HIRAM FISHERwas "in for life," and had already served out twenty years of this hopeless term, when I made his acquaintance. From his forebears—a long line of Cape Cod fishermen—Hiram has inherited an inexhaustible stock of good nature, a well-knit frame, the muscle of an ox, and such an embarrassment of vitality, that even twenty years of bad air, meagre diet, and tiresome monotony, had not perceptibly loosened his grip on existence. For the last ten years of his term, he had been a "runner" in the prison, the right-hand man of the warden, the well approved of inferior officials, the universal favourite of convicts, and head singer in the chapel choir; and in all that time had never once broken a rule of the prison! A convictcouldno more; an angelmighthave accomplished less!
By what occult process a murderer had been evolved from material so seemingly impracticable—from a man of whom it might reasonably be predicated that he would not, of malice prepense, destroy a fly—let the sages tell us; the riddle is far beyond my poor reading. All the same, it was for murder, and in the first degree, that Hiram Fisher had been sentenced. The particulars of his crime were to be had for the asking, of any garrulous prison official, yet I was too incurious of detail to ask for them.
If "accidents"—as the proverb goes—"happen in thebestof families," the worst may not hope to escape; and, one day, by some luckless misstep on the iron stairway of the prison, Hiram got a fall which, had Destiny consented, might have broken his neck. As it was, he was picked up in the corridor, unconscious and much bruised in body, and taken for repair to the prison hospital; and it was there that we became fast friends. It was to relieve the tedium of a long bout of reclining, with one leg inflexibly incased in plaster, that I undertook, for Hiram's sole benefit, the reading of a Dickens's Christmas Carol, which had found greatfavour with the convalescents gathered about the stove for the weekly hospital reading.
Before I had gone through the first half dozen pages, it became evident that Hiram, though, like most New Englanders of his class, tolerably conversant with the three Rs, had no possible use for literature of any sort. I went on half-heartedly to the bitter end, and closing the book, to his apparent relief, resolved, in my after intercourse with the patient, to confine myself strictly to conversation. After this we changed places. Hiram held forth, and I became the much entertained listener. With that easy yarn-spinning felicity, inherent in the born sailor, the patient reeled off for me so interminable a string of incident, anecdote, and heart-moving outside adventure, with such rare and racy sketches of prison life, that my Mondays (Monday was hospital day with me) became, throughout his entire convalescence, like an unbroken series of "Arabian Nights."
Notable among Hiram's hospital recitals was the little sketch which follows, and which I have attempted to reproduce (as nearly as is possible from memory) in his own quaint and homely dialect.
THE TUCKERED-OUT MAN.
"Well, arter I'd been in the 'palace'[1]somewhere 'bout ten year, I got a leetle peaked-like, an' the doctor he overhauled me, an' sent me up t' the hospital for a spell. I wa'n't sick enough to be in bed, so, daytimes, I sot in the big room, 'round the stove, along with half a dozen mates who was 'bout in the same condition.
[1]Convicts' term for prison.
[1]Convicts' term for prison.
"It was winter weather, an' pesky cold, too, Itellyou! We wa'n't none on us gin leave to talk, which, to be sure, was all right enough, though I must say it dooz come pleggy hard to set long side o' folks all day long 'thout openin' your head. But, anyhows, we wa'n't blindfolded, and didn't have our ears plugged neither.
"So while I sot there days, dull as a hoe, an' fur all the world like the man in the Scriptur', that had a dumb devil, I used naterally to twig what was goin' on in most parts o' the buildin'. Well, long 'bout that time we had a new chaplain t' the 'palace,' an' a middlin' good Christian he was, too, I should say; an' bein' a bran-new broom, he naterally swep' cleaner than the old one. Now theoldchaplain, he was a master hand at prayin', an' sich like.
"Why, to hear him pray fur that instertooshing would melt a heart o' stun! and his sermons, I will say, was spun out be-eutiful! Arter that, he 'peared 'bout blowed out, an', week-days, we mostly had to look arter our own souls. Well, the new chaplain, you see,hewas different. He b'leeved in keeping up steam right straight along, so he used ter visit the men in their cells, an' kinder try to keep 'em on a slant towards the kingdom, all the week round.
"He was mighty good to the sick, too, an' there wa'n't a man in that hospital so bad 'at he wouldn't do him a good turn; an' besides writin' letters fur the men (which is no more'n 's expected on him), he used to do little arrants fur 'em outside, sich as lookin' arter their children, or huntin' up their relations, when they happened to lose the run on 'em. I heerd the warden, one day, a sayin' to one o' the inspectors, 'Our chaplain's too kind-hearted, he'll wear hisself out.' Thinks I ter myself, 'No, he won't, youbet! fur, arter a spell, he'll git callous like all the rest on yer.' A prison, ye see, 's a master place fur makin'folks callous. But I'm gittin' ahead o' my story.
"Well, one day I sot there by the stove, squintin' round, an' with both ears open, an' I see the new chaplain come in. He shook hands with us fellers in the big room, an' then he went round to all the cells an' talked with the patients. I see him look into No. —; the bed was made up spic an' span, an' no signs o' anybody inside, so he come away, an' sot down t'other side o' the room, a talkin' to the hospital super.
"I kinder kep' my eye on that cell, fur I knowed there'd been a feller brought up that mornin', an' ef I wa'n't very much mistaken he'd been put in No. —. Well, by'm by, I seed suthin' away over in the furder corner of No .—, an' pooty soon it riz up.
"Lord sakes! how I should a hollered, ef I'd 'a' dared, when that creetur stood on its two feet, an' tiptoed forrard into the light, the very spawn o' one o' them little bogles my granny used to tell about! I should say he wa'n't more'n four feet six, in his shoes, an' bein' a good deal bent up, he didn't look nigh so tall as he was; an' sich eyes I neverdidsee in a man's head! Black as coals, an' bright asbeads; an' sich a hankerin' look, a way down in 'em, as ef he'd been a s'archin' fur somethin' he wanted ever sence the flood, an' hadn't found it yit, an' didn't 'spect to find it in this world nor t'other!
"Well, he looked round a spell, kinder skeert, an' then he skulked out inter the passage an' come down-stairs, an' arter he'd twigged a minnit he comes straight up to the chaplain, an' teches him on the shoulder. The chaplain he turned round an' kinder gin a start, an' then sez he to the super, 'What's the matter with this poor feller?' sez he. Afore he could answer, the little bogle he steps forrard, an' sez he, 'Doctor, don't givemeany o' your physic, keep it fort' others. Doctor-stuff won't domeno good.I'm tuckered out!'
"The super he teched his forrard, an' gin the chaplain a side look, an' sez he, 'Ah, yes, I see!' An' then, willin' to pacify the poor creetur, he turns to him as pleasant as can be, an' sez he, 'You mistake me, my friend, I'm not the doctor, but all the same I've come here to help you, an' what may I do fur you to-day?' The little feller looked at him a minnit, kinder troubled like, an' then he fetched a sigh, and shook his head, an'sez he, 'Physic'sno use, I'mtuckered out!' 'But mebbe now,' sez the chaplain, 'I may be able to do some little thing fur you outside. Ain't there some one there you'd like a visit from now?' sez he.
"'Outside?—out—side?' sez the little man, puttin' his skinny hand to his forrard, as ef he wanted to remember suthin', but couldn't fur the life on him. 'Out—side—o-u-t—side? Du tell, is it there,now? I wouldn't 'a' thought it, though; I ain't heerd nothin' on it fur—fur'—countin' his lean fingers, an' rubbin' his forrard again—'fur fifteen year!
