Part 9

I could not imagine what she wished to go through there for. I finally settled down upon the supposition that she wished to supervise the prisoners' rooms at her convenience, and see if I kept them in order, and made the poor things as comfortable as possible.

The mystery was unraveled when she took me up to show me the room of the Receiving Officer which she wished to have cleaned. She pointed to a large closet on the same flat, where she packed away summer articles of use in the fall, and winter ones in the spring, which she said my 5 key locked.

I had given her the credit of one generous deed too many. Still, although she went through on her own business she did have an eye to cast about upon the affairs of the prison.

One night, about eight o'clock, after she had been using this key in the afternoon, I was on the third flight of stairs. The Deputy went rushing past me, in great perturbation, looking deathly pale.

"What is the matter, sir? pray what is the matter?" I asked, as I turned back to follow him.

"Mrs. Martin says she heard some one in solitary, this afternoon, in one of the upper cells; and there has been no one put in for three days."

"And I have fed no one up there for three days!" I exclaimed in an agony of apprehension. The second thought followed fast upon the first. "It cannot be, Mr. Deputy! I have passed those doors several times a day, and the sweeps sleep next to the black cells. No woman would stay there three days and nights without letting it be known. If there had been any one there I should not have forgotten her, and I don't think you would."

"Mrs. Martin says she heard her talk and sing this afternoon."

"It cannot be! She has been very cool to make no mention of it till now."

But the thought of my having left any one so long in solitary, without food, took my strength from me. My limbs trembled; I sunk upon the steps.

"It cannot be, Mr. Deputy, that we have been so careless! Mrs. Martin has been very cool about it. She had my key about three; it is now after eight. No woman who had been in solitary three days without food would be merry enough to sing."

He slackened his pace; but still said,--

"I am going to see!"

When he came down I asked him what he found.

"An empty cell," he said quietly.

Mrs. Hardhack did not let her superior officer off so easily.

"I wish that woman could ever exercise a little common sense!" was her gentle comment.

"She is Head Matron of this institution,--you ought to speak of your superiors with respect;" was my sarcastic rejoinder. I could not choke down the remark.

The Deputy showed his humanity by looking into the matter as soon as it was told him, as much as such testimony, in his favor, is to the disadvantage of the brilliant and energetic Head of the female department of the prison.

That man was very acute in his management to get along pleasantly with the officers; and obtain from them what service he wished. If he exacted labor of us, that he had no right to ask, he made the exaction tolerable by his manner.

One day we were without a Receiving Matron. On that day I had had the promise of having my kitchen white-washed, and had made my arrangements for it, so as to make it as easy for the women as I could, while it was going on.

I expected to take the Receiving Matron's place; but I gave no hint that I expected to do so. I wished to see how the Deputy would manage to obtain the favor from me.

He came in quite early in the morning and said to me,--

"I'm afraid we can't do the kitchen for you to-day. I don't think the white-wash will dry. It is too damp."

If he sent his men in to white-wash it would be impossible for me to leave, and go to the Receiving Matron's rooms, and oversee the washing. I saw through his plan; but I said,--

"I think I can keep fire enough to dry it. I have made my arrangements to have it done."

"I'll see," he said, and went out.

In a short time the officer who was to oversee the white-washing came in,--

"As it is so damp to-day, the Deputy told me I had better put the men on a job down in the men's workshop; so they won't be in here to-day."

"If the whitening will dry there, why not here?" I asked.

He smiled. "The men have begun there; it won't be best to take them off. I don't think the Deputy would like to have me come in here now."

"I don't think he would," was my knowing reply.

Very soon, Mr. Deputy made his appearance again, and came up to me with a nice, spicy compliment.

"I find it the same here early and late, quiet and clean."

"I'm glad you are pleased with my place."

"Can't you go over to the wash-room, and set the women to work, when they go out from breakfast? And I should like to have you stay there as much as you can this forenoon, to keep order. As it is pea day your women won't have a great deal to do; and you have got them so well trained they will get on very well without you. You will have no trouble in managing both places."

