SUNDAY--THE END
After the emotional crisis I have just passed through, I find myself quite
unstrung. For nearly half an hour I can do nothing but sit, limp and
exhausted, in the chair and give way to my feelings. On the whole, this is
a relief, although it leaves me very weak and wretched. At length, the
realization that I must soon take my place in line for the duties of the
early morning pulls me together; and after pouring cool water from the
meager supply in my pail over my head and face, rearranging my clothes,
and draining to the bottom my tin drinking cup, I am somewhat refreshed.
Looking out from my cell across the corridor and through the barred
windows of the outer wall, I find the promise of a bright, sunny day; but
it gives me no pleasure. I feel utterly dull and depressed. Only a few
hours more and I shall be gone forever from this narrow cell--back to my
own comfortable home; but the thought arouses no enthusiasm. It does not
seem to matter much in the sum of things whether I go or stay. Nothing
seems to matter much except the physical sufferings of those poor fellows
down in the jail; and at the thought a bitter anger sweeps over me again.
After a few moments, however, I once more regain control of myself, and
wait patiently at the door of the cell for the day's routine to begin.
Before long I hear in the corridor below the clicking of levers and the
tread of marching feet. A shiver goes through me as I think of the last
time I heard such sounds. But those were imaginary, these are real. Soon,
bucket in hand, I am once more traversing the long gallery and falling in
line with the rest of my company at the yard door. The prisoners whose
faces I can see are eyeing me curiously, and in a vague way I am wondering
whether I bear any outward marks of the jail. I feel as if I must have
somewhere upon me an unmistakable stamp of it, which may be a
disfigurement for the rest of my life.
Sharply the Captain gives the signal and we set off on our march down the
yard. I know it is sunny, for I can see the shadows of the trees upon the
ground, but all things look unfamiliar and unreal. I go through the usual
motions, but I am not thinking of what I am doing, or of anything else,
for that matter. Everything seems cold, lifeless, dead. Yet I am conscious
of making an effort to do my duty cheerfully. I have a curious feeling of
being two people at once. One going through the regular routine, and the
other watching him as he does it.
One of my selves seems to be at a distance looking at the other self as he
marches down the yard, empties his bucket at the sewage disposal building,
and then, without pausing at the stands, marches up the yard again. There
was a gleam of satisfaction in my passive self at the thought that my
active self was going to leave the bucket behind, and that I should never
see it again. But that mild pleasure is denied me. Of course on Sunday the
buckets are needed in the cells, as the men are locked up after chapel
services for the rest of the day. I had not thought of that.
On our way back I seem to be saying to myself, "You poor fellow! If you
were not so dead tired, you'd march better." And then I feel rather
indignant at myself for the criticism.
Arrived back in my cell, it seems to occur vaguely to one of my two
selves--I do not know which--that there is something I have to do to-day.
Breakfast of course. But after that--Oh, yes--the chapel. I am expected to
speak. I shake my head and shut my eyes, feeling ill at the thought. To
speak! I feel upon my lips the ghost of a smile at the bare notion. How
absurd for any one to think I could do such a thing!
Nevertheless something must be done. I ought to send word to the Chaplain
that I can't speak. How can I send it? I cannot think. Somehow the idea of
blue floats across my mind. Oh, yes! Roger Landry and his blue shirt. I'll
ask Landry to get word to the Chaplain.
Click! Click! Click! Again the levers start. Still in a sort of a daze I
open my door, fall in line behind Jack Bell, join Landry farther along the
gallery, descend the iron stairs and march to the mess-hall. Here the
regular weekday arrangements are changed. For some reason, instead of
turning to the right as usual, we go to the left and occupy seats in quite
a different part of the hall--on the left of the center aisle and much
farther back. The change makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable.
I don't know what there is for breakfast. I believe that I have eaten
something or other, although I am sure I have not sampled the bootleg. I
wish I could share my breakfast--such as it is--with those poor fellows in
the jail. I wonder if Number Two has any water yet. But I mustn't think of
that.
