Part 6

My face must have expressed the utter abhorrence I felt of such work. O let us cleanse our whited sepulchres! Is there not work enough within our own borders to employ our Christian men and reforming women! We need not go abroad for work with such festering sores in our own vitals. For very shame let us cleanse these places!--were my thoughts.

Here was another occasion for glib Annie O'Brien to hold forth; and such occasions were never slighted by her.

"Half that come in here," she said, "are not doing anything when they come. My coming, when I came, was a put up job."

"What do you mean by that?"

"A policeman was hired to take me up. I was sitting in a store, about nine o'clock in the evening, when he came in and told me to follow him."

"Who put him up to it?"

"A man that kept a saloon paid him five dollars, and he did it. Any of the policemen will take a person up for five dollars. When I came here I wasn't doing anything out of the way; but, of course, they knew what I had done."

"What did the saloon man want you taken up for?"

"Because I wouldn't tend for him. He had tried to get me in there, and I wouldn't go."

"Why wouldn't you go? Wouldn't it have been better for you to earn an honest living?"

"An honest living! I'd had to gone with any man he said if I'd gone there, and I rather choose my own friends."

"O, Annie, how can you stand there, and tell this over? I should think your heart would burst with grief when you think of it!"

"O pshaw! it's nothing when you get used to it!" said Lissett, and snapping her fingers at the imagination that O'Brien had called up, she flounced out of the room. But for all that, I saw that she choked as she said it, and the tears came in her eyes.

"I hadn't got quite so used to it as to go to that pitch," said O'Brien.

And where are the men that make these women what they are? I asked myself. Coolly walking the streets outside the terrors of the law. At that moment I could have locked all of mankind in solitary, and fed them on bread and water, without suffering one pang. Is there no help for this state of things, that the weak suffer for the sins of the strong? If man does not meet his punishment here he is borne on, by time, to judgment, where he will have no power to screen his guilty acts or shift his punishment upon the helpless.

That reflection did not satisfy me at the time. A more summary retribution would be better suited to the sin. One that would inflict immediate tribulation and anguish upon him, such as had fallen upon his victims.

Annie turned again to look out of the window.

"There is but one woman taking a ride in the fancy carriage of the government. Exercise in that carriage is excellent for dyspepsia."

"Do you know her?" asked Allen.

"No! she's a jail-bird, I know, by her looks. She's come from the Superior Court; she'll have a long sentence. She's coming through the kitchen."

Annie sprang down to look at her, and all of the rest followed her to the door which stood open, into the garden, for the men to bring in the bread for supper.

"Stand back! It isn't necessary for you to give her a welcome."

The newly arrived had her veil drawn tightly down over her face; but I could see that she was young, and very good looking.

In the absence of the female Receiving Officer I took her from the Clerk, and waited upon her to the reception room where she was stripped of her own clothes, and put into a bathing-tub. When she was thoroughly scrubbed and dried, she was arrayed in the uniform of the place, and sent to the shop.

There her capabilities were tried, and she was assigned to the work for which she was best adapted.

The clothes that she had taken off were carefully folded, put in a bag by themselves, and labeled, to restore to her when she went out of the prison.

When I returned to the kitchen, my girls had found out who the new prisoner was, how long a sentence she had, and what was the offense for which she had been committed.

How the facts got circulation in so short a time, was a mystery to me.

XI.

INSIDE MANAGEMENT.

In deciding upon the capabilities of the prisoners Mrs. Supervisor made herself useful.

Her first care was to find out how long a sentence a woman had. That determined one qualification for her own service. If the sentence were for two or three years, and there was to be a vacancy in her own family, the woman was eligible to a place there, provided she could be trained into the work required.

This care was taken to save herself and her Housekeeper the trouble of changing.

To oversee her housekeeping was the Supervisor's pet employment, and it was fortunate for the Housekeeper that the government super-official had one pet. Through that partiality, she got two hours and a half more sleep in the morning than the rest of us.