"'Outside, eh?an' is Deely there now? She was a hansum gal when I merried her. I sot the world by Deely! Le's see; she was goin' to Californy, Deely was. I wonder if she's got there yit? I hain't heerd a word from her fur fifteen year. But Benjy knows all about her. Benjy's my fust cousin, doctor. He said he'd come an' see me, but he hain't come yit. He's busy, I s'pose, and can't git time.' An' arter he'd fumbled a spell in his breast-pocket, he pulled out a dirty scrap o' paper with some writin' on it, an' handin' on it to the chaplain, sez he, 'That'swhere Benjy lives, doctor. He said he'd come an' see me, an' let me know 'bouther; an' I've waited fifteen year, doctor, an' all that time I hain't heerd a word from Deely! Mebbe,' sez he, lookin' into the chaplain's face kinder wishful, 'Mebbe sometime you'd go an' see Benjyfurme, and ask him if he's ever heerd from Deely sence she started for Californy. Fifteen year's a long spell to wait,' sez he, heavin' another sigh, 'an' I'm cleantuckered out.' I seen a tear drop on to the chaplain's white necktie, an' sez I to myself, 'he's a thinkin' o' hisownwife' (a pretty, chipper little lady she was, too,—I see her one day in chapel), an' sez I, 'he'll go!'
"Well, the super, he told the little tuckered-out creetur to go back to his cell. So he crep' back, as still as a mouse. He didn't lay down, fur I watched him. He skulked into a corner, an' crouched down on the floor ezackly as ef he was tryin' to tie himself up into a hard knot, an' there he staid, as still as a stun image. Arter that, I heerd the super tellin' the chaplain that the man had turns o' bein' out o' his head, an' he'd come up to be treated fur it.
"'His name,' sez he, 'is David Sweeney. He's an American, an' in fur twenty year fur highway robbery. No mortal knows how he come to do it,' sez he, 'for he had a good trade, an' plenty o' work at it, an' had allers borne a good character, an', only three months before, he'd married the very girl he wanted, Delia White, as pretty as a pink, an' smart as a steel trap. Some folks thoughtshemight 'a' ben at the bottom on't, for she was a toppin' gal, an' mighty fond o' gew-gaws, an' he'd 'a' cut off his right hand to please her. I should say she turned out a poor bargain, anyhow, for he's never set eyes on her sence he come to the prison. I remember folks pitied the poor feller a good deal at the time, for he was young an' this was his first offence; but highway robbery's bad business,' sez he, 'an' if a manwillfoller it, why then let him take the consequences,Isay.' Next arternoon the chaplain he come up to the hospital agin', an' went in an' talked a spell with the little tuckered-out man. I couldn't hear what he said, but arterwards I heerd him tell the super how he'd been to hunt up the 'fust cousin' who, as nigh as he could come at it, kep' a grocery store on Cambridge Street fifteen year ago; but he'dmoved to Vermont, bag an' baggage, years ago, an' nobody round there had heerd a lisp from him sence. Well, next day Deely's husband got wild as a hawk, an' had to be locked up in his cell, an' afore he was fit to go round loose again I'd got peart, an' gone down. An' purty pleased I was, too, I tell you, for the warden he gin me a runner's berth, an' that ain't to be sneezed at. Well, I should say it wa'n't more'n six months arter that, when long in the edge o' the evenin' I was sent up in the third tier of the north wing to kerry some apples that one o' the instructors had brought in for a prisoner belongin' to his shop. When I come to the right door I was goin' to hand 'em through the gratin', but, not seein' nobody, I coughed to let the feller know I was there; an' then, hearin' a rustlin' over on the bed, I peeked in, an there, as sure as eggs, was the little 'tuckered-out' man, tied in the same old hard knot, an' with the same old, lonesome, hankerin' look on his wizened little face! When he heerd me, he riz up, and come forrard, an' when I gin him the apples he kinder perked up a minnit, but before I could turn round he drapped on to the bed agin as dismal as ever, an', as I come away, I heerd him amoanin' to hisself, 'O Lord! O Lord! tuckered out! tuckered out!'
"Well, arter that, I seen him consider'ble, off an' on, an', somehow, he 'peared to take a shine to me, an' we got to be purty good friends. He wa'n't a grain out o' his head now, but uncommon dismal, an' enjoyed purty poor health, I should say from his looks, though he didn't complain to nobody. One night, long 'bout Christmas time, I was sent inter his wing on some arrant or other, an', as I was goin' kinder slow past his door, I see him beckoning to me. I wa'n't apt to go agin the rules, but, thinks I, 'twon't break nobody ef I stop a minnit, an' jest say a word to this poor creetur. So I looked sharp, an' seein' as nobody was twiggin' me, I went up to the gratin' an' shook hands with him, an' sez I, 'I hope I see you well, Sweeney.' Sez he, 'No, notverywell, Hiram, an' here's my goold ring,' sez he, 'an' I want you to keep it fur me. I sha'n't have no use fur it fur some time.' So he put the ring on the little finger o' my left hand, an' a tight squeeze it was, too. 'Twas real Guinny goold, with two hearts, an' a 'D' cut inside on't. He wa'n't a grain flighty that night, but sicha sorrowful look as he gin me, when he put that ring on my finger, you neverdidsee. An' then he shook hands with me agin, an' sez he, 'How dretful long these nights be, Hiram. But they'll get shorter arter Christmas, won't they? Good-by, Hiram, God bless you!'
"Well, to make a long story short, next mornin' airly, while the men was bein' rung out, I was a settin' things to rights in the warden's office, when he comes runnin' in in a great fluster, an' sez he to the deputy, 'Sweeney's fell from the third corridor, an' I guess he's 'bout done for. He's up,' sez he, 'in the hospital. Send for the doctor, an' the crowner, too, as quick as possible.' I was dretful flurried, but I got through my work somehow, an' by'm by I went inside to clean up the passage, an' when I see some spots o' blood there, I knowed whatthatmeant. Arterwards, I heerd the warden an' the chaplain talkin' it over, an', as fur as I could larn, the little 'tuckered-out' man never spoke to nobody arter they took him up, though he lived half an hour. The crowners they sot on him, an' brung in a verdick of 'death by accident,' butIhed his goold ring on myfinger, an' I knew all aboutDeely. 'An',' sez I to myself, 'some accidents isdoneapurpose, I reckon!'
"Next day was Friday, an' a feller who'd had a visit from his sister come along feelin' purty chipper, with a big bowkay in his fist. He pulled out a spice pink an' a couple o' sprigs o' rose geranium, an' gin 'em to me, an', thinkin' they might come in play, I put 'em by, in a bottle o' water.
"Well, long in the forenoon, I had to kerry some truck to the hospital, an' I took my little posy along. There stood the coffin, all ready for Tewksbury, for the warden was away that day, and they wa'n't goin' to have service over the body, as most ginerally they do. I asked the super ef I might look at the corpse, and sez he, 'Certainly, Hiram,' an' he steps up to the coffin an' lifts the forrard kiver, an' bless me! ef I wa'n't beat! There lay the little 'tuckered-out' man, as smilin' as a basket o' chips!
"I suppose I 'peared kinder took aback, for the super he says to me, sez he, 'Don't he look naterel to you, Hiram?' 'Nateral, sir?' sez I, 'an'that contented! Why, I never should ha' knowed him, ef I'd met him anywhereselse!' Well, the super he kind er smiled, an' walked off, an' I stood there a minnit or so, a lookin' at the corpse, an' a thinkin'; an' sez I to myself, 'We know pleggy little 'bout t'other worldanyhow. The Scripters, now,' sez I, 'doossay that arter death there ain't neither merryin' nor givin' in merrige. Howsomedever,' I sez, 'I'll put my spice pink an' my geranium sprigs inside the coffin.' An' I did. An' then I pulled off the goold ring with the two hearts an' the 'D' inside on't. 'Fur,' sez I, 'though I won't ezackly go agin Scripter, I'm sartin sure that Sweeney wouldn't lay herethatsmilin', ef he hadn't someways, in t'other world, got wind o' Deely.' So I slipped that ring on to his stiff merrige finger, an' as I shet the coffin up, an' come away, I e'en a'most thought I heerd him larf right out."