Returned from breakfast, Landry comes to my cell to express his interest
and sympathy; for he once had his own dose of the jail. I wonder if his
spirit was broken. I forget to ask him to do my errand to the Chaplain. I
fear it is too late now. Perhaps I can find some way to do it after I
reach the assembly room; perhaps I can, when called upon, explain briefly
that I am unable to speak; or perhaps after all it would be better to
bluff it out the best way I can, and let it go at that.
After this decision I feel somewhat better. Turning to the locker, I find
a piece of paper with the few notes I scrawled yesterday noon. I had
expected to revise and arrange them this morning. I may as well try to fix
the thing up somehow. But I can do nothing but stare helplessly at the
paper; my brain refuses to work. My stupidity finally annoys me so much
that I shove the piece of paper into my pocket, and make up my mind not to
bother any more about the matter.
One or two of the trusties, passing along the gallery, stop to chat. They
all seem to look at me as one might at a person who has been restored to
life from the dead. I'm sure I feel so. I have always wondered how Dante
must have felt after he had visited the Inferno. I think I know now.
There are footsteps along the corridors and galleries; it is the noise
made by good Catholics returning from Mass. It seems that I could have
gone myself had I known of the service. I am sorry I did not; perhaps it
would have helped me to forget.
Soon the summons to chapel comes, and in single file we march upstairs and
into the large assembly room, which is on the second story, immediately
above the mess-hall. Here our company has seats on the right of the main
aisle about two-thirds of the way to the platform. Row after row of men
take their seats, until the large room is entirely filled with silent,
motionless, gray figures. I do not see those sitting behind, I only hear
them, for like the rest I stare straight in front of me.
Then I hear the sound of hand-clapping; and when I can see without turning
my head, I join in the applause that greets the Chaplain and an organist
and quartet of singers from one of the Auburn churches. As some of them
are my personal friends, I can not help wishing that they had not chosen
this particular Sunday to sing here.
In vain I try to fasten my attention upon the service, I can only follow
my own thoughts. It is but one short week since I occupied a seat upon
that same platform, and that short week has altered the whole tenor of my
life. It can never be the same again that it has been. Whether I wish it
or not, a bond of union has been forged between these men and me which can
never be broken. I have actually lived their life, even if for only a
short period of time; I have been made one of the gray brotherhood--for
they have received me as a brother; and I have realized their sufferings
because in a very small degree I have shared them.
But at the present moment what am I to do? When I am called up to the
platform, as I soon shall be, what shall I say to these men? I must not
speak of the jail; but how can I help speaking of it? It is the one thing
that just now dominates my mind.
The singing is beautiful and restful. I could enjoy it were it not for
this terrible feeling of oppression at my head and heart. Finally the
critical moment arrives. The Chaplain advances to the front of the stage.
"At this point in the service," he says, "we are to have something of a
departure from the usual order of exercises. Last Sunday you listened to
an address which the Honorable Thomas Mott Osborne came here to give you.
To-day we are going to invite someone from your midst to speak."
The Chaplain pauses, then clears his throat and says, "We have with us
here to-day a man who calls himself Thomas Brown."
With a startling suddenness that seems to threaten the roof comes a
terrific explosion of hand-clapping, sounding, as a visitor afterwards
described it, like a million of fire crackers. I feel my backbone tingling
from end to end. At the same time I have an almost irresistible desire to
get away somewhere and hide myself from all those eyes.
The Chaplain continues:
"His number is 33,333x."
For some reason or other this excites the sense of humor which lies so
near the surface here, and loud laughter interrupts the speaker.
"I will ask Thomas Brown to come to the platform."
With my hands on the back of the bench in front, I pull myself up onto my
feet; and when the men see me rise their frantic hand-clapping begins
again. As I leave my seat and gain the central aisle, the whole room seems
to rock back and forth. I walk to the front and mount the platform. As I
do so, the Chaplain, the singers and others sitting there rise and join in
the applause. I am absurdly, but momentarily, conscious of my prison
clothes--the rough cotton shirt, gray trousers and heavy shoes, as I bow
to the people on the stage and then face the audience.
The applause subsides and every face turns towards me expectantly. Oh, for
the gift of the tongues of men and of angels! What an opportunity lies
here before me! And I feel helpless to take advantage of it.