"O yes, sir; I will oblige you in that way with pleasure!"

When they came in to white-wash the kitchen, it rained pouring. The only revenge I took upon the Deputy was to ask him if he thought it would be a good drying day.

XVII.

VISITING DAY.

Visiting day, which came every fourth Wednesday, was a great occasion in the institution.

For two weeks before it was due, the question was continually asked me,--

"Is it next Wednesday, or a week from next Wednesday, that is visiting day? I wonder if my husband will come! I wonder if anybody will come to see me! I want to see the old man so much! I want to hear from the childer so much!"

For a day or two it was my constant care to repress the talk occasioned by the overflowing of their expectations, or fears, so as to get their work done by the women.

The Doctor, when he came to make his visits, passed the kitchen door. That door was made of small panes of ground glass. There was a wooden one inside, to slide over it at night. When he announced his arrival, he had knocked upon one of the panes, with the head of his cane, and broken it. It had been done apparently for mischief; but I thought it was to give the prisoners a glimpse of the blue sky, and the green trees, and the bright flowers that were in front of the prison.

The windows of the kitchen were of the same ground glass, cut into small panes of six by seven. They were made fifty or a hundred years ago, no doubt, with the utilitarian notion of producing greater diligence in the inmates by shutting out all attractive sights which might decoy them from their work. The Matron was taken into the account; her attention must not be drawn from the care of her maidens.

If that were a good rule for the inferior officers and prisoners, why might it not apply with propriety to the Head Matron and Master? The city or state might be saved the large item of expense, in "supporting the institution," of cultivating handsome grounds exclusively for their benefit?

It was a deed of mercy to break that window pane. Many a time when I have seen the lowering brow, or heard the angry remark, I have saved a war of words, perhaps of hands, by sending one of the belligerents to that broken pane to see if the Doctor were on his way to the hospital, or if the bread or meat were coming round.

If I saw the dissatisfaction to be deep-rooted, I gave the command,--

"Stand there and watch a few moments!"

That broken pane, on that visiting day, was an outlet for much anxiety. One of the women stood sentinel there all day--sometimes one, sometimes another.

The steam woman, in her anxiety to discover the approach of her "old man," forgot the care of her boiler, and created quite a scene. She turned the water into it and went to the broken pane to look a moment, forgot to turn it off, and the consequence was an overflow which put out her fire and flooded the floor,--created what McMullins called an "explosion." This she did twice in the forenoon.

The hurry and scurry which was created to relight the fire, and sweep the water down the hatches, diverted the attention of all for a few moments, and passed away the wearisome time of waiting. I pitied the poor old thing as the day wore away, and there was no call for her to go out and see her husband.

"What time is it, if you please, ma'am?" was the continually repeated question when I went near her.

"I don't expect any one to see me," was the remark of the volatile O'Brien.

"Then why do you stand at the window so much to watch?" I asked.

"I want to see who comes to see the others. I want to see if anybody comes in that I know."

Then, the restless thing would mount the window seat. "There goes Johnny, or Charley, or Jimmy, or Dolan." She either saw some of her old associates, with her "two eyes," or through the vision of her imagination. Her suppositions, as to whom they came to see, were as active as her curiosity to see who came.

For the last time the steam woman asked,--

"It is five yet, ma'am?"

I looked at my watch. "Yes, Allen, and five minutes past."

She dropped upon a low table, by which she stood, and burst into tears.

I walked round the kitchen a few times to let her fret spend itself; then I went back, and stood by her side.

"How many children have you, Allen?"

"Three, ma'am; two boys and a girl."

"If they were not all right your husband would have come, or sent some one to tell you."

"That's what I'm afraid of, ma'am. The little girl has had a fever. I'm afraid she is worse, or has died, and my husband hates to tell me."

"Perhaps he couldn't leave his work. What does he do?"

"He's a house-builder, ma'am. He's one of the best workmen, ma'am, and they don't like to let him go. He gets three dollars a day, and now he has the whole care of the childer."

