THE BLOOM OF "THE BARREN STAFF"
I
It is September the nineteenth. The cell-house is silent and gray in the
afternoon dusk. In the yard the rain walks with long strides, hastening
in the dim twilight, hastening whither the shadows have gone. I stand at
the door, in reverie. In the sombre light, I see myself led through the
gate yonder,--it was ten years ago this day. The walls towered
menacingly in the dark, the iron gripped my heart, and I was lost in
despair. I should not have believed then that I could survive the long
years of misery and pain. But the nimble feet of the rain patter
hopefully; its tears dissipate the clouds, and bring light; and soon I
shall step into the sunshine, and come forth grown and matured, as the
world must have grown in the struggle of suffering--
"Fresh fish!" a rangeman announces, pointing to the long line of striped
men, trudging dejectedly across the yard, and stumbling against each
other in the unaccustomed lockstep. The door opens, and Aleck Killain,
the lifetimer, motions to me. He walks with measured, even step along
the hall. Rangeman "Coz" and Harry, my young assistant, stealthily crowd
with him into my cell. The air of mystery about them arouses my
apprehension.
"What's the matter, boys?" I ask.
They hesitate and glance at each other, smiling diffidently.
"You speak, Killain," Harry whispers.
The lifetimer carefully unwraps a little package, and I become aware of
the sweet scent of flowers perfuming the cell. The old prisoner stammers
in confusion, as he presents me with a rose, big and red. "We swiped it
in the greenhouse," he says.
"Fer you, Aleck," Harry adds.
"For your tenth anniversary," corrects "Coz." "Good luck to you, Aleck."
Mutely they grip my hand, and steal out of the cell.
* * * * *
In solitude I muse over the touching remembrance. These men--they are
the shame Society hides within the gray walls. These, and others like
them. Daily they come to be buried alive in this grave; all through the
long years they have been coming, and the end is not yet. Robbed of joy
and life, their being is discounted in the economy of existence. And all
the while the world has been advancing, it is said; science and
philosophy, art and letters, have made great strides. But wherein is the
improvement that augments misery and crowds the prisons? The discovery
of the X-ray will further scientific research, I am told. But where is
the X-ray of social insight that will discover in human understanding
and mutual aid the elements of true progress? Deceptive is the advance
that involves the ruthless sacrifice of peace and health and life;
superficial and unstable the civilization that rests upon the
treacherous sands of strife and warfare. The progress of science and
industry, far from promoting man's happiness and social harmony, merely
accentuates discontent and sharpens the contrasts. The knowledge gained
at so much cost of suffering and sacrifice bears bitter fruit, for lack
of wisdom to apply the lessons learned. There are no limits to the
achievements of man, were not humanity divided against itself,
exhausting its best energies in sanguinary conflict, suicidal and
unnecessary. And these, the thousands stepmothered by cruel stupidity,
are the victims castigated by Society for her own folly and sins. There
is Young Harry. A child of the slums, he has never known the touch of a
loving hand. Motherless, his father a drunkard, the heavy arm of the law
was laid upon him at the age of ten. From reform school to reformatory
the social orphan has been driven about.--"You know, Aleck," he says, "I
nev'r had no real square meal, to feel full, you know; 'cept once, on
Christmas, in de ref." At the age of nineteen, he has not seen a day of
liberty since early childhood.
Three years ago he was transferred to the penitentiary, under a sentence
of sixteen years for an attempted escape from the Morganza reform
school, which resulted in the death of a keeper. The latter was foreman
in the tailor shop, in which Harry was employed together with a number
of other youths. The officer had induced Harry to do overwork, above the
regular task, for which he rewarded the boy with an occasional dainty of
buttered bread or a piece of corn-cake. By degrees Harry's voluntary
effort became part of his routine work, and the reward in delicacies
came more rarely. But when they entirely ceased the boy rebelled,
refusing to exert himself above the required task. He was reported, but
the Superintendent censured the keeper for the unauthorized increase of
work. Harry was elated; but presently began systematic persecution that
made the boy's life daily more unbearable. In innumerable ways the
hostile guard sought to revenge his defeat upon the lad, till at last,
driven to desperation, Harry resolved upon escape. With several other
inmates the fourteen-year-old boy planned to flee to the Rocky
Mountains, there to hunt the "wild" Indians, and live the independent
and care-free life of Jesse James. "You know, Aleck," Harry confides to
me, reminiscently, "we could have made it easy; dere was eleven of us.