ATan age when most children are tenderly wrapped in the cotton-wool of domestic seclusion, that golden-haired toddler, the warden's daughter, a motherless little creature, escaped from the careless durance of a busy maid of all work, had become, comparatively, a public character, and, no longer a private baby, had been tacitly appropriated by an entire prison community.
"Taking her walks abroad" in the roomy guard-room; pattering right and left, on tiny aimless feet, she peered curiously up and down and round about. With childish wonder (herself "the cynosure of neighbouring eyes") she peeped through tall iron gratings into mysterious corridors, with their endless stretches of dusky cells; at dizzy flights of iron stairs, where—pannikin in hand—listless men trod, day after day, the same weary road.More intently she looked into the shifting panorama of human faces, ever unfolding beneath her innocent gaze. Faces of prison visitors, of prison officers, and instructors; faces of that motley throng behind the bars; faces hard and evil, reckless and defiant, cowed and sullen, or sorrowful, shamed, and forlorn; yet none, among them all, turned disapprovingly upon her, the prison child, the single sunbeam, the one pure and beautiful presence in this attainted, unlovely place! Convict fathers,—hungry for baby faces, foregone through their own graceless folly and crime,—catching a passing glimpse of the golden head, a distant flutter of the white baby gown, were, for the moment, glad and blest.
Although, in the main, light of heart,—as are all young creatures drinking their first sweet wine of life,—little Mabel was not, altogether, as the outside children, who breathe untainted air, and have never neighboured with the wretchedness of that "black flower of civilisation," a criminal prison. Looking into hard, despairing eyes behind the guard-room grating, her own would sometimes fill with sudden tears; and marking, in dull procession,the tread of listless, joyless feet, the lithe young figure, with the springing step, would often instinctively slow itself to sympathetic rhythm.
But, when grown in grace and in favour with God, and the prisoner, Queen May, now a sedate maiden of five summers, had coaxed old Peter Floome, the prison runner, and herself-elected nurse, to her royal wishes; when lifted proudly in his arms she was permitted to pass bodily into the prison yard, that hitherto unexplored region,—to make a royal progress through the entire round of the workshops,—scattering, right and left, gracious smiles and pungent checkerberry lozenges saved up for this great occasion; when she was triumphantly borne to the underground prison kitchen, there to be handed gingerly around among as many aproned cooks as might have served "Old King Cole," at his jolliest, and was munched and kissed by lips,—presumably not morally of the cleanest,—yet what, indeed, mattered this to the uncritical child? The convict, like "Cathleen's dun cow," "Tho' wicked he was, wasgentletoher;"—then it was that the glory of the occasion, and Peter Floome's pride in hisbeloved nursling, rose far beyond the high-water mark of words!
And here let it be stated that Warden Flint's baby daughter had, in the prison, another friend far more eligible than that brain-cracked convict, Peter Floome.
He was a prison officer, to wit, that notable turnkey who keeps the guard-room doors. His not over-euphonious name was Timothy Tucker, and, though a bachelor of fifty, and a very dragon at holding a door, to little birds and little children the turnkey's heart was as wax.
Soon after his instalment in the guard-room he had, with Warden Flint's grudging permission, hung, high in its tall window, five small bird cages. In these, three yellow canaries, a Java sparrow, and a dainty pair of love-birds, all optimistic creatures that—
"Neither look before nor after,Nor pine for what is not"—
"Neither look before nor after,Nor pine for what is not"—
hopped as contentedly, or sang as rapturously, as if the prison were indeed (as fabled in convict slang) "the palace." As for the prison child, from the first hour of her appearancein the guard-room, she had commanded the turnkey's susceptible heart. His "little Blossom," he had called her, and when, later, she imparted to him the pretty abbreviation of her name, it was he who wedded the two charming words, and so made the "prison name" of the warden's daughter, May-blossom. Seldom was the genial, child-loving turnkey too busy to pilot the small, tottering feet across the guard-room floor; to hold her high in his arms to "'ook at tunnin' birdies," or to lift her, in dizzy delight, to her favourite perch, his tall desk, by the rear window, commanding all the fascinating bustle of the prison yard. And when from prattling infancy she had advanced to garrulous, inquisitive childhood, it was he who lent an ever-ready ear to her thousand and one questions.
"Children, now,iscurus," said Mr. Tucker to his landlady, over his evening pipe, "they beat birds all holler! There's May-blossom, now, only six years old, an' she sticksmesometimes, shedoes, an' no mistake!"
The train of thought, leading to these frank observations, had been started in the good turnkey's mind by the recollection of a recent theological skirmish with this astute littlebeing, in which (to use his own forcible words) he "had ben most gol darn'dly beat." This embryo free-religionist having insisted upon being told "Why, if God,certain true, loved everybody, an' was bigger an' stronger, an' ever so much gooder thanotherfolks, He didn't stop people's being bad, so's they had to be put in prison, without little children to kiss, an' kittens to play with, an' strawberries an' cake, an' things to eat?" Ah, little soul! too soon perplexed by the ancient riddle; whydoesn'tHe—why, indeed! Young and old, wise and simple, we are all guessing together; and no man solves the immemorial puzzle!
Peter Floome—when, upon a Sunday, the prison chaplain exhorted his not over-heedful flock to pious dependence upon the divine care—was wont to make his own disparaging comments upon the well-meant, but often inapplicable discourse. "'Tain't a grain o' use" (said this volunteer critic, to his fellow-convicts) "o' the chaplain braggin'in here'bout Providence, an' sich. Most prob'ly th' Almightyis, more or less, round 'tendin' to things; but, nat'rally, the devil takes charge o' prisons, an' runs 'em putty much his own way."
Peter, having had a good twenty years' stretch of prison life, his experience undoubtedly counted. His utterances were, however, to be taken with that corrective grain of salt with which one wisely qualifies the statement of the "crank;" for though, in the main, mentally sound, through long confinement, and much hopeless pondering, Peter Floome's brain had taken a decidedly pessimistic twist, and, in prison circles, he was unanimously dubbed "a crank." It was after the death of Warden Flint's wife, that Peter's theology became a shade more optimistic, for then it was that the warden's year-old daughter, by the tacit consent of all whom it might concern, fell to his especial care.
In his capacity of runner, Peter had, comparatively, the freedom of the prison, and was particularly detailed for duty in the warden's household. The child—with that unaccountable choice of favourites inherent in her kind—had taken famously to her convict dry-nurse. It was the sudden rising of this new star on the runner's narrow horizon, that inspired the following harangue: "Ef th' Almighty, as I say, don't jestput upin prisons, Himself, leastways Hedoes, now an'agin, send little angels, an'sich, to keep up a feller's courage."
Peter and his "little angel" might now often be seen together; for the child, following hard upon his heels, had one day slipped furtively through the guard-room door, and had thus become a regularhabituéof that semi-public apartment.
Ten summers of this exceptional child-life had passed over May-blossom's golden head, when Destiny (that other name for Providence) suddenly removed her to an environment far more kindly than that in which her sweet young eyes had opened upon this many-sided existence. But, to explain, we must escape at once from prison.
Here, in the soft September sky, not the faintest speck of a cloud may be seen. The river, broken into endless ripples by a crisp west wind, glances like molten sunshine; and not many rods from its pebbled shore, behold that goodly sight, an old colonial homestead!