"What did you come in here for, Allen?"

"Shoplifting, ma'am."

"With your husband earning three dollars a day you had no excuse; that was enough to keep you comfortably."

"So it would, ma'am, if I had been contented. I don't know what made me,--I got a hankering for it. It was eighteen years ago, I was going out to buy me a silk dress, and one of my comrades went with me. I stood looking at a piece of silk, and was going to buy it. She touched my shoulder, 'don't buy that till we look in another store!' When we got out she showed me a piece of silk that she had under her shawl. She got it while I was looking at the other. After that we used to go together."

"Did you ever get caught before?"

"Yes, ma'am; I was in here seven years ago."

"And for eighteen years you have followed that wicked life, constantly, and never got caught but twice."

"I never stole from the poor. It was from those that could well afford to spare it. I always took the richest of silks and satins and velvets and linens. Sometimes I had seven or eight hundred dollars' worth at a time."

There was an exhibition of pride in her statement.

The larger the crime, the more honorable, she thought. A strange code of honesty, but a very common one, it would be found, if the practical principles of every person were subjected to analysis.

"But you had no right to the goods; you paid nothing for them."

"It is the way they do. If a rich customer goes into one of those big stores, they ask him a big price. If a poorer one comes in, and they think he knows what a thing is worth, they don't ask him so much. What is that but stealing?"

"Their doing wrong does not make it right for you to do wrong. What did you do with what you took?"

"Sometimes I used it, and sometimes I sold it at people's doors. I went out West a great many times with a lot."

"What did you intend to do with your money?"

"Buy a big house, and live in the fashion, when the childer get up."

"Do you think you would enjoy a house bought with money got in that way?"

"Most of the big houses are bought with money got in that way. I know many a person as has carried on the business for years, and got rich by it."

"The business of shoplifting! then the crime has become dignified into a business." Rather a liberal translation of the example set, I thought.

"Did your husband know what you were doing?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did he approve of it?"

"No, ma'am; he always warned me, and sometimes forbid me. But as soon as he was off to his work, I would shift my clothes and go out. I hurried back, and got them shifted again before he came home; and he wouldn't know it till I had got a great many pieces."

"Does he turn against you now?"

"O no! He is a good man; and he cried when I came here,--for me and the poor childer. He pitied me, and told me how hard it would be on me, seein' I was never used to it."

Crazy Manhattan came up just in time to hear the last sentence.

"An' sure it is hard on her! I've known her outside, and she's not bein' used to lift her finger to work."

"She had better have been, than to have been lifting her finger to take other people's goods."

"Give me a slice of bread, ma'am, an' you please! I've been ironing in the wash-room, and I've done your own things beautifully. Don't tell the Deputy!" she said, as she slipped it under her apron and ran away.

"I knew her a little outside," said the steam woman; "but she was nothing but a house thief!"

Well, well! the fashions of society obtain among thieves as well as the principles. A shop lifter ranks in a higher grade than a house thief.

I talked with Allen some time, and tried to show her that whatever others might do was no excuse for her in wrong doing. At last she admitted it; but wound up by saying,--

"Ise got such an itching in my fingers for it, I couldn't help taking the things."

The patience which is required to inculcate right principles, where wrong ones have been practiced for half a century, is incalculable. But it does not come in comparison with that which is exercised towards us by the long-suffering Father of our spirits.

XVIII.

CALLAHAN AGAIN.

I stood by the mush-boiler, one morning, calculating the probabilities of having that delicacy well cooked by eleven o'clock, so that a second edition might be issued before night, when I heard the cry out in the prison,--

"Callahan is coming! Callahan is coming! they've had an awful row at the shop!"

I had some idea of what a row with Callahan meant. I had been told that she had snatched the Master's wig from his head, torn it in bits, and scattered it to the winds; that she had pulled the Deputy's watch from his pocket, and stamped it beneath her feet; that she had ripped their coats open with her fingers, and scratched their faces like a cat. I had heard that she gloried in being the worst tempered woman in the shop, in being stronger than a man, and bragged that it took two to confine her. To me she had always been respectful and obedient, even when in solitary.