She was not called till half past six; but I unlocked her women at the same time that I did the others.

I was glad she could be so favored; but I could not see the justice of such an arrangement.

I found, in the course of time, that it was a system of mutual favor. I went in to breakfast one morning, and there was no milk on the table.

Katie, the table girl, went to the refrigerator, that stood in the room, to get me some. She had just laid her hand upon the bowl when the Housekeeper, with a quick motion, arrested her.

"I must have that cream for the Master's breakfast!" she whispered.

She took the bowl, removed the cream into one pitcher, poured the skimmed milk into the one Katie held in her hand, and sent it to me.

I was not particularly anxious to drink skimmed milk in my tea so that the Master might have cream; but I supposed it was in some way to contribute to the support of the institution; or that there was an order of the Board to that effect, so I made no complaint. Indeed it was my policy not to appear to notice what was going on in such trifling matters,--trifling to the Supervisor, probably, whatever they might have been to the inferior officers.

Before I knew the Housekeeper's hour of rising, I went into her kitchen, on an errand, several times before she was up.

I always found the women working on nice embroidery. They could not attend to their housework because the Housekeeper had the keys, and was not up to unlock the stores and give out the things to work with. But there could be no relaxation of their labor on that account. They must be up and at work.

One morning, Mary Hartwell asked me to look on the list, and see if her name were there.

The names of the women who were going out during the month, with the date of the day that they were to be discharged, was handed to the Receiving Matron, the first of the month.

The women were very accurate, usually, in keeping account of their own time, still they were anxious to have their own calculations confirmed by knowing that their names were entered on the discharge list.

"If you will please look for me, I will do something for you after I go out."

"Something for me, Mary! O no! I will look for you when I go to the wash-room to-day."

Her remark called my attention to her work. I saw that she was doing a beautiful piece of embroidery. When she saw that I noticed it, she held it up and exhibited it with a great deal of pride.

It was a night-gown yoke, in linen, of an elegant and elaborate pattern.

"Who are you doing this for?" I asked.

"This is for Mrs. Means." That was the Housekeeper.

That is what I call you up two hours and a half before she rises, to do, I thought.

"How many of you are there that can do such work?" I asked.

"Five of us can do this kind, and we can all do fine stitching, or crochet, or some kind of fine needlework."

There were ten of them to do the work in the Housekeeper's rooms, and those of the Supervisor. Quite an array of talent!

"You ought to see Ann Horton's work. She does all kinds beautifully. She stays up-stairs, and works all of the time. She had a sentence of three years; it's most out now. It would do your eyes good to see the piles and piles of nice things she has done for the Master's wife and the young ladies. The pillow-cases, and the yokes, and bands, and skirts."

"Has she been doing embroidery all of the time for three years?"

"Yes, ma'am, and nice sewing."

I thought three years of hard labor, from five in the morning till eight at night, must accumulate quite an amount in value, of such work, beside what was done at intervals of two or three hours at a time, by the other nine women.

Supervisor might have exercised her thrift in supporting the institution, very profitably, by selling that embroidery as she proposed to do the moth-eaten rags. In doing that she might obviate the necessity of giving the officers skimmed milk in their tea.

I inferred that that three years' labor was a perquisite belonging to the office of Supervisor. In addition to her salary she was making a profitable affair of her sinecure situation. Far more advantage would accrue to her than to the institution in having such an incumbent.

Supervisor of what? Of her own housekeeping. The very best of employments for a woman if she has a family.

XII.

SUNDAY.

It was Sunday morning. Sunday was our busiest day, because our meals came so near together.

We were allowed one hour more of sleep on this morning than on the others. I had waked at the usual hour, but settled myself comfortably to rest again hoping to obtain it. Tinkle, tinkle, went the bell over my head. I paid no heed to it for a moment. Rattle, rattle, rattle went the noisy thing for full ten minutes. By that time, vexation had expelled all drowsiness.

