After he had gone out, O'Brien said to me,—
"The Deputy wouldn't be hard on us, if he could help it."
I did the best I could. I told them I was sorry to make them work so hard; but I could not help it. I asked them to do things, when I could possibly do it, rather than give a command.
When I had time I gave them a reason, for an order, and however tired they might be, that was sure to secure ready and prompt acquiescence.
"You must get on more steam as quick as you can, because we are a little behind time with our dinner," was sure to set Allen's fire going at once.
If I came in, and found them sitting down, idly gossiping away the time before their work was done, I had only to say,—
"Now, girls, start round, and get your work done; then, you can sit down and talk. A clean room is so much pleasanter than a dirty one to me, and I want my place to look the nicest of any one in the institution, and you wish me to have the credit of itsbeing so. You like to have all of the visitors taken in to see the kitchen because it looks so nice."
They would put the work about very quickly. Scrub and dust, and make the old kitchen shine like a new one in a twinkling.
They were keen enough to fathom character, and took no advantage of my manner. They were conciliated; but did not lose the restraint of authority. They knew it was there, and could be used if necessary.
They never gave me impertinence; nor refused to obey when an order came directly from me.
That inspection day was a literal washing of the great Master's feet; not with my tears of penitence, but with the bitter remnants of pride and anger subdued to patience? My work was even more humiliating. It was that of the dogs, at the temple gate, cleansing the sores of the vagrant Lazarus.
The prisoners were allowed the condiments of salt, pepper, and vinegar. Their boxes and bottles were filled every Thursday. That was to last till the next Thursday. If they were wasted, or extravagantly used, they were obliged to go without till the replenishing day came. To attend to that was one of the duties of the chambermaids.
I was obliged to look after it or they would scatter and waste their allowance, and then play off on me. They would call to me,—
"I want salt; there was none put in my box."
That would be done from pure mischief, to get thesweeps a scolding. But I gave them little chance to carry out their mischief in that way. I had the answer ready,—
"It was put there. I have been in every room to-day and saw it there. If it is gone you have wasted it, and must go without."
"I haven't wasted it."
"Wasn't it your pepper and salt that was strewed on the shop-floor to-day?"
That hint that I was after them, and knew what they were about, was sufficient. There were no more complaints made.
Every woman was obliged to make, and tie up, her own bed. The prison women swept the rooms every morning. That gave them an opportunity to secrete many a nice bit for their friends. Indeed my sweeps ran a regular underground bakery express from the Masters kitchen, and also from the prisoners'.
Many a nice biscuit and slice of cake went from the range to the cells, and bread from my table was provided against mush morning, and brown-bread breakfasts.
Onions were a favorite vegetable, but their telltale odor enabled me to detect them easily.
One evening, I passed a cell where they gave out unmistakable evidence of their presence. I called to one of the sweeps,—
"Ellen, the gardener has made a mistake! He has put the onions, for the soup to-morrow, in one of those cells. Won't you take them out, and put themin the cellar. If one of the other Matrons, or the Deputy, were to come in, they would smell them as plainly as I do, and they might think you put them there for some one to eat privately, and get you reported."
That hint was sufficient; I never smelt onions in the cells again.
The officers professed to take no report from one prisoner against another; but when they got angry with a prisoner, and wished to remove her from their department, they did not scruple to avail themselves of information obtained in that way. Berry, my white-washer, was an apt agent. Sly, artful, and treacherous, she pretended sympathy, and got possession of knowledge which was Mrs. Hardhack's principal clew to find out what was going on in the kitchen and prison.
The other women understood, and avoided her. That made her angry, and the more watchful and treacherous.
One day she found a biscuit from the officers' table in a cell. She reasoned that Flannagan must have put it there, because Flannagan and the girl in whose cell she found it were great friends. That morning the Housekeeper had been fretted with Flannagan, and Berry had got wind of it. Here was the opportunity to exercise her vocation. She slipped the biscuit under her apron, took it into the officers' kitchen, and showed it to the Housekeeper.
Flannagan must have done it, because she hadgiven offense in the morning; and she was forthwith dismissed to the shop.
A woman who came in a few days before, on a long sentence, had been discovered to be a nice needle-woman, smart and pretty; whereas Flannagan was plain and slow. Occasion was thus made to effect the change, so my women said. And what they failed to find out in that institution was beyond investigation.