As I stand for a moment looking over the large audience, feeling unable to
make a start, my attention is arrested by the face of one of my gray
brothers. He is an old man, I do not know him, I am not conscious of ever
having seen him before, but the tears are rolling down his cheeks as he
sits looking up at me.
Then as if a cloud were lifted from my spirit, I suddenly understand what
it all means. These men are not seeing me, they are looking at Tom
Brown--the embodied spirit of the world's sympathy. They have felt the
sternness of society--the rigor of its law, the iron hand of its
discipline. But now at this moment many of these men are realizing for the
first time that outside the walls are those who care.
I said to these men last Sunday that I should try to "break down the
barriers between my soul and the souls of my brothers." It was necessary
so to endeavor in order to understand the conditions I came to study. But
what has happened is that these men have broken down their own barriers;
they have opened their hearts; they have dignified and ennobled my errand;
they have transformed my personal quest for knowledge into a vital message
from the great heart of humanity in the outside world--a heart that, in
spite of all that is said and done to the contrary, beats in sympathy with
all genuine sorrow, with all honest endeavor for righteousness.
Thrilling with this revelation of the true meaning of my own mission,
lifted out of apathy and discouragement, I make my speech; but, alas, the
words come haltingly and reflect but little of the warmth and exhilaration
in my heart.
When the Chaplain spoke to me about saying a few words to you this
morning--words of farewell, because here for a time at least we must
separate--I did not realize that it was going to be so hard. Probably
I am the only man, in all the years since this prison was built, to
leave these walls with regret.
It is not necessary to give every word of my utterly inadequate address. I
was in no physical or mental condition to speak; my audience was almost
too moved to hear. From a mere reading of the words that fell from my lips
no one would understand the situation. But the prisoners understood; they
listened with emotions which few can appreciate to my words of greeting
and farewell and my prophecy of the new day soon to dawn for them.
First I spoke of the value of my experience to the Commission on Prison
Reform as well as to me personally, for I knew that they had seen the
doubts expressed in many of the newspapers as to the usefulness of my
"experiment." I thanked the officers for their cooperation, and the
prisoners for the way they had received me.
I must confess that I was unprepared for the way in which you men
have carried out your part of the bargain. I consider that the
restraint, courtesy, and loyalty to me and to my experiment have
been very wonderful, and never shall I forget it. There has not been
a word or look from beginning to end that I would have had otherwise.
You have received me exactly as I asked you to--as one of yourselves.
I believed that a wide popular interest had been aroused, which could not
help working for good.
In fact, with the aid of our friends the newspapers, we have had
considerable advertising this last week, you and I. The personal part
of this advertising I do not like--it would be pleasant if I could
know that I should never again see my name in the newspapers--but
doubtless it all works out for good in the long run. Certainly in
this case I believe that more people have been thinking about the
Prison System in New York State within the last week than any week
since Auburn Prison was built; and while much of that interest will
of course evaporate, for we need not expect the millennium yet
awhile, nevertheless the ground has been tilled for the work that is
to come.
Then I dwelt upon the tasks which lay before us to do--before them and
before me. It was my task to go out in the world and help in the fight
against human servitude in the prisons, but they had a much harder task.
Your part is the most important of all. It is just to do your plain
duty here, day by day, in the same routine; but accepting each new
thing as it comes along and striving to make of that new thing a
success. Men, it is you alone who must do it. Nobody else can.
So then give to the Warden and to all the officers your hearty
support; aid in the endeavor to make this institution all that it
should be, all that it can be.
An old poet, Sir Richard Lovelace, once wrote:
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage."
Last night perhaps I should not have altogether agreed with Sir
Richard; but of course what he meant was that, in spite of all the
bolts and bars which men can forge, the spirit is always free; that
you cannot imprison. In spite of your own confinement here you
possess after all the only true liberty that there is to be found
anywhere--the freedom of the spirit; the liberty to make yourselves
new men, advancing day by day toward the strength and the courage and
the faith which when you go out from these walls will enable you to
lead such a life that you will never come back.
In explaining why I could not go into particulars regarding any
conclusions I may have reached as to the Prison System, I realized that I
was on delicate ground. I was sorely tempted to relate some of my last
night's experiences in the jail, but I felt that were I to do so there was
no telling what the result might be. The men were strangely moved by the
whole situation, and I had the feeling that the room contained a great
deal of explosive material that a chance spark might ignite. So I bit my
lips, and forced myself away from the dangerous topic.
