried, and begged him not to lock her in a black cell.

He made no reply, but pointed them to the prison. As he went, he asked me to bring No. 1 key.

The black cells are of the same size, and made like the others. The only difference between them is, that the doors of the black cells are closed from the entrance of all light by a black board placed against the bars.

They have no beds in them, not a blanket to lie upon. Nothing but the cold stones to sit, to stand upon, or to lean against. The only article of furniture allowed in them is the night bucket, which may be converted into a seat. The rations, when in that "durance vile," is one quart of water, and one thin slice of bread during the twenty-four hours.

With a heavy heart I saw my poor women locked up. I turned the key upon them with my own hand.

O this continual turning of keys! The bunch in my hand all day, under my pillow at night.

Click, click, when I go out of the room; click, click, when I come in. Will my ears ever harden to the sound so that I shall not notice it!

It is a constant drill, drill to labor under the ever impending punishment, which hangs over the prisoner, suspended by a breath of complaint by an officer. Is one kind of punishment the only cure for disobedience? Should it not be mitigated by mercy, or changed in character according to the circumstances, or the peculiar disposition of the offender? How does the Great Lawgiver treat His convicts? Does He punish all offenders with the same unmitigated rigor? His sun shines alike on the evil and the good. He reproves often, and teaches, and suffers long, and is kind, and adapts His punishment to the character of the crime committed.

Some crime is committed in willful disobedience of known law; but much more of it in ignorance of the way to control bad tempers--in ignorance of the way to resist temptation.

Teaching is what these poor creatures want, and the time in which to learn.

Many a time I went to the key-holes of those black cells to listen that day. Many a time I called,--

"McMullins, are you well?"

She invariably begged me to let her out.

"I cannot. You did wrong and must be punished."

"She threw the dish-cloth at me."

"You struck her."

"I'll never do it again, I am so tired. Please will you get the Deputy to let me out."

"Just as soon as I can."

That night I went to him, and begged to have my women let out.

"You know McMullins has fits, and to lie there on the cold stones all night might bring them on."

"You may put her in her own room to sleep."

"Thank you! It is a favor done to me as well as her. I don't think I could sleep at all if she were left lying there. You will let O'Brien go to hers--it would be hardly right to let one sleep in her bed, and not the other."

He shook his head.

"O'Brien has been here before. I know more about her than you do."

"Let me try her my way, Mr. Deputy?"

"Not to-night."

"In the morning?"

"I will see."

O'Brien was obliged to make the cold stones her couch that night, and little sleep did I get thinking of her. Many a time did I say to myself in its silent hours, I will have her out in the morning if it is in the power of persuasion to effect it.

After the women were locked up, Annie called to me. Her quick ears had learned, or some other prisoner had told her, that McMullins was in her own cell.

She asked,--

"Is it right to keep me in here, and let McMullins sleep in her bed?"

It was not for me to decide the right or wrong of the Deputy's orders, to a prisoner.

"McMullins has fits, and it would not be safe to leave her in solitary all night. I should not sleep at all if she were there. I am sorry for you, O'Brien; but you don't wish McMullins to remain, in solitary because you must, do you?"

"No, ma'am; but it don't seem hardly fair to let one out, and not the other."

She was using the same argument with me to get her bed that I had used with the Deputy to get it for her.

"When you have been here before, and been punished, you have behaved very badly, have you not?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Annie O'Brien, will you be patient to-night, and make no complaints?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"In the morning, when the Deputy comes around, will you tell him that you will try to govern your temper?"

"I will tell you so."

"Will you tell him so?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good night, Annie, and may the Christ, whose name you called so wickedly this morning, take care of you!"

"Good night, ma'am!"

The next morning, when I gave O'Brien her bread and water, I asked her,--

"O'Brien, do you think, if McMullins were to strike you again, you would strike back?"

"I don't think I should now,--I shouldn't if I thought."

"What do you think of your behavior yesterday?"

"I am ashamed of myself that I should take any notice of that poor, foolish, half crazy thing! But I've got an awful temper, and it gets the upper hands of me before I know it."

"When the Deputy comes around, if he says anything to you, will you tell him you are ashamed of yourself, and resolved to do better?"