Four generations of Parkers have lived their lives in this ancient dwelling beside the Saganock, which has all the well-to-doativeness (if one may coin a word) inherent in theancestral homes of such favoured children of men as have much goods laid up for many years. And here, upon "the stoop," in after-dinner ease, sits the mistress of the mansion—Miss Paulina Parker. Miss Paulina is the last of the Parkers. In her snowy gown and gauzy dress-cap, she is, to-day, dainty as a white butterfly. Far and wide is she known as the Lady Bountiful of Saganock; and a dearer, lovelier old maid the sun never shone upon; and, though her sixtieth birthday falls on the twentieth of this very month, you would not take her to be a day over forty-five! The lean, gaunt old body, rocking beside yonder window, in the kitchen ell, is Harmy Patterson. For the last fifty years Harmy has cooked and saved for the Parker family, and still considers herself in the prime of her usefulness. She is reading the BostonRecorder, to herconfrère—Mandy Ann, the second girl; who, all agape, swallows the delectable murders, marriages, and deaths that spice its columns. Reuben, the hired man, leisurely running a lawn-mower past the open window, pauses beneath it, from time to time, to solace himself with some especial tidbit of horror. While Miss Paulina, in pensive reverie, looksout on river and sky, and marks how, in the Saganock burying-ground, a maple or two has prematurely reddened, she is suddenly confronted by Harmy Patterson, newspaper in hand, spectacles pushed over her brown foretop, and cap-strings flying in the wind. Excitedly indicating, with her long forefinger, an especial column of her favourite journal, she pantingly exclaims: "Fur pity sake, Miss Paulina, du jes' readthis!"
Promptly acceding to the request of the old body, Miss Parker reads attentively the following:
FEARFUL TRAGEDY AT THE STATE PRISON!
As the warden of the Massachusetts State Prison was this morning making his round of observation and inspection among the shops, being in the shoemaking department at about ten and a half o'clock, and passing the bench where one Hodges (a disorderly convict, who, after repeated and severe punishment, had, that morning, been remanded to his shop) was at work, Hodges suddenly sprang upon him from behind, stabbing him with a shoe-knife, and killing him instantly. The assassin was immediately secured, heavily ironed, and committed, for safe-keeping, to the "Lower Arch." The body of the unfortunate warden was removed to the hospital, a coroner summoned, and the inspectorsconvened. By this sad occurrence a young family is bereaved of paternal support, and the prison of a long-tried and faithful officer.
As the warden of the Massachusetts State Prison was this morning making his round of observation and inspection among the shops, being in the shoemaking department at about ten and a half o'clock, and passing the bench where one Hodges (a disorderly convict, who, after repeated and severe punishment, had, that morning, been remanded to his shop) was at work, Hodges suddenly sprang upon him from behind, stabbing him with a shoe-knife, and killing him instantly. The assassin was immediately secured, heavily ironed, and committed, for safe-keeping, to the "Lower Arch." The body of the unfortunate warden was removed to the hospital, a coroner summoned, and the inspectorsconvened. By this sad occurrence a young family is bereaved of paternal support, and the prison of a long-tried and faithful officer.
"Dear me, Harmy, what a sad affair!" cries the compassionate reader; "and Josiah Flint's moth—no; let me see! I have it now. Josiah Flint'sgrandmotherwas a—was a Parker, Harmy."
"Yes'm," replies the woman, who has the Parker genealogy at her tongue's end; "an' your pa's wassecondcousins; an' the warden, ef he'd a lived, would be yourthirdcousin. Law sakes! I mind, as well as can be, young Josiah an' his pa comin' to Saganock. You was a girl then, an' old Josiah, he was minister in Salem, an' his father before him (an' hot and heavyhemade it for witches, folks say). Well, he come to Saganock to preach for our minister, an' brung his boy along; an' bein' connections, they was asked to put up with us. Sakes alive! I remember it all well as ef it want but yisterday. That Sunday we had apple pie an' milk betwixt sermons, an' when afternoon meetin' was out, I gin 'em a pipin' hot supper. Well, the old man was a powerful preacher," rambles on the old retainer, while Miss Paulina, heedless of her chatter,sits pondering the situation. "An' I had remarkable exercises of mind that Sunday; but there! that boy, goodness gracious! didn't he make way with my clam fritters an' gooseberry pie? Well, well, this is a dyin' world; an' nowhistime's come; an' sich an awful providence, too!" And here, kindly oblivious of the ancient onslaught on her supper, old Harmy drops a pitying tear for the dead warden.
"Harmy," says Miss Paulina, decisively, "Josiah Flint's wife has been dead these nine years, and somebody must see to those poor orphan children. Tell Reuben to put Major into the carryall. I shall take the next train for Boston, and probably stay at the prison till the funeral is over."
In accordance with this humane resolve, Miss Parker packs her travelling bag, and, in her second best black silk gown, sets out at fourp. m.for the State Prison. Very cold and gray, in the early autumn twilight, is the residence of the late Josiah Flint, when Miss Paulina Parker alights from the depot carriage at its frowning entrance. A jaded housemaid answers the bell, and ushers her into a slipshod parlor, and thus meets her inquiries for "the warden's family:"
"Famblee, is it, mem? sure, an' it's jist broken up, it is. There's himself (God rest him) as dead as a dooer-nail. The baby wint years ago, along wid the mother; an' the soon he died with the ammonia (pneumonia) lasht fall, whilst he was away to the schule; an' as fur the girl—she's that wantherin', sure, that I couldn't jist this minnit lay me finger on the crather."
Discouraged by this curt summary, Miss Parker half inclines to a French leave of the prison; but inspired by the hope of future usefulness to the small estray upon whom Bridget cannot "jist lay a finger," she resolves to remain, and somehow elbow her way into this dubious and fragmentary domestic circle.
"I am Miss Parker (she explains), the warden's cousin, from Saganock. I have come to stay over the funeral, if you can conveniently keep me.
"Sure, mem, no doot we can, if, be the same token, it proves convanient to yerself," responds the girl. "The korp, indade, is after wakin' itself in the bist chamber; but there's the intry bidroom at your service, intirely."
Miss Paulina graciously accepting the proffered chamber, Bridget kindly leads the wayto the "intry bid-room;" and, bidding her "have no fear of the korp," hurries off in pursuit of the needful toilet furnishment, leaving the guest alone in the small dusky apartment.
Interwoven with her life experience, as it has ever been, death has hitherto been calmly confronted by Miss Paulina; but to-night, alone in a strange dwelling, with a murdered man in the adjoining apartment, and neighboured, no doubt, by scores of murderers, it is all unutterably depressing; and when Bridget, having, as she states, waited to "rub out a clane towel, an' hate a flat for that same," comes clattering through the hall, with the damp napery across her arm, a lamp in one hand, and a slopping ewer in the other, the nervous lady is half disposed to hug her for the bare relief afforded by her presence! Hastily arranging the dusty wash-stand, Bridget announces the instant "goin' on" of supper, and graciously invites her to "tak a look at the korp, an' thin walk doon." Left alone, Miss Paulina removes bonnet and shawl, bathes her face, dons her cap, and, ignoring "the korp," hastily descends to the dining-room.
The supper, a badly cooked, ill-served meal, is solitary and uncomfortable, the "childer" having, according to Bridget, kindly consented to be captured, to be put to bed, and to cry herself to sleep. Miss Paulina, weary and forlorn, soon retires. Already half-undressed, she finds that her travelling bag, containing her night gear and toilet necessaries, together with sundry toothsome packages, provided as "sops" for supposable hostile small Flints, has been left below stairs. Bridget being presumably beyond call, the good lady must herself seek the missing bag. It is safe in the entrance hall, and, hastily securing it, she essays to return to her own quarters. In her bewilderment, she somehow misses her bedroom door, and, instead, opens that of the chamber containing the corpse.