The time has not yet come for a statement of any particular
conclusions or ideas. My experience is so new--particularly some of
it--that I can hardly be expected just now to see things in their
right relations. If I were to let myself go and state exactly what I
do think at the present moment, I might say some things I should
regret later. So it is better to wait and allow the experience to
settle in my mind; and as I get farther away from it, things will
assume their right proportions.
Reiterating my belief in the value of the experiment, I drew to a
conclusion.
The time has now come for me to say good-bye, and really I cannot
trust my feelings to say it as I should like to say it.
Believe me, I shall never forget you. In my sleep at night as well as
in my waking hours, I shall hear in imagination the tramp of your
feet in the yard, and see the lines of gray marching up and down.
And do not forget me. Think of me always as your true friend. I shall
ask the privilege of being enrolled as an honorary member of your
brotherhood.
I do not know that I could better close my remarks than by repeating
to you those noble lines which the poet Longfellow found inscribed on
a tablet in an old churchyard in the Austrian Tyrol:
"Look not mournfully into the Past; it comes not back again.
"Wisely improve the Present; it is thine.
"Go forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear and with a manly
heart."
Halting and inadequate as are the words of my speech, I feel certain that
my audience understands me. Had I stood up here and repeated the alphabet
or the dictionary, I think it would have been the same. The men are going
far behind the words; they are looking into my soul and I into theirs.
I have come among them, worn their uniform, marched in their lines, sat
with them at meals and gone to the cells with them at night; for a week I
have been literally one of them--even to fourteen hours in the dark
punishment cells; what need therefore of words? It makes little or no
difference what I say, or how far I fail to express my meaning. They
understand.
A feeling of renewed life, a sense of hope and exhilaration kindles within
me as I look in their faces and realize for the first time the full
measure of their gratitude and affection. I step down from the platform
and again take my seat with the basket-shop company; receiving warm grips
of the hand from Stuhlmiller, Bell, and the others as I crowd past them to
my seat in the center.
There ensues a long and dreary wait. In the mess-hall the first ones in
are the first ones out; but up here in chapel the first ones in are the
last ones out. It is a very tiresome arrangement for the earlier ones; and
as we are well beyond the center, the delay seems interminable. Over
thirteen hundred men have to march down stairs in single file, and that
apparently takes a long time.
However, it gives a chance for my excitement to calm down, and my tired
senses to get a bit rested. So that by the time I have marched down
stairs, through the stone corridor, up the iron stairs and along the
gallery to Cell 15, second tier, north, north wing, I am in a more normal
condition than I have been since yesterday afternoon.
While I am packing my few belongings into the small handbag, Grant appears
at the door; and as soon as I am ready I accompany him for a last journey
along the gallery, down the iron stairs and through the stone corridor.
Then we turn up the stairway leading to the main office--the stairway down
which I descended into prison six days ago. At the head of the flight two
light taps on the iron door bring the face of the hall keeper to the pane
of glass set in the door, the key grates in the lock and the heavy barrier
swings open. I have passed the inner wall and breathe more freely.
Arrived in the Warden's rooms--he himself is unfortunately still away--I
lose no time in getting into a tub. After a most refreshing bath, I dress
in my ordinary citizen's clothes and am served with eggs and bacon and a
cup of coffee. It is real coffee, not bootleg.
I do full justice to the food and drink, and feel very sorry for any one
who has not had the experience of a first meal out of prison. I envy the
Warden his cook and his devoted attendants.
After being thus invigorated, I gird up my loins for the next duty, and go
to measure arguments with the Principal Keeper in his private office. I
begin by shaking hands with him warmly, for I wish to atone for any
rudeness of last night and make him understand that I have no hard
feelings toward him personally. Then I plunge at once into the subject.
"P. K., I don't wish to be unpleasant, nor do or say anything I am not
fully justified in doing or saying, but I must tell you plainly that I can
not go from this place, leaving that poor sick boy down in that second
cell in jail. There are others who, in my opinion, ought not to be there,
but his is the worst case. He should be in the hospital, not in such a
damnable hole as that. He's sick, and you are driving him crazy with your
absurd rules about water. And I shall not--I can not--leave the prison
unless something is to be done about it."
