Chapter III: Part 3

As, according to the physiologists, man is atomically changed but once in seven years, Jehaziel Green--having existed but one year and three months behind the bars--is still, to all intents and purposes, chemically the same Jehaziel Green; and no whit more or less mean, selfish and unscrupulous than when he dealt out to Pinkertown sanded sugar, watered molasses and washy milk; when he snubbed and starved the parish poor, relieved the over-weighted contribution box in the church vestry, and pried open the fat letters in the post-office.

In outward appearance he is, indeed, somewhat altered, since, at Pinkertown, his every-day suit was of fine Scotch tweed, and his Sunday attire of black broadcloth; while here, his secular and Sabbatical array is not only one and the same, but (queer freak of fancy!) it is parti-colored, red, yellow, and blue! Outside a prison a man's clothes _do_, more or less, affect his claim to favourable consideration. Behind the bars a less superficial standard holds. The elegant art of dress has been reduced to democratic simplicity.

For what saith "the Board?" "The convict's clothes are to be so calculated as to _keep him warm_."

They are not, let it be observed, to minister to his freakish taste, or to pamper his personal pride. Their sole purpose is "to keep him warm." Having thus defined the prison toilet, the worthy commissioners add--as an ethical afterthought--"they ought to be so arranged as to be considered a means of punishment." This seemingly original conception of the penal uses of clothes is not, however, peculiarly "the Board's," since, outside of prison circles, men's clothes are often "so arranged" by fashion as "to be considered a means of punishment." Be that as it may, Jehaziel Green, still true to himself, is no less Jehaziel, in red, yellow, and blue, than in gray or black.

In the prison, money is necessarily scarce; yet--under the rose--there is always a deal of swapping. Mr. Green hiding his accomplishments in the prison cabinet-making department, relieves the dull routine of existence by lively attention to that especial mode of traffic.

Purloining bits of plush, of damask, rosewood, and black walnut, and pilfering varnish and glue, he swaps these commodities,--much desired for inlaid boxes, picture frames, etc., by ingenious fellow convicts,--for fruit, tobacco, and other coveted luxuries. In process of time, the unique conception of establishing a "liquor concern" behind the bars dawns upon the alert mind of the ex-postmaster. For the furtherance of this bold scheme he subtracts, from time to time, small quantities of the alcohol, used in his shop for cabinet purposes, until, by unwearied effort, he has pilfered of this fiery liquid a sufficiency to set him up in trade. Under the circumstances, Mr. Green is compelled to transact by proxy; and Patrick Doniver, having been appointed his sole agent, is, to-night, "travelling for the Firm."

Let it not be supposed that our unmercenary runner is a salaried agent of the House of Green. Far from it! This risky service is not undertaken for filthy lucre; it is but a gratuitous kind office on the part of Mr. Doniver, mischievous enough to be undertaken for its own satisfying self--and its relish vastly enhanced by the good-natured reflection that "a bit of the crathur'll put a warrum linin' in 'em--poor sowls!" And a terrible warm lining, say we, would such a hot "crathur" impart! But Pat has anticipated us; for well aware that he is not catering for Salamanders, he does not once dream of subjecting Mr. Green's customers to "an ordeal by fire." Carefully diluting his alcohol with innocent water, he flavors it well with essence of peppermint,--saved up from a medicinal allotment for a bygone stomach-ache,--sweetens with molasses, and, adding a sup of vinegar from his private bottle, he produces a mixture which, if not delicious, is, undoubtedly, unique.

Having already disposed of several quarts of this mildly intoxicating beverage, Pat, recovered from his late apoplectic symptoms, prudently administers to himself, as a sedative, the balance of this rare "tap," and having, with many wry faces, drained his tin cup to the bitter dregs, composes himself to rest. On the ensuing morning several fresh patients are allowed to report themselves at hospital; and it is feared that an unfamiliar epidemic may prevail in the prison. Some half dozen convicts have been unaccountably attacked with severe vomiting, followed by extreme lassitude, and intense loathing of food. Pat Doniver is of the number, and is said to be very ill. These perplexing cases are vigorously treated by the mystified doctor, and, speedily yielding to his hit-or-miss prescriptions, the patients convalesce, and the alarm subsides. So also does the prison liquor business.