The day commenced at odds. In the morning Mrs. Hardhack came flying into the kitchen, and demanded, from O'Brien, something for one of her girls to eat.
"She has fainted away for the want of food! She has had no breakfast! How did you dare to keep her breakfast from her!"
O'Brien kept her temper wonderfully. She answered very quietly,—
"I'm sure she had the same as the rest if she had been a mind to taken it."
"How do you dare to stand there and answer me in that way? I'll have you punished if you dare to open your mouth again."
O'Brien's face grew red, she opened her lips to retort just as I arrived to where they stood. I stepped between them.
"O'Brien, will you get a bucket of coal? I want more steam as soon as I can have it."
"Yes, ma'am," and she started away; but she looked up at me as she went as much to say, you have saved me.
I turned to Mrs. Hardhack.
"I'm sorry one of your girls couldn't eat her breakfast; you know it is impossible for me to get anything aside from the Master's orders, and what the rest have. I'll see if I can find her something."
"We have got so much contract work to get done to-night, and, if the women faint away, they can't do it."
"I should be glad to provide them a good, substantial breakfast to work on; but I can't have my way about it. It is very cruel to feed them as they are fed here; and then, to work them as they are worked."
I thought, as I went to look up something for her to take to the poor girl, of the remark John Randolph made to his lady neighbor, when he entered her house and found her at work for the Greeks, "The Greeks are at your door." He had entered the house through a little army of naked, ignorant servants.
Do not the ladies of the United States need to be reminded that the Greeks are at their door? Are they not in every prison in the land?
I went into the pantry. There was a skillet pan standing on the shelf with a bone in it. I took it out and inquired,—
"Whose bone is this?"
"It is mine," said Lissett.
"Will you give it to the woman in the shop who fainted this morning because she had no breakfast?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Bring a slice of bread, and quart of coffee to go with it."
Handing it to Mrs. Hardhack, I dispatched her as quickly as possible. I was glad when she departed. Her visits to the kitchen were very disagreeable. She always managed to use the "irritating language," forbidden by the Board in their "Rules and Regulations," which stirred up the angry feelings of my women, and it took time and argument to get them settled down into calmness and quiet again.
"If it hadn't been for you, I should have been in solitary again," said O'Brien, after she left. "How I hate that woman!"
"And so do I, and so do I!" was echoed round the room.
"If you hate such ways never copy them!"
"What's the use in scolding us! She knows we can't help the victuals. If she wants to scold anybody she'd better scold the Master."
"He'd sauce her back again; and then, both of 'em would get locked up. Wouldn't you like to see 'em both locked up?" said Lissett.
"Yes, that I should!" was echoed all around.
"I'd like to cut the bread for 'em," said O'Brien. "The slices would be thin."
"I would draw small quarts of water," said Lissett.
"Hush, girls! Don't you know that you are now indulging in the very temper that looks so hateful to you when you see it in others."
Scarcely was I relieved of Mrs. Hardhack's anti-benign influence, when the Receiving Matron made her appearance, and asked, although in a very different manner,—
"Why didn't the women bring over their clothes?"
"What clothes?"
"Their sheets to be washed. This is their day. They take them from their beds when they get up, and carry them to the wash-house as they go down to the shop. My women, and the four who were sent up from the shop to help them, have lost an hour by the delay. I don't mind about mine; but the shop women will be late back; and then, I shall be complained of that I did not drive them hard enough, and get the work out of them sooner."
"I didn't know anything about it. If you had told me last night I would have attended to it. Some of the women asked me if they should take out their sheets; but I didn't know what they meant, and told them I would see. I will send the sweeps to gather them up immediately, and send them over."
"I forgot to tell you last night. They won't blame you but me; there is the trouble. I hate to have the Master come around, and find fault."
"Are you afraid of him?"
"No! I'm not a prisoner; but I always feel uncomfortable where he is, don't you?"
"I have only seen him once or twice; and then Iwas very much inclined to laugh at the pompous airs he put on; but a sense of propriety restrained me."
"I had a great deal rather not see him, especially, when he comes to find fault."
"He ought not to find fault with you in this instance. You are under no obligation to teach me the duties of my department. If you attend to the work in your own you do your duty."