This and much more I pour into the patient ears of the P. K. It is written
in the veracious "Bab Ballads," concerning Sir Macklin, a clergyman
"severe in conduct and in conversation," that:
"He argued high, he argued low,
He also argued round about him."
It is much the same in this case. My arguments are many, and some are
based on high moral ground and others on mere motives of self-interest. My
words flow easily enough now.
The P. K. takes refuge behind the official policies. He disclaims any
personal motives--almost any personal responsibility. He seems to think
that there is little or no occasion for the exercise of any judgment on
his part. A complaint comes from an officer about a prisoner. There is
apparently nothing for the P. K. to do but accept the complaint, take the
word of the officer as a matter of course, and punish the prisoner. I also
get the impression that sending every offender to the jail is the most
desirable form of punishment, as it involves no troublesome discrimination
or attempt at careful adjustment; it makes the thing so simple and easy.
Anything more crude, any greater outrage upon justice and common sense
than the system of prison discipline as revealed in this illuminating
discussion, it would be impossible to conceive. If a deliberate attempt
were to be made to draft a code of punishment which should produce a
minimum of efficacy and a maximum of failure and exasperation among the
prisoners, it could not be more skilfully planned. One can no longer be
surprised at the anomalous condition of things, as revealed by the kind of
men I found in the jail.
In the midst of the discussion I welcome a warm ally in the Doctor, who at
my request is brought into consultation. He had by no means intended that
Number Two should be sent to the jail when discharged from the hospital;
although he states it as a fact that the boy was a somewhat troublesome
and unruly patient--a fact which I do not doubt in the least. Under
existing conditions I should think any man, unless he were a dolt or an
idiot, would be troublesome.
This statement of the Doctor's gives me the chance to utter a tirade
against a System which has no gradation in its punishments. If stress is
to be laid on punishment rather than reward, there should be at least some
approximation to justice, and the punishment should bear some proportion
to the offence. "You admit," I say to the P. K., "that these punishment
cells are the severest form of discipline that you have. Then why, in
Heaven's name, do you exhaust your severest punishment on trivial
offences? If you use the jail with its dark cells and bread and water for
whispering in the shop, what have you left when a man tries to murder his
keeper?"
In reply the P. K. makes the best showing he can, but in truth there is no
reply. One of the things that is most irritating about prison is the
number of questions that admit of no sensible explanation. It irresistibly
reminds one of the topsy-turvy world that Alice found in Wonderland; and
of the Hatter's famous conundrum, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" to
which there was no answer.
The P. K., finding himself driven from point to point in the argument,
takes refuge in the statement that complaint comes from the prison
department in Albany that he doesn't punish often or severely enough. This
seems very extraordinary. How in the world can the clerks in Albany judge
of the need of punishments in this prison, concerning the inner workings
of which they know absolutely nothing?
I argue, I implore, I threaten. The Doctor more gently and diplomatically
seconds my efforts. Finally the P. K. with an air of triumph brings out
his last and conclusive argument.
"There is a great deal in what you say, gentlemen, and I should like to
oblige you, Mr. Osborne, but you see this is Sunday; and you know we never
let 'em out of jail on Sunday."
The P. K. leans back in his chair, evidently feeling that he has used a
clincher. Then I rise in wrath. "Sunday!" I exclaim. "In Heaven's name,
P. K., what is Sunday? Isn't it the Lord's Day? Very well, then. Do you
mean to tell us that you actually think if you take a poor sick boy, with
an open wound in his ear, out of a close, dirty, vermin-filled, dark cell,
where he isn't allowed to wash, and has but three gills of water a day--do
you mean to say that to take that sick boy out of such a detestable hole
and put him back into the hospital, where the Doctor says he belongs--do
you really think that such an act of mercy would be displeasing to God? Do
you think God approves of your infernal jail? Do you think----"
I break off, simply because I haven't the strength to continue; anger and
disgust, on top of all the excitements of the last twenty-four hours,
bring me to my last ounce of endurance. Fortunately the tide turns. The P.