"He never could make me say it to him before."

"He may not ask you to now; if he does, you will be submissive and perfectly respectful?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will."

When the Deputy came in, I importuned him to unlock my women.

"If I do, it will only be to have O'Brien locked up again in a few days. She has been here twice before, and is one of the worst cases we have ever had."

"If she is subdued and promises to do better, is not that enough?"

"Subdued!" he echoed. "She will promise anything to get out."

"Did you ever get a promise from her to do better?"

"I don't think we ever did. She has always braved us as long as she could speak."

"I am a new mistress, my management may be new to her. Will you let me try her, if you please? She is such a young thing, it seems as though she might be influenced to reform. You are punishing me to keep her in that dark cell. It takes my strength all away to think of her there. I could not sleep last night,--thoughts of her haunted me."

The tears came into my eyes. If he had refused me, I should have cried outright. He was a man, and one of kindly feelings, too, when left to himself. He gave me the order,--

"Bring me your key!"

I brought it very quickly, and unlocked Annie's cell with more alacrity than I ever turned key in a lock before.

"O'Brien," said the Deputy to her, "I let you out because your Matron asks me to. Now show your gratitude by your good behavior, and obedience to her."

"I will try, sir."

"Unlock the other one when you please," he said to me, and went out.

O'Brien turned to me.

"I will never give you occasion to have me locked up again, while I am here. I never made the promise before, but I make it now. I have been in solitary ten days and ten nights; I have been carried from there to the hospital, fainted away dead, and my feet so swelled that I could not walk on them. I have been gagged till my jaws were so stiff and swelled that I could not shut my mouth. I have been in the dungeon in the cellar"--

"Stop, Annie! in the name of pity, stop!"

I was sick to loathing of the cruelty she recounted. Was I in one of the prisons of the Inquisition, hearing a description of their tortures?

"It is the truth. And I never made a promise to do any better before."

I trembled with disgust, almost fear, of the place I was in. I bethought me, I am here to benefit these poor wretches. I held my breath as I asked,--

"What was all that done for?"

"Because I sauced a matron, and wouldn't say I was sorry."

"Did you say it at last?"

"No, ma'am! I wouldn't have said it if they had killed me. I was so mad I had just as soon died as not. The more they did to me, the madder I grew, and I swore, if ever I should catch her outside, I would pay her back, if I got in here for life."

"Annie O'Brien, if you were to sauce me, as you call it, I should punish you." I did not say how. "I expect you to treat me with respect always. It is not treating me with respect to quarrel with the other women in my presence."

"I shall always treat you with respect. I could never be mean enough to do anything else after the way you have treated me."

She fulfilled her promise. Never yet have I met a human being that kindness would not influence; but I have met with many a perverse will that harshness would neither bend or break.

"Now, Annie, you say that you wish to govern your temper, and that you will try?"

"I will try!"

"I will help you. When you begin to grow angry, shut your lips close together; then, look for me before you answer."

"I will, if I can think."

"As soon as you do think, come straight to me, and tell me that you were getting angry. If I see you, and can catch your eye, I will lift my finger in warning; or I will call your name. Will you heed me?"

"I will try, with all my might."

"Go get your breakfast, and then go about your work."

Many a time after that, when I saw her face growing pale with anger, I have called her name, and lifted my finger. She would recognize the signal, drop upon a bench, or the bare brick floor, bury her face in her hands for a few moments, then arise and go about her work without speaking a word.

Once, about a week after that locking up, she got into an altercation with the slide woman. I was in the prison; but I heard her voice, and ran to the kitchen door.

"Annie!" I called. She did not heed me, but went on with her dispute. "Annie, remember!" I whispered in her ear as I caught her arm.

She jerked it away from me. I looked her steadily in the eye. She dropped hers. She was wavering between the disposition to obey, and the desire to indulge her temper.

"There is the Dr.'s whistle, Annie. Run to the wash-room, and tell Mrs. Martin he is coming!"

She ran out quickly; but when she came back, she walked slowly, looking down to her feet. She came up to me and asked:--

"Why didn't you get me punished? I almost broke my promise; but I didn't mean to. If you had scolded me, I certainly should."