I vowed, in my own mind, that I would muffle it the next Saturday night, in retaliation for the unseasonable summons. At first I determined to disregard the call. It must have rung from habit.

The next thought that suggested itself brought me to my feet. Perhaps a new order had been issued, and subjected to the approval of the Board at that early hour. In that case the august mandate was not to be disregarded. I rose, unlocked my women, and set them to work.

The ringing of the bell so early proved to be a mistake of the watchman, who was a new hand, who fearing he should be late, gave me that untimely warning. I judged, from that circumstance, that the orders were as distinctly given, and the duties as definitely arranged on the other side as on ours.

I grudged that hour of lost repose both for myself and my women. I was hungry for rest; and my women were worked to sheer exhaustion.

Sunday all of the women were unlocked at six o'clock. They were called out of their rooms, in the same order as on other days, left their skillet pans, and the quarts in which they had taken their suppers to their cells the night before, at the slide, as they went out. They were marched to the shop to wash and be dressed for chapel. While they were gone, their dishes were washed, and their breakfasts put into them to be taken to their rooms when they returned to them.

At nine they were marched to chapel, where they remained till half-past eleven or twelve, when they returned to take their dinners, and remain in their cells till half-past one. Then, they went to chapel again, and returned at three to take their suppers to their rooms, and be locked in.

After that the presence of only one Matron was required in the prison. One of the other three was required to remain on the premises. Two might go where they liked.

Sunday breakfast and supper was of bread, mush, and rye coffee, the same as other days. The dinner was of roast beef, which was cooked at the bake-house, and sent in to us to be carved and served.

The gravy was to be made in the kitchen, and the potatoes steamed: the meat and potatoes put into the pans, and the gravy poured over them.

To get that meat to its right destination required sharp care on my part. There were extra women sent in from the wash-room to help on Sunday. They, with my own, were possessed with a disposition to get possession of the greater part of that rarity.

They got up all sorts of inventions to get me out of the room, while it was being sliced, in order to secrete a part of it for their own use, the next day, and for that of their favorites among the prisoners.

At first they had been able to impose upon my ignorance, but at this time I had learned just how much two hundred and eighty pounds of meat would divide to about four hundred people. I had learned their "tricks and their manners" also, so that it had become impossible for them to draw me from my object, which was, to see it equally divided.

"An' sure ma'am," said Bridget O'Halloran; "we're wanting the pails from the hospital."

In order to get the pails I must go to the outside door, blow my whistle to call a runner, wait till he came, and then order my pails. The hint was just in season. Allen had taken the first piece on her fork to commence carving. I said to her,--

"Don't cut that meat till I come back, not one slice."

I then ordered in the pails, and bread--everything that would be wanted before dinner, and took my station at the table with the determination not to be drawn away from it upon any pretense.

The smell of the meat to the poor, half-fed things was very savory, and they came around picking up the bits which fell off while it was being carved.

"Please ma'am, give me a bone,--just the least bit of bone!" was the cry perpetually in my ears. And the bones I was forced to give to their importunity as fast as they were freed from the meat.

To keep their fingers from that meat was like fighting eagles from a dead carcass.

Bridget O'Halloran's ways were suspicious. I thought she had eluded my vigilance, and secreted some of it in spite of me. I kept watch of her motions for the rest of the day.

I noticed that she visited the shed very frequently. If I wanted her I was continually obliged to send for her. At last I thought I would go myself and see what attraction that old shed had become so suddenly possessed of.

When I discovered her she was stooping down in the middle of the building without any apparent object in view.

"Bridget--I want you in the kitchen at this moment!"

She was fumbling about her stocking. I stood looking at her while she was apparently arranging it.

"What is the matter with your stocking, Bridget?"

"Nothing, ma'am!"

She colored, was confused, and started with the top of it in her hand. I let her pass on before me so as to get a better prospect of what was going on.