K. is silent for a few moments after my last outburst, but as I watch him
I see something beginning to stir, a light is dawning upon the official
mind, a smile of triumph announces a solution of the difficulty.
"Why," he gasps, "that's true. I think you're right. We put 'em in on
Sunday; why shouldn't we take 'em out?"
The great question is solved. The P. K.'s brilliant logic has made it
possible for mercy to temper justice, and pleased at his great discovery
he determines to do the thing handsomely while he is about it, and let not
only one but all the prisoners out of the jail. To this I have no
objection to offer. He also generously accedes to my desire to pay a visit
to these as yet unseen friends of mine; and I assure him that I will not
pose as their deliverer, but simply give them good advice, and leave it
for him to take them the news of their liberation.
On this errand I pass once more behind the barriers. I descend the gloomy
staircase from the rear office, and traverse part of my memorable walk of
last night--through the stone corridor and down the yard to the jail
office. Here the Captain in charge takes the heavy keys from the locker
and opens the outer door. As our steps resound in the passage, I think how
each of the five prisoners within is listening and wondering who and what
is coming.
The inner door is unlocked and opened, and amid complete silence from the
occupants of the other cells, Number Two's door is thrown open.
As I have said, it is a curious experience making acquaintance and
establishing intimate relations with people whom you cannot see; but it is
equally curious to see for the first time men with whose voices and
personalities you already feel well acquainted. Last night I had the first
of these experiences, now I have the other. One by one the cell doors are
opened and the occupants, unwashed and in their dirty jail clothes, are
allowed to step forward, shake me by the hand and have a few words of
friendly conversation. I tell them I have come to see them face to face
before leaving the prison, to thank them for their friendly treatment of
me, to renew my invitation to dine when they leave, and to talk briefly
over the case of each.
Number Two I advise to apologize to the Doctor. He admits being
troublesome in the hospital; and it is quite evident the poor fellow needs
to go back there. He is a dark-haired lad, with a sweet voice and a
confiding, boyish manner that is very winning.
Number Three I advise to apologize to the Captain of his company and to
try to keep his temper better in the future. The person who called him
ugly names, having been sent to the hospital, seems to have been
sufficiently punished. To my relief Number Three seems to be decidedly
better of his cold.
Number Four (it is needless to say that my heart warms toward the handsome
young fellow whom I greet as Joe) I advise to apologize to his Captain for
the fight with Number Five, and to be more careful for the future. Joe is
rather abashed and self-conscious by daylight, but very prolific of
promises. Methinks he doth protest rather too much, and in spite of his
good looks, his eyes do not give the direct glance that one likes to see.
To Number Five I give advice similar to Joe's, and he engages to profit by
it.
To Number Eight I also urge an apology to the powers that be and
submission to the inevitable. He is a little harder to convince than the
others, but we reach an agreement.
"What is the use," I say to all of them, "of letting your tempers get the
better of you when it hurts nobody but yourselves?" My preaching is
directed rather toward a cultivation of self-interest than of lofty
idealism, but I believe it hits the mark. They none of them admit the
justice of their jail sentences, and on that point I can not argue with
them. I acknowledge the injustice, but ask them to face the facts. So one
and all admit they have been wrong and express themselves ready to make
all amends for the present and try their best for the future.
And so, in a much pleasanter frame of mind than when I last left this
place, I retrace my steps to the Warden's rooms.
Returning through the back office I shake hands all around--with both
officers and prisoners--all but one man. A slight, pale figure in glasses
is bending over his desk in a corner of the office. He is one of the
Warden's stenographers. Last July I had an extended conversation with him,
at the Warden's suggestion, and a more hopeless and discouraging
proposition I never struck. He is an old-timer, knows all the ropes, has
been through the game, and has settled down to hopeless cynicism. He seems
to have no belief in himself or others, and I have no doubt is utterly
uninterested in my whole experience, and will be one of the greatest
stumbling blocks to any attempted reforms. He will condemn them at the
outset, discouraging others who are willing to try. This, at least, is the
impression I had of him last July when the Warden persuaded me to talk
with him. Now, as he bends over his desk with his eyes on his work I pass
him by; for he evidently has no interest in me and I can not see where I
can be of any service to him.