"I did not get you punished, because I see that you are trying to govern your temper, and I promised to help you. If I were to get angry and scold, of what use would it be for me to reprove you?"

"If you had scolded me then, I should certainly have sauced you, and then I should have been punished. Didn't you send me away on purpose?"

"If I did, it was better than scolding."

"I thought so; and this shall be the last time I will be so foolish."

"I hope so; but if I am obliged to hold up my finger a great many more times, I shall not be disappointed."

V.

THE SUPERVISOR, AND THE RULES.

As my orders conflicted, and my work bothered me, I made another effort to find a head manager, or some printed regulations.

When the Deputy came in, on his morning rounds, I asked him,--

"Is the Master's wife Head Matron here?"

"Yes."

"Then why does she not come and teach me to manage my department, and see that I do my duty? I go to you, and you tell me the other matrons know. I go to them, and they tell me so many conflicting things that I am bothered more than helped. Then if I ask some of them one thing, they wish to manage the whole, and come in, and give orders that produce such an effect that I am obliged to give others to countermand them. They give them in such a way, too, that my women are all stirred up, and it takes me a long time to get them settled down again. This morning, one of them told Mrs. Martin that she needn't come in here putting on airs, and giving off orders, when she was no better than the rest of them. I pretended not to hear it, for I really thought she provoked the answer. If there is a Head Matron, she ought to come to my rescue."

"The Master's wife is Supervisor," said the good-natured fellow, after thinking a few moments. He was anxious to make it right on her part.

Superfudge! I thought to myself. I said,--

"I wish she would supervise my place into order. Have you any printed directions?"

"Yes. I don't think they would do you much good, but I will bring them to you."

He did not offer to bring the Supervisor to me, or to take me to her. As I got acquainted with the affairs of the institution, I found that she was emphatically super to all of them except her own housekeeping. She had brilliancy enough to look after that, and see that it was done well. She had the ability, and she exercised it, to come or send down when her parlor, which was directly over the prisoners' kitchen, was too cold, to have the furnace door shut, or if it was too warm, to have it opened.

About a week after I went there she came in, probably my repeated inquiries had been reported to her, and gave me an order to have a room cleaned in the attic of the prison. It was one morning when we were in the midst of house-cleaning with a gang of men whitewashing in the prison.

I told her I didn't think it possible to attend to it that day.

"I will show it to you now, because I have time."

I really had not time to look at it, as any one of common powers of observation would have seen; but, as she was my superior officer, I followed her without further remark.

As she passed through the prison, and saw the men at work, she gave me another illustration of her luminous capacity by remarking,--

"You must be careful and not let your women get with the men."

"Yes, ma'am."

She took me up the sixth flight of stairs into the roof of the prison, into a room where the receiving officer packs away the clothing that he takes off the convicts when they come into the prison. After showing me the dust on the floor, and cobwebs on the walls, she said,--

"You had better send one of your women up to clean it. I always begin at the top when I clean house."

"I don't see how I can spare one to-day. If the Deputy will send me in one to do it, I will do my best to oversee it. But you see how inconvenient that will be, it is so far up here, and there is so much going on in the kitchen."

"It won't be much to clean this."

I thought, but did not say it, it might appear differently to you if you were to do it. I should consider it a good day's work for two strong women.

I looked round with her, and listened to her suggestions.

"What I wanted to call your attention to, particularly, was this box of old clothes. I think it must have been here two or three years."

I wondered if it had been two or three years since she had been in that room.

"They are cloth caps," she went on, "there may be an old coat or pair of pants among them. I don't think they will be of any use,--they might as well be sold, and the pay go towards the support of the institution."

I looked into the box. There might have been twenty pounds of woolen rags, originally; but they were nearly chowdered into dust by moths.

I saw by that one interview the occasion of the reticence of the Deputy, with regard to the Head Matron.

The first moment of leisure I got, that afternoon, I examined the printed "Rules and Regulations," by the Board of Directors, which the Deputy had brought me. They were printed eight or ten years before, but sensible and humane so far as they went.

There were no directions to regulate the details of duty; but all of the Master's orders were subject to the approval of the Board. I did not see how it could be possible to carry that article out, practically, when many of them were changed almost every day.