Once, when I saw her speak while marching into prison, I "admonished" her.

"Callahan, you know it is against the rules to talk when you are coming in; you won't do it again?"

"No, ma'am; but Callahan isn't my name, now; that was my first husband's name. It is Goodenough, now. Please call me Goodenough!"

"I will call you so; and I hope you will be good enough when you are under my care."

"I will be good when I am under your care."

That was all the experience I had had in reproving, or punishing, Callahan when she had offended in my presence. And that was the only offense she had committed.

The noise of voices grew loud in the yard. O'Brien came running up to me,--

"Please come out here, ma'am. They have had an awful time with Callahan, I know by the way she swears; but she will mind you if you speak to her. She behaves well enough if she is only treated half decent."

I went to the door. Callahan was coming up the walk between two officers, raving frightfully, shouting and swearing. When she came into the entry she smashed her hand through every pane of glass that she could reach, gashing her arms and spattering the blood on the floor and walls.

As soon as I could get her attention, which it took me some time to do, she was so excited, I spoke to her,--

"Callahan, stop! haven't you promised to be a good woman when you are with me?"

She looked at me, lowered her voice, but kept on with her talk. In a few moments I spoke again,--

"Callahan, stop!"

She turned to me, and answered, but pleasantly,--

"Can't the Deputy take care of me?"

"Certainly! but you ought to have respect enough to my feelings to talk decently where I am."

"I have cut my hands awfully;" and she held out her arm towards me.

"Yes, you have. Shall I bind it up for you?"

I sent for bandages and water, and bound up her hands and arms. She washed the blood-stains from her clothes, and made herself tidy.

"That will do, Callahan! We want to lock you in now."

She looked at the key which I held in my hand.

"I am ready; lock me up."

The key was turned, and Callahan was in solitary again.

Not long afterwards, when all was quiet, I passed her door. She called to me,--

"Look here!"

"Well, Callahan."

"I'm sorry I talked so bad before you; but I was so mad I didn't know what I said. I've got no spite against you."

"I am sorry you have against any one."

"O that she-d--l in the shop! I'd send her into eternity if I could get hold of her!"

"Stop, Callahan! will you be gentle and patient while you are here with me?"

"Yes, for you I will. But look here! my arm pains me, and it's swelled awfully! I'm afraid there's glass in it."

"I think you can see the Doctor if you wish. I think he had better see it. I'll go ask the Deputy to send him in."

"Thank you; I wish you would. I'm afraid there's glass in it, and it will be awful sore if it stays there."

I whistled for the Deputy, told him what Callahan said, and he sent the Doctor in.

When she was first locked in he had told me not to open her cell unless he were present. He was a new Deputy who had come into office that day, and evidently felt the responsibility that was attached to his office, and the consequence it gave him.

"You will come round when it is time to give her food?"

"Yes."

I thought he was afraid of her violence; but I had no apprehension on that score, so when the Doctor came, not thinking of the order, I opened the cell as I had always done under the other Deputy. I had occasion to think, afterwards, that he did not wish her to tell her own story, unless it was in his presence; or intended to prevent her altogether.

The front door of the kitchen stood open, and the Doctor came in that way without seeing any of the officers.

"What is the matter here?" he asked in his jolly way; "who is cut to pieces?"

"Callahan has cut herself," I answered, as I went to get the key to open her cell.

"How did she do it?"

"She got angry and struck her hand through the window."

"Is that the way you do when you get angry?"

"Did you come here to treat me?"

"Women are a great deal alike, are they not?"

"You make an assertion, and ask me to confirm it."

"Isn't it so?"

"As much alike as different men, if you are really interested to know my opinion."

"How about the other?"