But de kids was all sore on de foreman. He 'bused and beat us, an' some
of de boys wouldn' go 'cept we knock de screw out first. It was me pal
Nacky that hit 'im foist, good an' hard, an' den I hit 'im, lightly. But
dey all said in court that I hit 'im both times. Nacky's people had
money, an' he beat de case, but I got soaked sixteen years." His eyes
fill with tears and he says plaintively: "I haven't been outside since I
was a little kid, an' now I'm sick, an' will die here mebbe."
II
Conversing in low tones, we sweep the range. I shorten my strokes to
enable Harry to keep pace. Weakly he drags the broom across the floor.
His appearance is pitifully grotesque. The sickly features, pale with
the color of the prison whitewash, resemble a little child's. But the
eyes look oldish in their wrinkled sockets, the head painfully out of
proportion with the puny, stunted body. Now and again he turns his gaze
on me, and in his face there is melancholy wonder, as if he is seeking
something that has passed him by. Often I ponder, Is there a crime more
appalling and heinous than the one Society has committed upon him, who
is neither man nor youth and never was child? Crushed by the heel of
brutality, this plant had never budded. Yet there is the making of a
true man in him. His mentality is pathetically primitive, but he
possesses character and courage, and latent virgin forces. His emotional
frankness borders on the incredible; he is unmoral and unsocial, as a
field daisy might be, surrounded by giant trees, yet timidly tenacious
of its own being. It distresses me to witness the yearning that comes
into his eyes at the mention of the "outside." Often he asks: "Tell me,
Aleck, how does it feel to walk on de street, to know that you're free
t' go where you damn please, wid no screw to foller you?" Ah, if he'd
only have a chance, he reiterates, he'd be so careful not to get into
trouble! He would like to keep company with a nice girl, he confides,
blushingly; he had never had one. But he fears his days are numbered.
His lungs are getting very bad, and now that his father has died, he has
no one to help him get a pardon. Perhaps father wouldn't have helped
him, either; he was always drunk, and never cared for his children. "He
had no business t' have any children," Harry comments passionately. And
he can't expect any assistance from his sister; the poor girl barely
makes a living in the factory. "She's been workin' ev'r so long in the
pickle works," Harry explains. "That feller, the boss there, must be
rich; it's a big factory," he adds, naively, "he oughter give 'er enough
to marry on." But he fears he will die in the prison. There is no one to
aid him, and he has no friends. "I never had no friend," he says,
wistfully; "there ain't no real friends. De older boys in de ref always
used me, an' dey use all de kids. But dey was no friends, an' every one
was against me in de court, an' dey put all de blame on me. Everybody
was always against me," he repeats bitterly.
* * * * *
Alone in the cell, I ponder over his words. "Everybody was always
against me," I hear the boy say. I wake at night, with the quivering
cry in the darkness, "Everybody against me!" Motherless in childhood,
reared in the fumes of brutal inebriation, cast into the slums to be
crushed under the wheels of the law's Juggernaut, was the fate of this
social orphan. Is this the fruit of progress? this the spirit of our
Christian civilization? In the hours of solitude, the scheme of
existence unfolds in kaleidoscope before me. In variegated design and
divergent angle it presents an endless panorama of stunted minds and
tortured bodies, of universal misery and wretchedness, in the elemental
aspect of the boy's desolate life. And I behold all the suffering and
agony resolve themselves in the dominance of the established, in
tradition and custom that heavily encrust humanity, weighing down the
already fettered soul till its wings break and it beats helplessly
against the artificial barriers.... The blanched face of Misery is
silhouetted against the night. The silence sobs with the piteous cry of
the crushed boy. And I hear the cry, and it fills my whole being with
the sense of terrible wrong and injustice, with the shame of my kind,
that sheds crocodile tears while it swallows its helpless prey. The
submerged moan in the dark. I will echo their agony to the ears of the
world. I have suffered with them, I have looked into the heart of Pain,
and with its voice and anguish I will speak to humanity, to wake it from
sloth and apathy, and lend hope to despair.
* * * * *
The months speed in preparation for the great work. I must equip myself
for the mission, for the combat with the world that struggles so
desperately to defend its chains. The day of my resurrection is
approaching, and I will devote my new life to the service of my
fellow-sufferers. The world shall hear the tortured; it shall behold the
shame it has buried within these walls, yet not eliminated. The ghost
of its crimes shall rise and harrow its ears, till the social conscience
is roused to the cry of its victims. And perhaps with eyes once opened,
it will behold the misery and suffering in the world beyond, and Man
will pause in his strife and mad race to ask himself, wherefore?
whither?