One order that I noticed gave me great satisfaction, and had it been observed, would have created a very different state of things in the prison from what then obtained. It was, that "no irritating language" should be used to the prisoners. Had that rule been observed, there would have been comparatively few "in solitary," to the number which came under my observation.

I came to the conclusion that if the rules which governed the institution had been subjected to the approval of the Board of Directors, that august body must entertain a very imperfect idea of their practical working.

One of my orders was to stand at the ration table, in the kitchen, while the meals were passed out. Another was to be in the prison, at the same time, on duty, which shut me out of the kitchen entirely.

The trouble that arose from the conflicting orders was this. After I left the kitchen, the food for the meals was under the control of the prisoners, and they secreted what part of it they pleased for themselves and their favorites.

Before I left the kitchen I saw the meat sliced, and an equal portion placed in each pan. After I left, and there was no one to watch it, the women abstracted a part of it from some of the pans, or changed it from one pan to another.

I was allowed about two hundred and eighty pounds of meat for the four hundred prisoners, bones included. After this was sliced, it was divided to each pan as nearly equally alike as possible. To this was added three or four potatoes, with the skins on, and the gravy or soup was then poured over them.

These pans were arranged in rows across the ration table, to be passed out, through a slide, to the men, as they were marched into prison, on their side; and to the women, on their side. The kitchen was between the prisons.

After the pans were arranged on the table, and the dinners put into them, I was obliged to go out into the prison to receive the women, and see them slid into their cells. The slide door was shut upon me, and the convicts were left alone with the food to hand it out.

Was it strange, with this opportunity placed in their way, that they should help themselves to the meat which had been divided to the others?

My order was to detect the thief and report her. That was much easier said than done. My opinion was that they all took it.

It was a question strongly debated in my mind, who was most at fault, those poor, half-starved things, for taking the meat when the opportunity was given them, or those who put the temptation in their way?

I did not decide it in season to have any of them punished for breaking the rule.

When the convicts got angry with each other, they would report on the one they were offended with; but it was an established rule that the testimony of one prisoner was not to be taken against another, and I had not the least inclination to break the rule.

I did discover one of the thieves at last; but I took my own way to punish her.

The steam woman got angry with one of the slide women, and reported her to me one day when the dinner came short.

"Never mind now, Allen; but the next time you see her take it, tell me where she hides the meat. I will go find it; and then, she can't turn it on you for betraying her."

A day or two afterwards, Allen whispered to me,--

"You look on the top of the bread closet in the cellar, and you will find something."

I went down, mounted some false steps, and found a quart filled with slices of meat. I took it up into the kitchen, and asked,--

"Who hid this meat away on the top of the bread cupboard in the cellar?"

Not one of them answered.

"Will the one who did it be honest enough to own it; or will she be mean enough to let me lay the blame on some one else? Did you do it, Annie O'Brien?"

"No, ma'am."

"Will you tell me who did it?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Allen, did you do it?"

"No, ma'am."

I did not wish to ask her who did it, because she had told me.

"I am going to ask you all, and I hope no one will be mean enough to lie about it."

"I put it there," said O'Sullivan.

"Who did you put it away for?"

"For myself, because I don't like peas."

"Very well, O'Sullivan; but you were rather too generous to yourself. Half of that would have been enough for your dinner, and to punish you for being so selfish, you can't have any of it. I shall give it to the others. Your hiding it away down there, gave it very much the appearance of stealing. In future, when you wish to put anything away, show it to me, and then, put it away like an honest woman. But you are never to put anything away unless it is left over, after I have divided the meat. It would be very mean to take a double portion for yourself, and make the poor fellows on the other side go without."

I had been studying the Rules and Regulations of the Board, and discovered that I was to admonish once, before reporting for punishment. I did not propose to transcend that rule.

"Now, remember, there is nothing more to be hid away from me."

"There isn't much danger, as long as you let us tell you all about it."

"I shall always let you tell me, before I get you punished; but you must always obey, and then there will be no punishment."

"I suppose it is only right that we should eat our share of peas with the rest, for they can't get even bread and coffee as we can."