Already well into the apartment, she discovers her mistake, and, simultaneously, lets fall her lamp, surprised by the unlooked-for tableau confronting her. Here, in the dimly-lighted room, close to the murdered warden, whose face she has uncovered,—like some exquisite statue of Pity, mute, motionless, and scarce less pallid than the marble before her,—stands the night-robed figure of May-blossom.No childish recoil from that awful presence disturbs her sweet, earnest face. A solemn awe is in the wistful gray eyes, a mute interrogation of that confronting mystery, blent with the tender pathos of commisserating love. Startled by the clatter of the falling lamp, the child turns, and timidly awaits the approach of the unknown intruder. Dear, kind Miss Paulina! Surprise and wonder at once give way to the one absorbing desire to clasp in her warm, motherly arms this lovely, lonely child.
"Poor little darling," she murmurs, caressingly, approaching and kissing the tear-wet cheek. "Why are you here so late, and all alone?"
"I thought," apologizes the child, "I thought it might not be soverywrong. The nights are so long, and when I tried to sleep my eyes wouldn't shut; for I kept thinking of him (indicating reverently the corpse), and of the other, too. Peter sayshe'scrazy, and awful wicked, and down there in the dungeon with the rats, an' all in irons! And when I thought of it, I got wider and wider awake, and then I came to father. When he was alive (apologetically), of course, he didn'tcare to have me around, and so I stayed mostly with Uncle Tim and Peter, and the others; but I thought he might be glad, up in heaven, if he saw me staying with himnowwhen he is all alone."
"It was not at all wrong, dear child," says Miss Paulina; "but come away withmenow. I am your father's cousin, my child, your Aunt Paulina. You shall trymybed to-night, and see if you cannot sleepthere."
Permitting the child a last good-night kiss, Miss Paulina re-covers the dead face of Warden Flint, upon which the sharp agony of that cruel exit from life yet lingers, and the two pass reverently from the chamber.
Never, in all May-blossom's unmothered life, has there been a night like this. The warm cuddling in tender arms, two fairy tales, the tucking up in bed, and, last of all, the singing of a Scotch ballad, sweet as April rain, upon whose soothing rhythm the weary little soul floats awhile in semi-consciousness, and, at last, falls deliciously into the soft arms of sleep.
We may be sure that all the veteran funeralgoers (those irrepressible "mutes") were onevidence at the funeral of Warden Flint; that his most sequestered virtues were brought to the front, and put on parade for the occasion, and that the usual number in attendance pronounced the remarks "excellent." After the service the coffin is borne uncovered through the guard-room, and deposited in the prison yard. The convicts filing thither, in reverent procession, are permitted a last look at their warden. Hodges, the murderer, taken from his rayless dungeon, and blinking dazedly at the light, is (after the old-time experimental fashion) brought face to face with the corpse. He neither weeps nor smiles. His face wears the blank expression of utter imbecility. After much prodding from his attendants, he recognizes the warden, and babbles, "O dear! have I killed him?" When bidden to put his hand on the body, he recoils and shudders. He exhibits no other emotion, and, clanking his irons, is led supinely back to the "Lower Arch." The convicts retire in slow, orderly procession, and the coffin is returned to more private quarters. The lid is screwed down. Mrs. Jones, standing at the front window, counts the carriages, and, as the body is beingadjusted on its hearse, Mrs. Miller, in a resonant whisper, asks Mrs. Brown, "How soon they expect to get into the new house, and if she's weaned the baby?" Amid this easy chit-chat, the mourning carriages fill, the procession starts. After this, the Joneses, Millers, and Browns go their ways. The funeral is over.
Warden Flint's successor, an oldish man with grown-up sons, promptly appointed by the governor, arrived upon the scene directly upon the heels ofhisdeparture (death's widest gaps are soon filled!), and, as there were none to say her nay, Miss Parker tacitly adopted his homeless child, and made ready forherdeparture. Miss Paulina (admirable as she was) had her limitations. The convict, viewed through the disparaging lens of her own immaculate spectacles, was not an eligible associate, and the tender, all-round leave-taking, permitted between her innocent charge and her attainted friends, was an heroic stretch of good-will on the part of this excellent lady.
At last, it was all well over. May-blossom had given her farewell hug to Peter Floome and "Uncle Tim," and her sweet eyes yet wet with tears, and hanging, as to a last plank,upon the cage of a fluttering yellow canary (the parting souvenir of the inconsolable turnkey), was safely bestowed in the twop. m.train on her way to Saganock,—now no longer a "prison child."
The general depression incident to the withdrawal of this sweet familiar presence from the gray old prison was slightly relieved by speculative interest in the new warden. It might reasonably be hoped that this bran-new broom would sweep awaysometime-honoured abuses—such as the iron crown, the ball and chain, the lash, and the parti-coloured prison attire. It was also inferred that he would reduce the number of consignments to the "Lower Arch," since a recently dungeoned culprit had gone stark mad in that unsavoury place, and refusing, on the expiration of his term of detention, to vacate in favour of an incoming tenant, had been, like some elusive rat, actually smoked out of his hole![2]As to that forceful incentive to propriety, the penal shower-bath, it was whispered that even the commissioners themselves had become shaky in regard to its usefulness, since the sadtaking off of a prison warden had been the latest result of that mode of disciplinary torture, a description of which is here subjoined for the curious.
[2]A fact furnished by an aged officer who witnessed this unique eviction.
[2]A fact furnished by an aged officer who witnessed this unique eviction.
The refractory wretch, his arms, legs, and neck confined in wooden stocks, is seated, nude, in a small, dark closet. From three to four barrels of water are placed above his head, at an elevation of six to eight feet. Unable to change in the slightest degree his position, he receives upon the top of his head, drop by drop, in sudden shower or heavy douche (as may best suit the fancy of his tormentor), this terrible bath. As a devilish after-thought of the inventor, a trench-like collar is made to encircle the victim's neck; as the water descends, this collar fills, and it is so contrived that at the least movement of the sufferer's head the water shall flow into his mouth and nostrils, until he is upon the verge of strangulation. By order of the Board, the shower bath was, in 18—, set up in the State Prison. Could that criminal institution have furnished an unlimited supply of waterproof brains, it might have flourished there indefinitely; but mad convicts are troublesome, nay,sometimesdangerous, and insanitybehind the bars is, therefore, not to be wantonly induced.
Hodges, a provokingly incorrigible sinner, had been, time out of mind, "under treatment." At the command of Warden Flint, he had (putting it in Peter Floome's own forcible English) "ben showered out of his wits, and into his wits, an' then showered rightoveragin." In the abnormal mental state induced by this prolonged torture, the wretched creature had finally turned upon his tormentor. Discouraged by this unlooked-for practical result of the shower-bath, the Board subsequently ordered the discontinuance of its use in the prison; and Hodges was the last subject of that infernal contrivance.
He was brought to trial for the murder of his keeper, and acquitted on the ground of insanity; and finally made good his escape from this troublous life, by a leap from an upper window of the State Insane Hospital.
Hodges was an accomplished rogue, and a second comer to the prison, and it is to be inferred that by the door of death "he went to his place," leaving the world none the poorer by his withdrawal from it; all thesame, he is to be congratulated on his ultimate escape from the penal water cure.
It is May-day; and high tide with the Saganock. It is a brimful hurrying river, and, at this moment, fully verifies that distracting old saw, "Time and tide stay for no man." And here, amid budding lilacs and singing robins, some half head taller, and two good years older than on the day when she bade a final adieu to the prison, is May-blossom. On this sunny slope of the Parker lawn she is prospecting for early violets. Her sweet face has grown thinner. Violet circles underline her soft gray eyes. Her lips are as threads of scarlet wool, and, listening, you may hear her cough—deep and hollow. Alas! It is a sound to make the heart ache.
Soon wearied by her futile search, the child returns to her cosy corner on "the stoop," and there, curled up beneath the soft warm folds of an afghan, watches the westering sun, the fleecy clouds, and the familiar river speeding on to the sea.
Meantime, at the north door, Dr. Abel Foster, the family "medicine man," briskly alights from his buggy. Before his hand cantouch the knocker it is opened by Miss Paulina herself. "Good afternoon, my dear lady; and so pussy is still ailing, is she?" cries the good doctor (this with assumed nonchalance, slightly overdone).
