It was Sunday morning. Sunday was our busiest day, because our meals
came so near together.
We were allowed one hour more of sleep on this morning than on the
others. I had waked at the usual hour, but settled myself comfortably to
rest again hoping to obtain it. Tinkle, tinkle, went the bell over my
head. I paid no heed to it for a moment. Rattle, rattle, rattle went the
noisy thing for full ten minutes. By that time, vexation had expelled
all drowsiness.
I vowed, in my own mind, that I would muffle it the next Saturday night,
in retaliation for the unseasonable summons. At first I determined to
disregard the call. It must have rung from habit.
The next thought that suggested itself brought me to my feet. Perhaps a
new order had been issued, and subjected to the approval of the Board at
that early hour. In that case the august mandate was not to be
disregarded. I rose, unlocked my women, and set them to work.
The ringing of the bell so early proved to be a mistake of the watchman,
who was a new hand, who fearing he should be late, gave me that
untimely warning. I judged, from that circumstance, that the orders were
as distinctly given, and the duties as definitely arranged on the other
side as on ours.
I grudged that hour of lost repose both for myself and my women. I was
hungry for rest; and my women were worked to sheer exhaustion.
Sunday all of the women were unlocked at six o'clock. They were called
out of their rooms, in the same order as on other days, left their
skillet pans, and the quarts in which they had taken their suppers to
their cells the night before, at the slide, as they went out. They were
marched to the shop to wash and be dressed for chapel. While they were
gone, their dishes were washed, and their breakfasts put into them to be
taken to their rooms when they returned to them.
At nine they were marched to chapel, where they remained till half-past
eleven or twelve, when they returned to take their dinners, and remain
in their cells till half-past one. Then, they went to chapel again, and
returned at three to take their suppers to their rooms, and be locked
in.
After that the presence of only one Matron was required in the prison.
One of the other three was required to remain on the premises. Two might
go where they liked.
Sunday breakfast and supper was of bread, mush, and rye coffee, the same
as other days. The dinner was of roast beef, which was cooked at the
bake-house, and sent in to us to be carved and served.
The gravy was to be made in the kitchen, and the potatoes steamed: the
meat and potatoes put into the pans, and the gravy poured over them.
To get that meat to its right destination required sharp care on my
part. There were extra women sent in from the wash-room to help on
Sunday. They, with my own, were possessed with a disposition to get
possession of the greater part of that rarity.
They got up all sorts of inventions to get me out of the room, while it
was being sliced, in order to secrete a part of it for their own use,
the next day, and for that of their favorites among the prisoners.
At first they had been able to impose upon my ignorance, but at this
time I had learned just how much two hundred and eighty pounds of meat
would divide to about four hundred people. I had learned their "tricks
and their manners" also, so that it had become impossible for them to
draw me from my object, which was, to see it equally divided.
"An' sure ma'am," said Bridget O'Halloran; "we're wanting the pails from
the hospital."
In order to get the pails I must go to the outside door, blow my whistle
to call a runner, wait till he came, and then order my pails. The hint
was just in season. Allen had taken the first piece on her fork to
commence carving. I said to her,--
"Don't cut that meat till I come back, not one slice."
I then ordered in the pails, and bread--everything that would be wanted
before dinner, and took my station at the table with the determination
not to be drawn away from it upon any pretense.
The smell of the meat to the poor, half-fed things was very savory, and
they came around picking up the bits which fell off while it was being
carved.
"Please ma'am, give me a bone,--just the least bit of bone!" was the cry
perpetually in my ears. And the bones I was forced to give to their
importunity as fast as they were freed from the meat.
To keep their fingers from that meat was like fighting eagles from a
dead carcass.
Bridget O'Halloran's ways were suspicious. I thought she had eluded my
vigilance, and secreted some of it in spite of me. I kept watch of her
motions for the rest of the day.
I noticed that she visited the shed very frequently. If I wanted her I
was continually obliged to send for her. At last I thought I would go
myself and see what attraction that old shed had become so suddenly
possessed of.
When I discovered her she was stooping down in the middle of the
building without any apparent object in view.
"Bridget--I want you in the kitchen at this moment!"
She was fumbling about her stocking. I stood looking at her while she
was apparently arranging it.