From the glimpse that I got of her leg I thought she had been following the fashion--in adopting false calves. In hurrying her I had spoiled the proper adjustment of them, and they had slipped to her ankles. I intended to examine into the case when I reached the kitchen; but an explanation came by way of accident.

In order to make more speed, as I hurried her on before me, she let go the top of her stocking, the weight of what was in it brought it down over her shoe, and out fell two or three slices of meat. The cause of her clumsiness in moving was explained, also of her frequent absences. She had slily slipped away slice after slice, one at a time, and gone into the shed to secrete them in that safe place.

Under my eyes, as I stood looking at that meat, she had done it.

"Stop! pick up your meat, Bridget!"

"It's no matter, ma'am!"

Her face was ablaze with disappointment and smothered anger, and tears filled her eyes.

"Stop, and pick up that meat!"

She did so.

"Now look me in the face!"

That was a hard command for her to fulfill; but she looked up at me.

"Caught in the act of stealing! You do not intend to treat me any better than you do any one else?"

"I did not mean it against you,--indeed I didn't!"

"Every rule that you disobey is something done against me."

"I suppose you will report me; but I was awful hungry."

"The rest of the prisoners are awful hungry; you are no worse off than they when you share equally with them; but if you rob them, in order to help yourself to more than they have, you make them worse off."

"I did not think of that. I work hard, and I earn a good living, and I mean to get it if I could. It's a shame for me to go hungry when I work so hard."

"If you steal food here, Bridget, you steal it from your fellow-prisoners, not from the institution. There is just so much allowed for you all, and the rest won't get any more, in any way, if you take it from them. They must go without if you have it; and they work just as hard as you, and get no more for it."

"It makes me awful mad to think I work so hard, and don't get any pay for it."

"Then you ought not to come here. You have been here before, and you knew just how it was before you did the wrong which brought you here. You were sent here to work hard, for nothing, for a punishment."

"Others do worse than I, and they don't come here. If those that put me here had their dues they'd be here too!"

That was the continual rejoinder.

"May be; but how are you going to help that? You will have about as much as you can do to attend to your own case. Only think of what you have been doing; robbing another person as badly off as you are. You ought to have pity on each other, if no one else has pity on you! You ought to respect the rights of your fellow-prisoners,--they have done you no harm!"

"I will; but I was so hungry and the meat smelt so good; and I did not think of them. If you worked as I do, and was real hungry, and saw the meat, wouldn't you take it?"

"I don't know, Bridget; I have not had the temptation."

The word temptation sounded out from the other words that I had been using, fearfully loud when I pronounced it. A nice slice of roast beef was a strong temptation to those hungry women. They were allowed enough to tantalize but not to satisfy them.

By being kept without enough to satisfy their hunger they were led into sin, if it be a sin for them to help themselves to more than their share. They were led to disobey the rules, which involved punishment if they were detected. It would certainly undermine their health to work so many hours as they were obliged to without a suitable amount of food to produce recuperation.

"Are you hungry enough to eat that meat after it has been in your stocking, and on this floor?"

"Yes, ma'am; it ain't hurt it any. I'll eat it if you'll give it to me."

"Eat it!"

She brushed the dust off it with her hand, tore it apart with her fingers, and put it in her mouth.

"Bridget, don't ever take any more, and secrete it without my knowledge."

"No, ma'am; and you wont report me now."

"I gave you the meat. How can I report you?"

"Thank you!"

"If you are ever so hungry, don't you put any away for yourself without asking me!"

"No, ma'am!"

Perhaps she will not. The fear of punishment, in a solitary cell, had not deterred her from taking the meat. Perhaps pity for her fellow-prisoners would not; nor the desire to please me.

That evening I heard the Matrons discussing the music by the quartette choir in the chapel of the prison.

"You have a hired choir?" I asked.

"Yes, and an organ?"