"Yes, Doctor Foster," replies Miss Parker; "and will you kindly sound her lungs to-day, and let me know the worst? One flinches indeed, but, if itmustcome—why, then—" an ominous quaver in the gentle voice; and the doctor shrewdly interrupts:
"Bless you, madam! I'm in a terrible hurry! Twenty patients waiting for me this minute! Let me see the little girl at once."
May-blossom is called in, her blue-veined wrist consigned to the doctor's big feelers; her tongue submitted to a critical inspection; and, after undergoing a prolonged professional thumping and hearkening, she is soundly hugged and kissed, and, with a nod and a smile, dismissed. After this, Doctor Foster and the lady of the mansion are closeted awhile together. The buggy then passes down the drive, and disappears on the long dusty road. Soon after, the south door opens, and a face, pale and sad, but very calm, bends over the child, who has again returned to her out-doorseat. Very tenderly is the warm afghan folded about the small, fragile form. The robins no longer sing. The sun, half-obscured, is going down. The burying-ground stands drearily out against the murky sky. The pines wail mournfully, and the river—at ebbing tide—murmurs in sad refrain. Old Harmy, moulding tea-biscuits at her kitchen window, imparts to Mandy Ann—who is shaving the dried beef for tea—her belief that Miss Paulina "hes gone clean crazy, settin' out-doors with that child, an' the dew a fallin' this very minnit, like sixty!" Miss Paulina—recovering her wits—hurries her darling in. The tea-table is already laid in the south keeping-room, beside the wide fireplace, with its ancient crane, and its Scriptural border of watery blue Dutch tiles; and, in the cheerful apple-wood blaze, the two partake together of that now almost obsolete meal—a substantial six o'clock tea. May-blossom is then snugly settled among the cushions of a wide chintz lounge, and the elder lady, in a low seat beside her, and holding lovingly her small wasted hand,—as is her wont,—chats pleasantly with her darling, in the soft, quiet gloaming. At nine, they pass, hand in hand,to Miss Paulina's own chamber, where the child's cot has long been established. May-blossom undressed, kissed, and blessed, creeps drowsily between its warm blankets, and is soon sound asleep. Miss Paulina, in her dressing-gown, broods over the dying fire, far into the night. Alas! have not all her best beloved gone from her? Why might not Heaven have spared to her this last—the one ewe lamb, so tenderly carried in her arms, and warmed in her lonely bosom? Why not; ah,why? She recalls the blessed comfort of two love-lightened years; the daily lessons, when to teach this bright little creature had been a mere pastime; their woodland fern and flower-gatherings, their winter fireside cosiness, all the nameless homely delights of love's dear fellowship—wayside flowers, that, scarce perceived, blossom along life's trodden ways. And now it is all coming to an end! Nothing will be left her but one small, grass-grown grave! As if there were not already graves enough in her world!
May-blossom, though not a sickly child, had never been robust; and when, at midwinter, she had taken the measles, this epidemic of childhood had gone hard with her.She had convalesced but slowly; an ugly cough had set in, and could not be routed; and now there were hectic afternoons, debilitating night-sweats, succeeded by mornings of lassitude; and, to-day, Doctor Foster had summed up his diagnosis in one dreadful word—consumption!
"The child," explained the good doctor—tears blinding his kind old eyes—"has grown up (as it were) in the cellar; delicate nervous organization; too much brain; too little out-door life; and the outcome of it all is simply this—with that cough, and that constitution (God help us!) an angel from heaven couldn't save her!"
Summer is coming. The buttercups are here. May-blossom is better. She sleeps well, coughs less, and her appetite is mending. Buoyed by deceitful hope, Miss Paulina takes heart, and the train for Boston, from whence,—crowned with the spoil of a half day's shopping,—she is, at this very moment, returning. The carryall fairly groans under its accumulated bundles; and the steel-clasped bag upon her arm is plethoric, to the last degree. Hours have passed sinceshe parted from her darling. Hastily alighting, she hurries in. There is an under-quaver of anxiety in her voice as she calls, "May! May, May, dear!" Wherecanthe child be, that she has not run to meet her! "May!" again, and louder—still no reply. Yet now a never-to-be-mistaken voice comes cooingly from the kitchen. "Whocanthe darling be fondling? (Harmy Patterson, though staunch and loving, is not one to unbend to endearments!) Her kitten, most likely."
She softly opens the kitchen door. Amazement stays her feet upon the threshold! Harmy, mute with horror, indicates with stretched forefinger her own clean patchwork-cushioned rocker, wherein, bolt upright, sits an unknown man,—andsucha man! His coarse, dusty garments (evidently fashioned without the slightest reference to their present wearer) hang scarecrow-wise upon his graceless form. Under his slouched hat (which he democratically retains) he seems to skulk abjectly from the gazer's eye; as well he may, for, unshaven and unshorn, his wide mouth stained with tobacco, his hands and face begrimed with dust, he looks, every inch, the wretched outcast that heis! And (nowonder that old Harmy gapes distraught), seated lovingly upon this creature's knee, her dainty fingers clasping his dirty hand, her golden curls brushing his grimy neck, is May-blossom,—yes, May-blossom, her own sweet self, beaming, and fond, and absolutely unconscious of the incongruity of the situation. And this forlorn being, craving still of humanity but leave to carry on its shoulders the shamed head of a man, is a convict,—our old prison acquaintance, Peter Floome, May-blossom's sometime nurse, and always friend!
Lightly springing from her unseemly perch, the child hastens to greet Miss Paulina, and, hanging fondly upon her hand, cries eagerly, "Oh, auntie, darling, I'm so glad you've come! Here's Peter, dear old Peter! He's pardoned out, auntie, and, isn't it nice? He can come and see me every day now if he likes.
"Why, auntie! (somewhat crestfallen) aren't you glad? and won't you shake hands with him? Peter is nice, auntie, and he used to takesuchcare of me when I waseverso little. You'll like Peter when he's washed up, and so will Harmy, though shedoesmind him just a littlenow, because she's not acquainted withhim." (Harmy,sotto voce, and emphatically, "Lord sakes, no; an' don't never want to be!") Here, reminiscences of prison etiquette visiting Peter's dazed mind, he shuffles bashfully to his feet, and, pulling distractedly at his matted forelock, goes through a certain gymnic performance, supposed, by himself, to constitute a bow. The ice thus broken, Peter finds his tongue, and blurts out a "Good day, marm, hope I see yer well, marm."
Miss Paulina bows, a pause, ensues. Peter looks admiringly at May-blossom, and, thereby gaining inspiration, finds himself equal to a second attempt at conversation.
"She's growed, marm, like the mischief!" he asserts; "but I knowed her, Idid, the minute I sot eyes on her out there in the mowin' lot! an' she knowedme, she did! Yes, yes, she knowed Peter; she knowed him. Poor old Peter! who don't hardly know himself nowerdays." Here Peter's voice gets husky, and, brushing away a dirty tear, with his greasy coat sleeve, he seems to await the issue. Peter Floome is downrightly the social antipodes of the lady of the homestead. Conventionally they do not stand side by side in the human group, but, like Swedenborg's unfraternalangels, "feet to feet." Yet in the artless harangue of this poor creature there is a touch of honest nature that at once makes them kin.
"And I, too, must know you, Peter," she says, cordially advancing and taking in her own clean palm his dirty hand.
Unable to express his appreciation of the honour thus conferred, Peter twirls his thumbs, ventures a side glance at Harmy, and, again utterly disparaged in his own eyes, looks uneasily at the floor.