"What is the matter with your stocking, Bridget?"
"Nothing, ma'am!"
She colored, was confused, and started with the top of it in her hand. I
let her pass on before me so as to get a better prospect of what was
going on.
From the glimpse that I got of her leg I thought she had been following
the fashion--in adopting false calves. In hurrying her I had spoiled the
proper adjustment of them, and they had slipped to her ankles. I
intended to examine into the case when I reached the kitchen; but an
explanation came by way of accident.
In order to make more speed, as I hurried her on before me, she let go
the top of her stocking, the weight of what was in it brought it down
over her shoe, and out fell two or three slices of meat. The cause of
her clumsiness in moving was explained, also of her frequent absences.
She had slily slipped away slice after slice, one at a time, and gone
into the shed to secrete them in that safe place.
Under my eyes, as I stood looking at that meat, she had done it.
"Stop! pick up your meat, Bridget!"
"It's no matter, ma'am!"
Her face was ablaze with disappointment and smothered anger, and tears
filled her eyes.
"Stop, and pick up that meat!"
She did so.
"Now look me in the face!"
That was a hard command for her to fulfill; but she looked up at me.
"Caught in the act of stealing! You do not intend to treat me any
better than you do any one else?"
"I did not mean it against you,--indeed I didn't!"
"Every rule that you disobey is something done against me."
"I suppose you will report me; but I was awful hungry."
"The rest of the prisoners are awful hungry; you are no worse off than
they when you share equally with them; but if you rob them, in order to
help yourself to more than they have, you make them worse off."
"I did not think of that. I work hard, and I earn a good living, and I
mean to get it if I could. It's a shame for me to go hungry when I work
so hard."
"If you steal food here, Bridget, you steal it from your
fellow-prisoners, not from the institution. There is just so much
allowed for you all, and the rest won't get any more, in any way, if you
take it from them. They must go without if you have it; and they work
just as hard as you, and get no more for it."
"It makes me awful mad to think I work so hard, and don't get any pay
for it."
"Then you ought not to come here. You have been here before, and you
knew just how it was before you did the wrong which brought you here.
You were sent here to work hard, for nothing, for a punishment."
"Others do worse than I, and they don't come here. If those that put me
here had their dues they'd be here too!"
That was the continual rejoinder.
"May be; but how are you going to help that? You will have about as much
as you can do to attend to your own case. Only think of what you have
been doing; robbing another person as badly off as you are. You ought to
have pity on each other, if no one else has pity on you! You ought to
respect the rights of your fellow-prisoners,--they have done you no
harm!"
"I will; but I was so hungry and the meat smelt so good; and I did not
think of them. If you worked as I do, and was real hungry, and saw the
meat, wouldn't you take it?"
"I don't know, Bridget; I have not had the temptation."
The word temptation sounded out from the other words that I had been
using, fearfully loud when I pronounced it. A nice slice of roast beef
was a strong temptation to those hungry women. They were allowed enough
to tantalize but not to satisfy them.
By being kept without enough to satisfy their hunger they were led into
sin, if it be a sin for them to help themselves to more than their
share. They were led to disobey the rules, which involved punishment if
they were detected. It would certainly undermine their health to work so
many hours as they were obliged to without a suitable amount of food to
produce recuperation.
"Are you hungry enough to eat that meat after it has been in your
stocking, and on this floor?"
"Yes, ma'am; it ain't hurt it any. I'll eat it if you'll give it to me."
"Eat it!"
She brushed the dust off it with her hand, tore it apart with her
fingers, and put it in her mouth.
"Bridget, don't ever take any more, and secrete it without my
knowledge."
"No, ma'am; and you wont report me now."
"I gave you the meat. How can I report you?"
"Thank you!"
"If you are ever so hungry, don't you put any away for yourself without
asking me!"
"No, ma'am!"
Perhaps she will not. The fear of punishment, in a solitary cell, had
not deterred her from taking the meat. Perhaps pity for her
fellow-prisoners would not; nor the desire to please me.
That evening I heard the Matrons discussing the music by the quartette
choir in the chapel of the prison.
"You have a hired choir?" I asked.
"Yes, and an organ?"
That information sounded strangely in contrast with the scanty meals and
the solitary cells.
Where does the praise of God come in?