"You wish to understand my disposition, do you? I am happy to gratify you on that point so far as my knowledge goes. There is method in my madness. I usually consider the matter awhile, or sulk; then, make a thorough application of the dictionary to the offending party. Look out for yourself or you may get a blow sometime from Webster's Unabridged."

I had opened the black cell door.

"What are you in here again for so soon, Callahan? Let me see your arm."

She reached out her arm, and the Doctor took off the bandages.

"I'll tell you the truth, Doctor."

"Tell away."

"I called to little red-headed Jones,--you know that little dumpy thing that fetches the work for us,--I called to Jones to fetch me some work. She was talking to that little fire-brand of a Harlan that takes care of the engine in the work-room. Well, you see, she felt so nice to be taken notice of by Harlan, that she wouldn't mind when I spoke. She pretended not to hear. I called louder, 'Jones, fetch me some work,' Jones was mad then, and said, 'I'll fetch it when I please.' Then I told her to fetch me some work now, and do her talking afterwards: 'That's what you're here for,' I said. Harlan was mad, and went straight out into the men's shop and reported me. The Master and the Deputy came right in, and made towards me. I was mad; for if anybody was reported it ought to be Harlan and Jones, for it is against the rules for them to be talking together; but 'twasn't against the rules for me to ask for work. When I saw the Master and the Deputy coming straight to me, to lock me up, I pulled up a chair to knock him down, I was so mad to think I was going to be locked up for nothing, and Jones to be let go when she had been breaking the rules. And Harlan to report me, when he helped her break 'em. The little spit-fire!"

"Why didn't you wait and see if you were going to be locked up, and tell the Master how it was, before you took up a chair to strike him down?" I asked.

"She's green, Doctor! Tell him! he wouldn't let me tell him anything! Many's the time I've been locked up and didn't know what 'twas for. Look here, wouldn't it make you mad to be locked up when you wasn't to blame? Look here, do you blame me for being mad?"

I could not say yes, and tell the truth. There is not a human heart but what would resent such injustice. There are but few who would not resist it if they could. I could not say no, because it might be construed into encouraging insubordination. I did not feel it incumbent on me to think the Master in the right because he was the Master, and she the convict. I deliberately committed the vulgarity of listening to a convict's story; but did not think it necessary to tell her my thoughts.

"Callahan, you mustn't ask me such questions. I am sorry for you, and will make you as comfortable as I can."

The doctor put some compresses on her arm, wet them with water, and ordered her some to drink.

"Some water for Callahan to drink! Quick! The doctor has ordered it!" I echoed. I thought I heard an officer's step at the farther end of the prison, and it was a legitimate supposition that if it were the new Deputy, who was coming, she would get no such favor. Unless she got the water and drank it before he came, she would not get it at all.

It had been whispered to me that the Master had thrown Callahan on the floor in his anger, when she caught up the chair, and put his foot on her neck. I saw a mark of dirt on the lower part of her cheek and neck. I looked closely at it. The skin was grazed as though a boot-heel had been ground against it.

"Callahan, what is that dirt on your cheek and neck?" I asked.

She put up her hand and passed it across her face and neck at the place where I saw the dirt. She knew exactly where to find the mark of which I spoke. The boot had evidently been there.

"He did hurt me some," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"The Master, he put his foot on me."

"On your cheek and neck?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What for?"

"To hold me down."

"Let me see."

I examined the flesh; it was a little discolored as though it had been bruised. It was evident that the tale that had been told me was true. Was it necessary for that man--or the monster--in taking the chair away from that woman, with two men to help him, to throw her upon the floor, and place his foot on her neck?

"He was pretty well seas over. He's always savage when he is. I knew he'd just had a horn when I saw him coming, and that's one thing made me mad. Look here; folks are sent down here for getting drunk. Do you think it'll ever cure 'em to put a drunkard over 'em?"

I did not make Callahan any reply; but I thought of the old proverb, "It takes a rogue to catch a rogue;" but whether a rogue may be advantageously set to cure one, is another question, and one upon which a great deal of discussion might be spent, before popular judgment would decide it in the affirmative.