Prompt to reconcile the cowed creature to himself, Miss Parker courteously says: "And now, Peter, you would, I think, like to go up to Reuben's bedroom and have a good wash. By and by Harmy shall give you tea, and then we must hear all about the pardon, and how you happened here, and what you mean to do with yourself, and whatwecan do for you. Come, Mabel, dear; Peter, you know, isyourcompany. Show him up-stairs, my darling."
Again the small, soft hand is laid in the rough, brown paw, and Peter Floome,—in a state of absolute bewilderment as to his personal identity,—shuffles awkwardly off withthe delighted child. And what says Harmy Patterson to all this? "Here's a convict, a horrid convict," cries she, "and invited to tea, an' that child a huggin' an' kissin' him, in cold blood! Lord! Lord! whatisthe Parkers comin' to?" Here, unable further to pursue the fallen social fortunes of the house, Harmy covers her face with her checked apron and bursts into tears. Grieved at the discomfiture of her old servant and friend, Miss Parker essays a word of expostulation. She appeals to her hospitality, her humanity, reminds her of her professed discipleship of Him who "sat at meat" with the sinner. In vain! as well might she have addressed herself to Harmy's stone molasses jug, which, dropped from her grasp in the sudden shock of Peter's advent, now lies prone upon the kitchen floor. Foiled in her kindly endeavour, the mistress quietly withdraws. Harmy, left alone, sobs herself into a comparatively tranquil frame of mind. Coming to the rescue of her molasses jug, she carefully ascertains that no minute fracture is consequent upon the fall, and that no wasteful drop has exuded from the wooden stopper, and, forthwith, sets vigorously to, on a batch of soft gingerbread, whose manufacturehad been interrupted by the entrance of Peter Floome. While she stirs her cake, Harmy sighs, and profoundly resolves in her mind "the fitnesses." In her social lexicon a convict is a vile wretch. In her catechism he is given over to damnation from the foundation of the world—God-devoted to the very devil himself!
Miss Paulina Parker, in her chamber, washes her hands, and also ponders the "fitnesses." This starved outcast is her brother. She has taken him by the hand. Christian ethics demonstrate the fitness of this act. The hand was, no doubt, dirty. Yet, what matters it? Soap and water set one right again. Soap and water tell, too, upon Peter Floome, when, after a characteristically superficial ablution, he emerges from Reuben's bedroom, a trifle improved in complexion, but still a sorry specimen of humanity, and, escorted by May-blossom, is whisked out-of-doors, on a hasty tour of inspection. Led by this happy little creature (now holding his hand, now dropping it to run on and, turning, take in his effect, and then skip gayly in advance), Peter visits the chicken-coop, the beehive, the flower garden, the stables, andthe pig-pen, and, last of all, the apple orchard, now rosy-white with bloom.
There, reclined upon the grass, beneath the flowering boughs of a patriarch tree, Miss Paulina ere long comes upon the oddly matched pair. Peter, wreathed with buttercups and dandelions, and wearing his flowery honours like another "Bottom," sits beside his "Titania," who in fond infatuation "His amiable cheek doth coy."
"Pity," thinks the intruder, "to spoil so quaint a picture." The sun is, however, already low, and she calls her darling in from the dewfall. In the kitchen, Harmy has made reluctant preparations for Peter's inner man; grimly remarking to Mandy Ann (who has meantime returned from an errand at the store) that "it does go agin' her, to put on span clean table-cloths for sich creeturs, an' to waste good vittels where they can't no how be sensed." A convict being, at Mandy Ann's estimate, an ineligible, if not dangerous guest, as Peter and May-blossom enter at one door, she vanishes by another. Harmy dons her cape-bonnet, and marches stiffly into the kitchen garden, leaving the disreputable visitor to his child hostess.
Peter Floome had not figured at a tea-drinking for many a long year, and, naturally, his company manners are somewhat rusty. Possibly, his table etiquette (or, rather, his entire lack of it) might have shocked his too partial entertainer (who, with fine innate courtesy, has laid herself a cup and plate, and is keeping her guest in countenance by taking her own tea with him), had not his evident satisfaction in the meal entirely engrossed her mind, for (Harmy to the contrary, notwithstanding) Peter is inherently inclined to "sense good vittels." It is quaintly picturesque, this tea-drinking of "Bottom" and "Titania;" this odd contrast of loutishness and elegance, although (as I grieve to record) "Bottom" does absolutely ignore the butter-knife; does thrust his wet spoon into the sugar bowl; and, vigourously blowing his hot tea, in scorn of popular prejudice, lap the same from his slopping saucer, and shovel in the apple sauce with his knife-blade. "Titania's" pretty efforts to put "Bottom" at his ease are, indeed, a thing to behold; for, conscious of his own want of keeping with the unwonted occasion, Peter is, to the very last degree, awkward and abashed. Nevertheless,the encouraging smiles of his small hostess carry him victoriously to the end of this harrowing experience. Other social exigencies yet await this much-tried man. Directly after tea, he is taken by May-blossom to that inner sanctuary, Miss Parker's parlour, where, amid oppressively elegant surroundings, he is further weighed to earth by the disparaging sense of his own abjectness.
Prison life, on the solitary plan, is not conducive to colloquial glibness, nor is Peter Floome habitually garrulous. Many cups of Harmy's strong green tea have, however, limbered his tongue, and, once he is well seated, and has made a final, though terribly unsatisfactory, disposal of his long arms and obtrusive legs, he finds himself sufficiently at ease for narrative effort, and, at the request of his gracious hostess, wades desperately into his subject.
"I s'pose now, marm," he begins, "that you dun' know as my real name ain't Peter Floome. No more, either, does this pretty little creetur. The Ballous, you see (Ephryam Ballou'smyname), was allers stuck on theirselves, an' when it come to prison, I says to myself, anyhow,Iwon't spile the fambly-tree,so I got put down anonermous-like on them prison books, an' Ephe Ballou ain't never been heerd on to the 'palace,' you bet. Its twenty-three years, come next fall, marm, sence I sot Hiram Hall's barn afire. I was mighty peppery in them days, an' Hiram an' me, we had a fallin' out. He served me darned mean, Hiram did, an' my dander was up an' so was his'n, an' we had it hot an' heavy, an' (savin' your presence, marm, an' hern) I told Hiram I'd give him h—l some day. After that, I cooled off some, and went home. I was pretty riley yit, though, an' all suppertime I sot thinkin' to myself how I'd come up with that d—d blasted sneak. That's what I called him then, marm, fur I'd had a leetle too much old cider, an' didn't feel like pickin' out my words. 'By jiminy!' says I to myself, 'I've got it now! I'll hide in Hiram's barn, an', when folks is turned in, I'll jest let the critters out, and set fire to the old shebang! That'll plague him fust-rate.' Well, arter supper, I sez to mother, sez I, 'I'm goin' to be out middlin' late to-night, mother, an' you better not set up for me. Put the key under the door-mat, an' I'll be all right,' sez I.
"Poor old mother!" continued Peter, reflectively, and lowering his voice. "Arter that Iwasout; and a long while, too, an' she sot up fur me, mother did. Bless her patient old soul! Yes, yes, she sot up fur her bad boy jest five year an' six months, an' then her old heart broke, an' she turned in for good an' all, mother did, an' I couldn't so much as see her kivered up!"
Here Peter is fain to take breath and heart, and Miss Paulina (herself in tears) comforts May-blossom, who is sobbing aloud. After this pathetic interruption, Peter, apparently composed by a prolonged fit of sneezing, regains the thread of his narrative.