"I know that, but I can't help myself. He says I am here to do whatever he orders me, and that I must do it if I stay. I am a widow, and have a boy to support, so I try to do all I can."
"He knows that?"
"Yes, they all know it."
"And he takes advantage of it to compel you to do his wife's work while he gets the pay for it."
"That is the plain English of the whole thing."
"But you can get more pay outside for less work than you do here."
"Perhaps so, if I knew how to find it; but I never have been so fortunate as to find it before."
I had gone out into the prison as I was talking with her, and stood at the door a moment after she had passed out; but there was no chance for rest during my watch. There came the sound of scolding and contention after me, and recalled me to the kitchen. I hurried back. The fear that some of them would get into a quarrel, beyond my reach to control, always haunted me.
"What is the matter?" I called out at the door.
"The cook is so slow we shall never get this swill out, and I am trying to hurry her," said the sink woman. "She hinders me so I shall never get my work done."
"I can't do no faster than I can," called back the sink woman. "It is no use hurrying me."
"Stop! both of you! Lissett, you know Jennie is slow, and you must have patience with her. Do I not have patience with you? You only make matters worse by fretting. Jennie, you are slow. When you carry swill with Lissett, go as fast as you can, so as not to hinder her; then rest when you get through."
"Do come along!" fretted Lissett, "You are enough to fret a saint."
"That can't be you, Lissett. Haven't I told you, many a time, that you ought to help each other along, instead of scolding and fretting at each other."
"It is hard work to drag her, and the swill tub too."
"Then go a little slower, and give her a chance to do her part. There is one thing that I wish to do myself, and that is the scolding, and I don't wish to have you take it out of my hands."
"If you do it all there won't get much of it done."
"There will be enough. I do not need help. And I can suit myself much better in doing it than any one else can suit me. In future, Lissett, you and Annie O'Brien will carry the swill together.Then you can both work as fast as you please. Jennie, you and Allen may carry together; you can be as slow as you please. I wish to hear no more trouble over the swill."
I intended to arrange their work so as to avoid all collision; but I sometimes failed. When I had put those, whom I thought to be the best of friends, at work together, some little difference would arise and separate them.
Directly I had a call in the prison. Berry could not get on with her white-washing, because Maggie had not done her sweeping, and came to me with a complaint,—
"Maggie won't sweep, and that keeps me waiting. Won't you tell her to sweep so I can white-wash?"
"Maggie, why don't you sweep so that Berry can white-wash?"
"I am, ma'am, as fast as I can. I have got all of the rooms to do before I do the floor."
"You need not wait, Berry. Take a broom and help her."
That was something that Berry did not calculate upon.
"If Maggie would get up in season she could get her work done herself; she loves her bed too well."
"I have told you of a way to get your work done if you do not wish to wait."
"You favor Maggie too much, and the other Matrons all say so. You ought to get her up in the morning, they all say."
"Take a broom and sweep that platform! Don't bring any tales to me from the other Matrons! When I wish you to teach me how to treat the women, I will ask you."
Berry chose to consider herself a very much injured woman, and began to snivel and grumble.
"I am going down to the shop to work. Maggie is so saucy I can't get along with her." She dared not express her disaffection towards me.
"Well, Berry, when you find yourself so much your own mistress as to go where you please, I will give you 'a character,' and you may go to the shop to work."
"What kind of a character?" asked O'Brien, who happened along at that moment.
"A good one. You are a pretty good woman, Berry. There is one fault which I think might be corrected by going to the shop. You are very much disposed to tattle, and that sometimes makes mischief. If you go to the shop, where you are not allowed to speak at all, you can't do that kind of mischief. That would save me, if it did not yourself, a great deal of trouble."
I heard no more about going to the shop.
The kitchen was quiet after dinner and the work, before supper, done. I threw my head back, in the large chair in which I was resting, and drowsed.
The women sat buzzing, on low stools, just behind me. I had been too sleepy to notice what theywere saying; finally a word or two that I heard attracted me to listen.
"Was you here, O'Brien?" asked Maggie; "when Ida Jones was pulled into the hospital by the hair of her head?"