The residue of that fiery consignment,--harboured with great fear and trembling, in the innermost recesses of Mr. Doniver's straw mattress,--is, at the earliest opportunity, handed over to "the Firm;" Pat--transposing for the occasion a wise old saw--judiciously observes to his employer, that "it's a poor _broth_ indade, that its own _cook_ cannot drink!"

Jehaziel Green--impervious to the "sweet uses of adversity"--pilfered and swapped to the end of his prison chapter. Then, migrating to the far West, he became a prosperous wholesale grocer, and is _said_ to have run for Congress. ("Why," queried the rural observer, "do the _little_ rogues go to prison, and the _big_ ones to Congress?")

After serving out his five years, Pat Doniver had the luck to be "taken on" again as hack man; and, as the outcome of his wild sleigh-ride, he lived, ever after, a wiser and a soberer man.

TUCKERED OUT.

Hiram Fisher was "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 convict _could_ no more; an angel _might_ have 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 the _best_ of 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 great favour 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.

"It was winter weather, an' pesky cold, too, I _tell_ you! 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 the _old_ chaplain, 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, _he_ was 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, you _bet_! 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 never _did_ see in a man's head! Black as coals, an' bright as beads; 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 give _me_ any o' your physic, keep it for _t' others_. Doctor-stuff won't do _me_ no 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's _no use_, I'm _tuckered 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's_ where Benjy lives, doctor. He said he'd come an' see me, an' let me know 'bout _her_; 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 Benjy _fur_ me, 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 clean _tuckered out_.' I seen a tear drop on to the chaplain's white necktie, an' sez I to myself, 'he's a thinkin' o' his _own_ wife' (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 thought _she_ might '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 man _will_ foller it, why then let him take the consequences, _I_ say.' 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'd moved 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 a moanin' 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, not _very_ well, 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 sich a sorrowful look as he gin me, when he put that ring on my finger, you never _did_ see. 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 what _that_ meant. 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_,' but _I_ hed his goold ring on my finger, an' I knew all about _Deely_. 'An',' sez I to myself, 'some accidents is _done_ a _purpose_, 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 anywheres else!' 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 world _anyhow_. The Scripters, now,' sez I, '_doos_ say 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 here _that_ smilin', 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."

A PRISON CHILD.

At an 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 her _self_-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, was _gentle_ to _her_;"--then it was that the glory of the occasion, and Peter Floome's pride in his beloved 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"--

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 appearance in 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, _is_ curus," 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 sticks _me_ sometimes, she _does_, 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 little being, 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 than _other_ folks, 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; why _doesn't_ He--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' Almighty _is_, 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 jest _put up_ in prisons, Himself, leastways He _does_, 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 regular _habitue_ of 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 the ancestral 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 Boston _Recorder_, to her _confrere_--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, looks out 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' read _this_!"

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
inspectors convened. 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's _grandmother_ was a--was a Parker, Harmy."

"Yes'm," replies the woman, who has the Parker genealogy at her tongue's end; "an' your pa's was _second_ cousins; an' the warden, ef he'd a lived, would be your _third_ cousin. 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 heavy _he_ made 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' now _his_ time'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 four P. 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 way to 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 so _very_ wrong. 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 says _he's_ crazy, 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't care 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 him _now_ when he is all alone."

"It was not at all wrong, dear child," says Miss Paulina; "but come away with _me_ now. I am your father's cousin, my child, your Aunt Paulina. You shall try _my_ bed to-night, and see if you cannot sleep _there_."

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 on evidence 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 being adjusted 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 of _his_ departure (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 for _her_ departure. 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 two P. 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 away _some_ time-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 sad taking 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.

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, _sometimes_ dangerous, and insanity behind 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 right _over_ agin." 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 the same, 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 can touch 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 it _must_ come--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."