That information sounded strangely in contrast with the scanty meals and the solitary cells.

Where does the praise of God come in?

XIII.

LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY.

After the kitchen was put in order, that Sunday afternoon, I gathered the women around me, and read a story to them, from a religious newspaper.

I also read them one of the Saviour's parables. Then, I talked with them so as to find out what ideas they entertained of themselves, and the lives they had led.

"What are you in here for, Sarah?" I asked of a smart, bright, active woman. As she was among convicts she was called bold; but if she were working outside she would be called a smart, capable woman. If any notice were taken of her ways she would be just remarked as independent.

"For shoplifting, ma'am;" and with a toss of her head, that was intended to ward off reproof, she added, "When I go out of here I will do just so again. I'll take five dollars for every day they've left me here."

"Then you will get detected, and brought back again."

"No, ma'am! I'll look out for that."

"You cannot; you may be sure your sin will find you out. If you break God's commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' his eye is on you, He will see it, and surely punish you for it. It may be by coming here, and it may be in some other way."

"I'll risk all He'll do to me if I don't fall into the hands of the police, and get in here."

"That's my case," said Bridget. "The Lord knows just how poor we are, and how hard it is for us to get along; and He knows how the rich folks crowds on us, and He pities us. And He knows how they lie, and cheat, and steal from each other,--and He won't punish us any more nor He does them."

"It will make no difference to you what they do to each other, or what He does to them. You will not have to answer for their misconduct, nor be punished for it. You will only suffer for the commands which you break."

"We shall get into their company once where they can't put on airs over us; and that'll be a great comfort. I hope I shall be there when some of 'em go to judgment."

"If you are you may have enough to do to attend to your own affairs."

"If I was in the lower end of the d--l's kitchen, I shouldn't be too busy to see them sprinkled with brimstone."

"Hush, Bridget! that is revenge!"

"We can't help it," said the ever ready O'Brien. "I'd like to pay them back what they've done to me. Don't you suppose we've got human feelings? Only think what that miserable Hardhack has made me suffer in solitary. Wouldn't I make her suffer back again? I'd beat her till she couldn't stand, the first time I meet her, if it wasn't for getting another sentence. One girl did give her an awful pommeling, and scratched her face; and she got another six months for it."

"O Annie, that is a bad temper!" but I thought I would study her still further. "I don't see why just the idea of being punished should make you so angry. I had you punished. What would tempt you to strike me?"

"Nothing on earth, ma'am! I would stand between you and a blow if it broke my head."

"But I had you locked in solitary."

"Yes, ma'am, and you was sorry for it, and I deserved it. But when they lock me up for nothing it makes me mad."

"Who is to be judge of when you deserve it? It would not do to leave it to you. You would never think you deserved it."

"You are mistaken there, ma'am. Didn't I tell you to report me when I was locked up? Didn't I say that I deserved it? You might have some of us locked up every day, if you were a mind to; but it wouldn't make us a bit better."

"It would make me very unhappy to do that. It would make me sick at heart to see you such bad women as that."

"We know it, and that keeps us from a great many things. But you might, for what we do, if you had a mind to, just to show your authority. You don't get mad, and we don't. You try to make us better, and we wouldn't any of us be mean enough to do wrong on purpose."

"I could not have you punished when I see that you are trying to do right. It is when you do wrong, and are determined to do wrong, that I shall have you punished. I see that you are improving in governing your temper, Annie. You don't get angry so easily as you used to, and you don't give way to it when you are angry, as you did two or three weeks ago."

"I don't think I do; but I should if you got mad and scolded me. If I do anything wrong, you turn round so calm, and talk to me so, it makes me ashamed; and I think of it when I want to do it again, and it keeps me from it, because I know you'd make me ashamed again. You have the upper hands of me. When I was in the shop, Hardhack would get mad and scold me, and that would make me mad, and I would sauce her; and then I got punished. If she hadn't got mad first I shouldn't."