"Yes, I was, and I saw it with my two eyes. The Master pulled her by the hair of her head, and kicked her as he went along the walk; and she a poor, half-witted thing too. That was six weeks ago, and she has been in the hospital ever since."
I was wide awake—thoroughly aroused when that story was completed.
"Maggie Murray, do you mean to say that you saw the Master pull Ida Jones along the walk, by the hair of her head, and kick her as he pulled her? You ought to be very careful how you tell such stories, unless they are true."
"It is the truth, ma'am!" said several of them in a breath.
"He took her by her pug, like this," and she took hold of the coil of hair on the back of O'Brien's head, "and dragged her along. We all saw it, and the Housekeeper saw it, and she said he ought to be reported to the Board. And that Matron, that skinny person, I forget her name, that was here, she saw it. There were a plenty that saw it. When you go down to the hospital, you can ask Ida what is the matter, and she will tell you so too."
"What did he do it for?"
"She said she was dead with work—she couldnot sit at it another minute—she was ready to fall; and Hardhack reported her; and the Master was so mad,—some of 'em said so drunk,—he dragged her himself out of the shop, all of the way to the Hospital."
My face must have expressed the horror that I felt.
"Indeed it is the truth, ma'am!" said O'Brien. "The Master was crazy to get a lot of work done that night, and it made him awful mad to lose a hand."
I asked myself if it were possible that that man would dare to abuse the trust reposed in him in that manner. Certainly! The whole system of secrecy upon which our prisons are managed is just calculated to screen such conduct, and to induce the practice of it, if there be a tendency, in the disposition of the man who has charge, to do it. If the testimony of prisoners is not to be relied upon, a Master could make it for the interest of his officers to remain silent. Some might look at it in the same light that he did, and feel perfectly satisfied.
Why should not a prisoner's testimony be taken in a matter where he is concerned? He has been tried and convicted of an offense. Is that fact a conviction in every other case where he may have difficulty with another person?
If prisoners are entirely unworthy of trust, how does it happen that such a man, once a convict himself, according to the traditions of that prison, hascharge there, and the unlimited confidence of the Board?
I noticed, in making out the report of inmates, that there were not so many women as men in prison. There was satisfaction in obtaining that fact, because I had entertained the idea that women were more frequently punished for their offenses than men.
It was a mistake, except in the one crime of licentiousness. In that man goes comparatively free, and woman is the only sufferer in what is, to say the least, their mutual sin. I say, almost every woman will say, and with truth, for the sin that man leads her into.
Woman does not seek man, in that way, in the first instance. He draws her into the sin, and when she becomes abandoned, and the Penitentiary brings her up, she is no worse than he. She becomes a night-walker, and suffers for her violation of law. He is a night-walker also, as miserable and degraded a man as she is woman; but who prosecutes him, and gives him a sentence in the House of Correction! He continues a night-walker unmolested while she suffers for her sin.
He walks into the parlors of the intellectually cultivated, and socially refined,—I was about to say virtuous woman. There can be little virtue in such shaky morality. I can only say of the chaste woman, and she takes the hand of the night-walker, and greets him cordially, and makes him welcome, especially if he be rich,—the hand that leads herfellow woman to her social ruin if not to her eternal death.
If woman were to help make the laws, could she remedy this state of things,—would she? Would she take her husband, father, brother from his home to the Penitentiary? She must do that, in order to rid society of the pest of night-walking. She may do that now if she will. The law gives her the opportunity. Instead of lavishing her courtesies, as she now does, upon the male offender, she might extend her charity in kindly assistance to his victim, if she were disposed to do it.
To judge by the way she treats him now, if she were to assist in making laws would she not be still more unjust than she now is, to her own sex, and lenient to the other.
If man go unpunished, of human law, for this sin, justice will find him out sooner or later. God pity him when his retribution comes! The avenging of a guilty conscience will work him greater woe than the miseries of a prison can inflict.
As I sat in the prison this evening reviewing my day's work, I counted up my occupations.
I am Housekeeper, Engineer, Overseer, Jailer, Porter, Usher, Sentinel, and many others which I did not enumerate.
Irksome as was the handling of keys to me, it was quite an entertainment to see myself answering the knock of the gentlemen in striped uniform, letting them into my kitchen, and following them around,like a page after a prince; and then, letting them out. I hardly think they get such attendances in the outside world.