There remains now but one more thing to do--bid farewell to my partner, my
dear and loyal friend, Jack Murphy. He has been sent for; and, as I
reenter the Warden's office, he stands looking out of the window.
"Jack, old fellow, I couldn't leave here without saying good-bye to you."
He turns, and the tears are running down his cheeks. As for myself I have
long since got beyond that stage. "Oh, Mr. Osborne----" he begins, but I
stop him.
"Cut it out, partner, cut it out! You mustn't meddle with my last name. It
has been Tom and Jack now since Wednesday, and Tom and Jack it must
continue to be. I am still your partner, and clothes are not going to make
any difference with you and me."
"Oh, Tom!" says the poor fellow. "What am I going to do now?"
For the first time I fully realize how deep this experience has cut into
the hearts of these men. I thought I already understood it, but Jack
reveals a new depth.
"What are you going to do?" I ask in answer. "You are going right ahead
making baskets down in the old shop. But you are also going to help out
our Commission. While I am working outside, you will be working inside.
And together, Jack, we are going to assist in giving things a good shaking
up. You've got the hardest part of the work to do, but I shall keep in
close touch with you, and we will often consult together. And sometime,
Jack, some day in the future when the right time has come, you can count
upon me to go to the Governor for you."
At this suggestion of a pardon, I expect to get from Jack a quick word of
gratitude, some sort of indication that he is conscious of having attained
his first step toward freedom, the interest of a friend who may be able to
secure fair consideration, at least, of an application for pardon.
To my surprise he turns to me almost roughly. "Put that right out of your
mind, Tom," he says. "Don't you bother your head about that, one single
minute. I am ready to stay behind these walls all my life if I can help
you and the Commission bring about some of these reforms you have in mind.
That's all I want!"
I try to answer, but there is nothing to say. What can one do except to
humble oneself before such a spirit of self-sacrifice? Moreover, while my
whole being is thrilled with the wonder of all this new revelation of the
essential nobility of mankind, my physical condition is approaching very
near to complete collapse. Silently therefore I clasp Jack's hand in mine,
and silently we stand looking out of the window while each of us masters
his emotion. Then with a brief "Good-bye, Jack!" "Good-bye, Tom!" in the
back office, I watch the heavy iron door close with a clang behind him, as
he descends the iron staircase back into the prison; and so to his stone
cage, four feet by seven and a half, in the damp basement of the north
wing.
Then, with one last look through the grated window of the back office, I
turn and make my way down the front steps of the prison. The guard at the
gate unlocks and opens the outer barrier. I am free.
No, not free. Bound evermore by ties that can never be broken, to my
brothers here within the walls. My sentence, originally indeterminate, is
now straight life, without commutation or parole.
* * * * *
It may be of interest, as a matter of record, to append a transcript of
the official punishment report of the five prisoners with whom I spent the
night in the jail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date |Reg. No.| Name |When Received|Location| Keeper |Punished by
-------|--------|---------|-------------|--------|---------|------------
Oct. 5 |32648 |N-L[16] |Dec. 30, 1912| Yard |H----[16]|A. P. K.[17]
| | [No. 3] | | | |
|32812 |E-D |Mar. 15, 1913| Yard |G---- | "
| | [No. 2] | | | |
|31175 |A-J |July 18, 1910| State |M---- | "
| | [No. 5] | | | |
|31342 |J-M |July 19, 1912| State |M---- | "
| | [No. 4] | | | |
|32465 |J-W |Sept. 4, 1912| Enamel |F---- | "
| | [No. 8] | | | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Pun. | Days |Compensation |
| Cell |Forfeited| forfeited | Offense and Remarks.
| Days | | |
-------|--------|---------|-------------|-------------------------------
No. 3 | 3 days | 10 days | $5.00[18] |Striking another inmate while
| | | | in yard.
No. 2 | 3 days | 10 days | $5.00 |Disobeying orders by loud
| | | | talking in hospital after
| | | | being cautioned.
No. 5 | 2 days | 10 days | $5.00 |Fighting with 31342. M--
No. 4 | 2 days | 10 days | $5.00 |Fighting with 31175. J--
No. 8 | 2 days | 10 days | $5.00 |Disobeying orders by refusing
| | | | to work as told by officer
| | | | and foreman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------