In my cell, Tuesday evening, September 30.

Laying aside my journal this noon, I don my coat and cap and stand ready at the cell door. The Captain passes by, unlocking the levers; then repasses, pushing them down, and I am ready to fall in line as usual; but one of the gray figures stops suddenly and whispers to me, “Your cup! You’ve forgotten your cup!” So I create a momentary halt and confusion in the gallery as I dash back into the cell to get my tin cup and out again, leaving it on the shelf at the entrance. We traverse the gallery, descend the iron stairs, line up at the door, march first slowly then rapidly down the yard, through the sewage disposal building to the bucket stands; and so to the basket-shop again.

“Well, Brown, how did you enjoy your dinner, good?” This question is my partner’s afternoon greeting.

“Good! I should say it was! I’d like to tackle another car of coal this afternoon to give me such an appetite. No, on second thoughts, not this afternoon—to-morrow morning. I don’t think I’d better get up much of an appetite with nothing but bread and water ahead of me.”

Murphy laughs. “Well, we’ve got two bottoms each to do this afternoon, to make up for our exercise this morning; so we must hustle up and get ’em done.”

So we both start basket-making; he joking at my efforts to keep up with him, and I, in a futile attempt to do so, “working like a race-horse,” as he expresses it. With pleasant chat the time passes quickly. The strangeness of my situation is beginning to wear away; and the men are getting over their aloofness as they see that, in Joe’s words, I mean business; and also see how well I get along with my partner and my boss. The latter, the smiling Stuhlmiller, drops round to our table frequently; makes valuable and friendly criticism and suggestion as to my work, by which I try to profit; and incidentally tells many things which both directly and indirectly throw valuable light upon the life here. As a workman I must pay my tribute of admiration to Stuhlmiller; his small, delicate hands with strong, pliable fingers are made for craftsmanship. It gives positive delight to see him take hold of the weaving, to show me or someone else how it should be done. There are the elements of the real artist of some sort in that chap. What a pity to have these rare qualities wasted in prison!

In the course of the afternoon a party of visitors is shown through the shop by the Warden in person. It is only this evening that I have learned all the facts of this incident, as I was so busy working that I never noticed the party at all; although they walked by, only a few feet away, passing directly between me and the keeper. This is the story as I get it first hand, from the Warden himself.

It seems that some newspaper men from New York were in town to-day and were most anxious to see Tom Brown at work. The strict order that everything at the prison was to go on exactly as usual forbade their interviewing me, or even having me pointed out; but there was nothing to prevent their being shown over the prison in the ordinary way. The Warden, who had returned from Albany, thinking he would like to take the opportunity of himself seeing his “new boarder” at work, offered to conduct them. So down through the yard they all came and in due course reached the basket-shop.

“This is the place where Tom Brown is working,” remarked the Warden; “but, gentlemen, please remember you are not to speak to him or even seem to give him special notice.”

So they entered the shop and leisurely made their way through; the Warden exchanging a word or two with the Captain as he went by, and all of them looking curiously at the various basket-makers within sight.

After they had passed out of the shop at the farther end, one of the visitors said,

“But, Warden, I didn’t see him.”

“Neither did we,” chimed in the rest.

“Well, gentlemen,” laughed the Warden, “this is certainly one on me; for I looked everywhere and I couldn’t find him myself.”

It was true; the whole party had passed within twenty feet of me, and not one of them—not even my intimate friend—had recognized me.

“But I’m very sure he’s there,” continued the Warden; “at any rate I can verify it at my office.”

So they returned to the main building and found out, sure enough, that Thomas Brown was duly registered in the basket-shop.

Two of the visitors insisted upon returning; they had known me very well by sight and were sure they could find me out. So back they came to the shop, and this time I noticed them.

“I wonder who those guys are, rubbering around?” is my remark to Murphy, speaking in the vernacular, as we are working away. I was taking good care not to stare hard at them in my turn.

“They’re not looking at you, anyhow,” is Murphy’s report. I steal another glance and catch an intent, searching look from one of the visitors. I am just finishing off a basket bottom and have on eyeglasses of unusual shape—rather too fine for Tom Brown. I fear that the visitor may have spotted these. However, I return his stare insolently, with as much of the air of an old timer as I can muster on the spur of the moment. At the same instant I whisper some joke over to Murphy that makes him smile; and the guy moves on, staring at others of my shopmates in their turn.