Rotation in duties, and reversion in offices was the order of the place. I was Usher to the prisoners; my sweeps were stationed on the stone stairs, when the prisoners were in their cells, and the kitchen door locked, to open it if there were a knock on the outside, and to lock it again after the officer who entered.
Sittings on the stone stairs could hardly have been comfortable accommodations. I was reminded of that fact this evening, by hearing Ellen whisper when she heard a knock,—
"I hate to get up,—I've just got my seat warm."
"Every back is fitted to its burden," is an old proverb. I wondered if those prisoners had been provided by a beneficent Providence, of some kind, with an extra amount of animal heat, in order to warm up the stones they lived on during their incarceration.
Supernumerary was in the habit of sending to me for my No. 5 key occasionally. She said it let her through from the house into the attic of the prison.
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 peaday 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.
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 theapproach 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 wasgoing 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 atpeople'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.
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 thattakes 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.
Callahan had just finished washing the dirt from her face when the Deputy made his appearance.
"I gave the order that Callahan's cell should not be opened unless I was here."
"The doctor came, I supposed you sent him, and opened the cell door as I always do for him."
"What way did he come in?"
"Through the front door of the kitchen, as he often does."
I was not sorry for the mistake.
That evening Mrs. Hardhack told me they were determined to break Callahan's temper. They had got her pretty well under; but it was not quite broken.
Her constitution was in a fair way to be broken, her temper might share the same fate. If to teach her to control her temper were what was meant, a very unfit method was adopted to effect the purpose.
How can one person teach another to control his temper when he is ignorant of the way, and does not practice the government of his own?
When I was left alone in the prison, I sat down before Callahan's cell door. I thought over the object of punishment. Is it intended to deter the vicious from continuing in crime? That is the apparent object. Then, ought it not to be adapted to the crime, and administered by those who are free from the same faults? Instead of that, it was left, in this instance, an almost irresponsible power, in thehands of ignorance and cruelty, and if report were not mistaken, of kindred sin.
I thought, some mother's heart is aching for you, poor Callahan; such treatment as you receive here, will never lead you to make it ache the less. Injustice and severity will never soften your heart, or enlighten your understanding. God pity you, and interpose in your behalf!
"What are you thinking of?" asked Callahan.
"How did you know that I was thinking?"
"I looked through the key-hole, and saw you looking straight to the floor, biting your nails."
"I was thinking of you, Callahan."
"You was thinking what a wicked wretch I am?"
"I wish you might become better, and never come in this place again. It is a great deal of suffering for so little comfort as you can take in sin. Won't you try to do better, Callahan?"
"I can't in here. They are just as bad as I am that put me in here, and they'll never make me any better."
There was the injustice for which she had suffered rankling in her heart.
"It is more what we do ourselves than what others do to us which makes us happy or unhappy."
"It's what they've done to me that makes me unhappy, and if ever I catch them —— outside, I'll pay 'em back,—I will, if I go to h—l for it!"
"Callahan, Callahan, be patient and gentle! Don't think of any wicked things to do outside, but thinkhow to behave so that you can stay there. Remember it was for your own deeds that you came in here. If you hadn't been in here, they couldn't have put you in the black cell. Be gentle and patient while you are here, now that it can't be helped, and never come again."
"For you, I will; and I'll try not to go in the ways that bring me here. But if I should meet them, I know I should forget it all. I should think about it, and it would make me so mad. If I was out of the right way, and got in here, the Master had no right to lock me up here for what I did not do."
I had no justification of that proceeding to offer, so I said nothing more.
"Will you please give me a drink of water?" asked Callahan in a moment.
"Callahan, you know that I cannot! Why do you hurt my feelings by asking me?"
"You have the keys,—you could give it to me, and the Deputy would never know it. If you knew how dry I am you would."
"I cannot, Callahan. When I go out of here I can tell those who make the rules, how hard it is to go so long without drinking, and how tiresome it is to lie, and sit, and stand on the stones, and perhaps they will change them; but I cannot disobey."
"O dear!" she sighed, and began to sing. Every sound went through my heart like the stab of a sharp knife. If that were my child! was the agonizing thought. What keeps my children from such afate? The loving care of Him who holds the hearts of all in His hand. I could have gone prostrate on the cold stones to thank Him that He had saved them from such a fate, and me from such an agony of sorrow. How can I show my gratitude? By trying to make less hard the hapless lot of the unfortunates around me, and teaching them in the principles that lead to better practices.