"'Scuse me, marm," he apologizes, "I b'leeve thinkin' o' mother I got a leetle grain ahead o' my story, but, as I sed, I'd made up my mind how to come up with Hiram, an' that night I got ahead on him sure afore he locked up, for there I was, stowed away in his haymow, as slick as grease! Well, jest as the Presberteren meetin'-house time struck 'leven, I crep' down to the stalls, turned out the cow an' the horse, an' druv 'em down to the medder lot; then I walked back, put a match er two under the mow, an' made tracks fer hum.Well," sighed Peter, "the rest on it's an ugly story, marm, an' p'r'aps you druther this innocent little creetur shouldn't hear it." May-blossom is now "all ears," and Miss Parker, signifying her assent, Peter goes on. "Well, 'bout 'leven the wind riz, an' afore that barn got well agoin' it blowed a perfect harrycane, an' them sparks was a flyin' like the mischief! 'Lord help us,' sez I, looking out my bedroom winder, 's'pos'n' it kerries 'em as fur's Hiram's house!' An' sure 'nuff, itdid; an' it bein' a dry spell, the ruff blazed up like tinder! I was there in a jiffy, helpin' on' em git out the truck. I'd got all over my huff now. I was sober as a jedge, an' I'd' a' gin my head for a football to had that night's work undid! Well, there was lots o' furnitoor in the house, an' Hiram he was a graspin' man, an' bound to git the hull on it out, an' arter it got too hot fur the rest on us, he hung on, an'—well—the last time he went in, hestayed. Poor Hiram! I could e'en a'most have changed places with him; for arterthat, I wa'n't no ways sot on livin'. I knowed I wa'n't nothin' less than a murderer, an' I wa'n't easy nowhere, 'specially to hum, where mother was round, settin' as much store by me as ever. Well, by'm by,when folks got wind o' my havin' a spat with Hiram, an' his owin' on me, they put this an' that together, an' I was took up for arson; an' I can't say as I was sorry, neither.
"Well, to make short on't, I was nigh about hung; but the governor, he stepped in at the last minnit, an' sent me to State Prison for life. When it come to that pass, 'I won't disgrace the fam'ly,' sez I. 'The Ballous figgered pooty well in the revelooshing,' sez I, 'an' that name sha'n't never be writ in the prison 'count book, ef I kin hinder it.' So, es I've told you, marm, I had myself writ down as Peter Floome. I hadn't no nigh relations 'cept mother and sister Betsy. Uncle George's family'd settled in Illinoise, an' we didn't hear from 'em once in a dog's age. Betsy was a young gal then an' had a beau. She was allus pooty toppin', an' sez I, 'it don't stan' to reason she'll be comin' to the State Prison to see herownbrother; but there's mother,' sez I, 'she'llcome reg'lar, I reckon; same's she did to thejail;' so I writ her a letter, an' gin her word how I was, an' who she must ask arter in case she come. Bless her dear old soul!
"The very next Friday, there she was onthe spot! Arter that, reg'lar as clock work, once in three months, rain or shine, there was mother!
"Mothers, you see, marm, never misses. Wives, an' sisters, an' children, now an' then do keep up to the mark, but mothers, on the hull, is about the only reg'lar prison stan'bys. Well, mother sot a good deal o' store by me, an' when I see her gittin' thin, I knowed what fretted her, an' sez I to myself, 'she won't hold out forever, an' when she's gone, the Lord helpme!'
"Well," continued Peter, huskily, "by'm by shewent, mother did; but (dropping his voice to a confidential whisper) mothers is master hands to hang on, an' no mistake! An' sure's you're 'live, ef she didn't keep right on with them visits! jest as reg'lar as ef nothin' hed turned up! Ev'ry time the quarter come round, on a Friday night, jest as the clock struck one, there stood mother, large as life, at the gratin' o' my cell. She never once opened her head; but, when I see her stan' there so smilin' an' pleasant, I sez to myself, 'she's done frettin', anyhow;' an', though I warn't never no great hand at prayin', Ididthank God forthat. I never let on 'bout themvisits, for 'bout that time things got pesky upside down with me, an' the boys they used to say, 'Peter's cranky.' 'So,' sez I, 'ef I was to tell 'um, they wouldn't none on 'em b'leeve me.' An' I jest kep' dark, an' year arter year mother come reg'lar, an' we had it all to ourselves. By'm by Hiram,hecome. Not reg'lar, like mother did, but off an' on. Well, ghosts is poor company, marm; an' arter a while I got clean upsot, and wa'n't wurth an old shoe.
"But I'm gittin' kinder ahead o' my story. Arter mother died, Betsy she thawed out some, an' come to see me twice, an' then she got married an' went to Californy. She writ one or two letters to me an' I answered 'em punctooal, but by'm by she left off writin', an' I knewshe'dgin me up. An' then I got sorter cross-grained an' callous; an' sez I to myself, 'what's the odds anyhow, it can't last to all etarnity; an' by'm by I'll go out o' this, feet fust, an' I hope 't 'ill be the last o' me.'"
"But Peter, my poor fellow," piously interposes Miss Parker, "you read the Bible sometimes, I trust, and found some comfort there; you couldn't have doubted God's providence,all His blessed promises to the penitent and believing soul?"
"Why, yes'm," responds Peter; "I read my Biblesome, purty reg'lar, too, 'long at fust; an' mother bein' a church-member, I was brung up to set on providence 'en sich like; but them promises you tell on works best outside o' prisons; an' 'long 'bout the time I got upsot, I'd gin up readin' even in the Bible; for 't wa'n't no use; the letters all stood wrong eend up. Ididhang on to providence a spell, but by 'm by, I seethatwa'n't no use, nuther. 'Providence,' sez I, 'don't take no 'count o'me, an' I may as well try to jog along on my own hook.'
"Well, finally, I was took down with roomatic fever, an' went into the hospital a spell; an' arter I got round agin, I wa'n't strong enough to go back to the shoe shop, an' the doctor said a change would set me up agin. Twelve year I'd ben a workin' there at the same bench, an' one day exactly like t'other, till it 'peared to me as ef I was a sewin' one 'tarnal everlastin' shoe, over an' over, an' back an' forth, an' no mortal hope o' comin' to the eend on't in this world or next. An' when they sot me to runnin' arrants in theprison, an' doin' chores fur the warden's folks, I was mighty glad, I tell you! An' things kinder got right eend up agin. 'T wa'n't long arter that, afore this dear little creetur come to town. Childrenairstrange now, ain't they, marm? Would you b'leeve that, afore that child could set alone, she took a reg'lar shine tome! Iwasbeat, I tell you! An' when I felt them two little arms 'round my old neck, things somehow lifted up like; an' though I didn't go to prayer-meetin', and didn't ezackly git religin, as some on 'em do, I took a reg'lar hitch on to the Almighty; 'fur,' sez I, 'it's right down handsome in Him to send a blessed little angel to sich a place as this.' Fur she was a reg'lar angel to us, a growin' up there, so innocent, purty an' lovin'; an' she did our souls a heap more good than all the chaplain's Sunday sermons; an' when the boss got killed, an' you took her off, it seemed as ef there wa'n't nothin' left. I s'pose I took on, to myself, a leetle too hard, fur arter I'd had one or two poor spells, the doctor he overhauled me, an' I heered him say there was trouble with the heart; an' sez I to myself, 'you're right thereis!' Next day as I was cleanin' up his office, the warden asked me 'bout myfolks; an' how long I'd ben to the prison, an' how long I'd got to stay, an' so I told him, nigh as I could, the hull story, 'cept 'at I didn't let on 'bout mother, an' them reg'lar visits. He wouldn't 'a' b'leeved me, you see, an' besides, I never did like to let on much abouther.
"Well, that was long in the neighbourhood o' Fast Day; an' now an' then on holidays, marm, as p'r'aps you know, the gov'nor makes a p'int to pardon a prisoner; an' when the warden gits up them days in chapel, with a paper in his hand, we know what's comin', an' some hearts there gives awful thumps, I tell you! There's lots of 'em, you see, has hopes, havin' folks a tryin' fur 'em outside, or bein' took up by the prayer-meetin' or the inspectors; but I hadn't eny hopes; so that day when the warden riz, with his pardon, an' begun to make a speech, I sot there as unconcerned as ever.