“I guess he was after me, all right,” I remark to my partner, “and I’m afraid these infernal specs may have given me away.”

As a matter of fact the two visitors returned from the basket-shop again disappointed. One of them thought he had seen Tom Brown, but wasn’t quite sure. My identity seems to be sufficiently merged—so far as outsiders are concerned.

Toward the close of the afternoon my talk with my partner becomes more serious. In spite of the rules, newspapers seem to circulate here and are precious in proportion to their rarity. Some one hands a paper to Murphy, who passes it over to me; and I, after glancing over it, hand it back to him to be returned. The editor of this particular sheet, in commenting upon my adventure, expressed doubt as to the possibility of “the amateur convict” being able to get hold of the real life of the prison. This view makes me smile, under the circumstances, and I ask Murphy what he thinks about it. His reply is that there is no doubt of my being able to get all I want, and getting it straight.

“Well, I want to know all there is,” I lightly rejoin, “and I’m thinking of breaking the rules in some way before I get out of here, so as to be sent down to the punishment cells.”

A look of genuine concern comes over my partner’s face, and his voice sinks to an awestruck whisper. “Do you mean the jail?” he asks.

“Yes,” I answer; “I want to learn everything possible about this place, so I think I may as well spend at least one night in jail.”

“Well, you’d better be careful.” My partner speaks slowly and impressively. There can be no doubt of his sincerity; a glance at his earnest, troubled face settles that. “I went down to that place once,” he continues; “and I want to tell you—after eight hours of it I just caved right in! I told them that they could do anything they liked with me.”

“Was it so very bad?” I ask.

“Well, my advice to you is to give it a wide berth,” is his evasive answer. Then there is silence between us for a moment, and when he begins again it is evident that his thoughts have turned into a still more serious channel. “Yes, you can learn a great deal, but let me tell you this, Brown: no one can realize what this place really is like, until—until—well, until there is someone he cares about who is sick and he can’t get away.” There is a tremor in his voice. Poor fellow! The Chaplain told me last night that Murphy had recently lost his mother and felt her death very deeply.

This talk occurs at the end of the day’s work when we are waiting for the Captain’s signal of return, and Murphy is sitting on the edge of the table talking quietly, turning his head away from the Captain and toward me as I stand on my regular side of the table.

I place a hand on my partner’s broad shoulder. “Yes,” I say, “it must indeed be terrible in such a case.”

“Oh, nobody can know how bad it is,” he goes on, my evident sympathy opening up the depths. “My mother was sick in the hospital, very sick, and I knew that she was going to die; and I—and I couldn’t get to her. Oh God! if they could only have let me go! I’d have come back! I’d have come back. Honest I would. And now—and now——”

“Yes,” I say, “I understand. And I know myself what it means. It’s something we never get over—in prison or out.”

For a moment I fear that he is going to break down; but he is strong and schooled in self-repression, and quickly regains control of himself. To give him time I tell him something of my own experience; and he grasps my hand fervently. Whatever may come out of my prison experiment, I have made at least one warm friend in Jack Murphy. The barriers are down between us two at least. Death, for all its cruelty, is after all the one great unifying force; it forges the one great bond of human brotherhood.

As I have said, this last talk takes place toward the end of the afternoon. Before it occurred Jack had said, “Now it’s my turn to sweep up to-night.” And he proceeded to do it, while I took a bit of exercise, walking up and down the short space permitted by the rules—about ten steps each way across and back.

The order comes to fall in. “Well, good night, Brown!” “Good night, Jack!” and off we go; first back to the bucket stands, for the benefit of those who did their housecleaning this afternoon instead of this morning. Then we march up through the yard to the main building, where, with the others, I snatch my slice of bread, mount the iron stairs, traverse the gallery, and lock myself in my cell for the night.Captain Lamb comes to bid me good-bye. He is off on his vacation to-morrow and his place is to be filled temporarily by one of the night officers. I am sorry to have him go as I have taken a liking to him and wanted to discuss with him further his views on the Prison Problem. However, I shall be interested to find out how we get along with his successor.