My tears almost choked my utterance as I called to her, "Callahan, stop that singing unless you mean to break my heart!"
O'Brien had been standing on the steps that led to the kitchen, only a few feet from me. She came along and sat down on a low stool at my feet.
"How different you are to what I thought you was when you came in here. You stepped round so square and independent, I thought we had got a hard mistress."
"Look here!" said Callahan, "it does me good to speak to you sometimes. It is easier to be patient, and the time don't seem so long. Look here! Do you love Hardhack?"
"I know very little about her."
"I heard her in the kitchen scolding awhile ago, and you took it as cool as could be. If I'd been you I'd put her out. She has no right to come in your place and give orders. It sets me crazy to hear her."
"If I could not keep my own temper when I am annoyed, how could I teach you to keep yours?"
"That's it," said O'Brien. "Hardhack gets mad in the shop, and scolds us, and we scold back; and then we get punished. I wish there was somebody to report her, too."
"Girls, did you ever hear of One who said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'?"
"Yes; but I never saw anybody do it," said O'Brien.
"Did you ever try to do it, Callahan?"
"No! I always thought 'twas all moonshine. It'll do to preach about."
"It will do to practice, too. Suppose you try it towards Mrs. Hardhack, and see how much happier you will feel."
"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded through the prison in continuous echoes.
"It has done me good to laugh. I don't feel half so mad with her as I did."
"O'Brien, I came very near sending you to the shop to-day, when you scolded Allen so hard. Be careful or you will change your mistress before you know it. You keep me in constant anxiety lest the Deputy, or some of the other Matrons should come in and hear you. In that case it would be beyond my power to help you."
"If you do send me to the shop you will have me home again in less than twenty-four hours, one of your bread-and-water boarders."
She understood how to meet that threat.
"I don't know but Hardhack will get me into solitary as it is. When she came through the kitchen this noon, she saw me eating a piece of fish with my bread,—we'd been stripping it off for the hash, and I took a piece. She asked me who gave me liberty to eat fish. I told her, nobody. She asked me how I dared to eat that fish without permission. I should have made her a saucy answer only I knew it would make you feel bad, so I didn't say anything."
"I am glad you had so much thought, and exercised so much self-control."
"I wasn't afraid of Hardhack."
"I am glad you had so much regard for me. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to know of your good behavior. Don't you feel better, yourself, for doing what is right?"
"Yes, ma'am; I do! and when you tell me I do right, it makes me feel quite like a woman again; as though I was somebody."
Self-respect goes a long way towards creating good behavior, and commendation given, where it is deserved, produces that effect. I watched for a chance to praise them when they did well, and bestowed the approval wherever I could find the opportunity.
There was no lack of discrimination on their part. They were aware when they committed intentional wrong, and, as a rule, acknowledged it when rebuked in a kind spirit. With the same understanding they appreciated the praise when it was deserved. Gratitude was aroused when it was given, and the satisfaction they enjoyed was an incentive to strive to obtain more.
I had constant proof that the exercise of kindness was far more effectual in getting my work done than that of stern authority.
That afternoon I had wished O'Brien to take more pains with her scrubbing, and had said to her,—
"Your floor looks red and nice,"—the kitchen floor was of brick,—"but do you notice that soiled strip in that corner, under the table? A dingy border spoils all the effect of your labor."
"Yes, ma'am. I saw it when I was scrubbing; but I was so tired, and my shoulder ached so bad that I didn't touch it."
"I am sorry your shoulder aches, and I know you are tired; but I like to see the place look nice."
"I know you do; I'll go right now and take it away."
Kindness begets kindness. There are few human beings so totally depraved, desperately wicked as some may be, who cannot be aroused into appreciation of kind treatment. I have never met with one who could not. So harshness in a superior begets harshness in an inferior; and constant fault finding either arouses anger from its injustice, or paralyzes all effort to do well.
As are the manners of those who lead, so are the manners of those who follow. As a matter of policy, to restrain crime without regard to the teaching of religion, those who have charge of convicts should be gentle and humane.