The armchair, which George has secured for me in place of the stool, is unfortunately much too large for the cell. When my shelf table is hooked up there is not room enough for the chair to be placed anywhere conveniently. When I sit back in it my head bumps against the locker; and how I’m going to manage when the bed is let down I don’t know. The chair is not my only acquisition; when I came in to-night I found three tempting apples on the shelf above my door. I suspect my friend in the blue shirt, who asked me this noon if I didn’t want an apple, as his Captain had given him some. I shall save them for to-morrow, although I find my bread and water rather tasteless and unsatisfactory to-night.

The evening wears along. I do not know now just what time it is, but somewhere between seven and eight. We have had the twenty minutes of music, beginning again with the sweet strains of the Mendelssohn Spring Song, into which the other instruments rudely break. My unknown musician plays other good selections, all with equal skill and feeling, so far as I can tell through the din. At the present moment everything is quiet along the corridors, except the inexplicable clicking or tapping I heard last evening and wondered whether it was telegraphic in character. One of the night officers, who has just paid me a friendly call and chatted at some length, tells me that it is caused by the endeavors of the men in the cells to strike sparks with flint and steel—owing to their monthly supply of matches having given out. As the monthly supply of each man is only one box, I am not surprised at the number of clicks that I hear. A cigarette smoker might easily use up one box in a day—let alone a month.[8]It is very curious the difference between last evening and this in my feelings. Then I was so excited that each noise got on my nerves. To-night I am quiet; and I think sleep will come more easily and stay longer. Perhaps I can even slumber through the visits of the watchman with his electric bull’s-eye.

At this point I was interrupted by the Warden and Grant, who have just paid me a long call. As I feel even more possessed with the desire to talk than I did last night, I could hardly bear to let them go. They came up to the entrance of my cell very quietly so as not to attract attention, and I was taken almost by surprise when I heard their voices. I had rather expected a visit from the Warden this evening, but knew nothing for certain.

“Well, how are you coming on?” is the first question.

“Fine!”

“How are you feeling?”

“First rate!”

“How do you like your job?”

“Couldn’t ask anything better.”

“How do the men treat you?”

“As fine a lot of fellows as I was ever thrown with.”

The Warden and Grant stifle their laughter.

“Well,” I remark, “I suppose it does sound rather funny, but I mean it. I wouldn’t ask for any better treatment than I’m getting. The men are certainly acting like gentlemen. They are doing just what I asked of them—treating me exactly like one of themselves; and as for my partner, Murphy, we’re the very best of friends. He’s a fine fellow. But look here,” I continue, “I’m making no kick, and I’m perfectly satisfied where I am; but what was the reason for the change of plan? Why didn’t the P. K. put me where we had decided? When shall I be placed with that tough bunch?”

This time my two visitors cannot control their amusement; they laugh loudly.

“Why,” says the Warden, as soon as he can catch his breath, “you are with the tough bunch!”

“Oh, come off! you know what I mean, the Idle Company that I was to be placed with for the first day or two.”

“You’re with the Idle Company,” explains the Warden; “only they’re not idle any longer, they’ve been put to work. It is the same one where we planned for you to begin.”

I was never more surprised; but in order to turn the joke on them I assume the toughest manner at my disposal and say, “Gee! Did you think I wasn’t wise? I was only kiddin’ youse guys! But take this from me—straight. If we’re the toughest bunch in this stir the other guys must be skypilots, all right!”“Well, he seems to be getting some of the lingo down pretty fine,” is Grant’s quiet comment; and then we turn seriously to the events of the day, to my health and other matters. The Warden describes his visit to the shop with the newspaper men, and the failure of all concerned, including himself, to recognize me.

I tell him that it is quite evident that the prison atmosphere has been successful in disguising my individuality, at least so far as appearance is concerned. Then, after some more serious talk, we reach an agreement of opinion that I am probably getting as much experience as possible where I am now working; and so it would be better to continue in the basket-shop for the present. The Warden makes me a promise to come again to-morrow evening, and they take their departure. I wish they’d come back, I haven’t talked half enough.

The Warden told me that one of the convicts who works in his household quarters locks in (to use the prison expression denoting temporary residence) next to me—Number 14 on this tier; and that he had felt rather hurt that I did not answer his taps. It seems that after finishing his evening’s work he gets back to his cell at ten o’clock, and that he tapped me a greeting last night. That was just about the time I fell asleep. I remember getting the impression in a vague way of some noises on the gallery near by, just as I was dropping off; that must have been the night officer letting him into his cell. To-night I shall stay awake and answer his message.

So the company I am in is the one I have been dreading, is it? “The toughest bunch of fellows in the prison”—Murphy and Stuhlmiller and “Blackie,” the good-natured fellow who gave away his tobacco and brings us the material for our baskets; and the other pleasant men whose acquaintance I have been making these last two days in the shop. It is incredible, inconceivable. What can be the explanation of it all?

Is it possible that I am being made the victim of a clever system of deception? This is naturally my first thought. I can well imagine that Jack Murphy enjoys the novel sensation of having as his partner a man who is for the moment an object of peculiar interest to this community, that is simply human nature. No doubt Harley Stuhlmiller enjoys giving directions to the member of a state commission, that again is human nature. But that these men could assume virtues which they have not, and carry out a wholesale system of deceit—that is not possible. I have been on my guard every moment I have been here, and I have observed some few attempts to get into my good graces, with a possible expectation of future benefits; but on the other hand there has been a remarkable and most successful effort to carry out my request—to treat me as plain Tom Brown.

No, that explanation doesn’t explain; the truth must lie in another direction. And here is my idea. I am not seeing the worse side of these men because there is no occasion for them to show me their worse side; but I have no intention of overlooking or denying that side. They wouldn’t be in prison if they did not have it. But, although they may form the toughest bunch in prison, they evidently have their better side also, and is that not just as real as the worse side? And is it not the better side that is the more important for us to consider? Important—whether we approach the matter from the side of philanthropy or from that of political economy. In either case we must consider it important that men should not leave prison in such condition, mental, moral or physical, that they will almost certainly commit more crimes and be returned to prison.

To which side, the better or the worse, does the Prison System now appeal? Which does it encourage and develop? These are pretty vital questions.

At any rate it seems to me to have been great good luck that I was placed in the basket-shop where I should associate with just these men; for if these fellows are really among the more difficult cases in the prison, then I think——

Wednesday morning, October 1.

At that interesting moment, while still writing my journal, the lights suddenly went out on me; so I am finishing this next morning. The Warden and Grant arrived soon after eight and must have stayed longer than I thought; and somehow I seem to have missed the warning bell. I had not begun to prepare for bed, when suddenly I was left in darkness. I had to get my writing materials into the locker and make my evening toilet the best way I could, with the help of the dim light from the corridor coming through the grated door. There was one good thing about it, however; I was too busy for a while to notice the blackness of the bars which had given me such a shock the night before. It did not take so very long to make my preparations, for the state of New York allows its boarders neither night shirts nor pajamas. We have to sleep in the underclothes in which we have worked all day. An arrangement which strikes one as being almost more medieval than the sewage disposal system.On Monday night, according to Jack Murphy, the men in my corridor all waited to hear if I had the usual difficulties with my bed; and as some other fellow’s bed went down with him during the evening they thought they had the laugh on me. This Tuesday night they certainly had. That infernal armchair could not be placed where it did not catch the edge of the bed when I let it down, so as to leave one leg dangling loose, as only one could touch the floor at a time. In the course of my struggles with the bed, the whole miserable contrivance came off the hooks and fell down with a metallic rattle and bang that could be heard all over the corridor. Then came snickers from various distances, and my frantic effort to straighten things out only made more noise than ever. Bursts of smothered laughter came through the bars; and I laughed, myself, until I was almost in hysterics. Finally I got the bed hitched on to the back hooks, folded it up against the wall and started all over again. I began by putting the chair on its back as far away from the bed as possible, which wasn’t very far, and this time I just managed to get the legs of the bed to the floor. After that it was short work to get ready for the night.

I have not yet described my bed covering. I have one double and one single blanket and a thin blanket sheet—no cotton or linen of any sort. I do not need, in this weather, more than one of the three blankets; but if I were to be here long I know I should like some cotton bedclothes and pillow cases. These can be secured, apparently, only by buying them, and many prisoners have not the money to buy them. It seems as if the State should furnish them to all prisoners; certainly the present arrangement leaves much to be desired from a sanitary point of view.

Having thus at last got into bed, I found myself not so sleepy as when I started; moreover, now that I was in bed, that black grating began again to have its nervous effect upon me. If I thought it would be any better I should turn, facing the other way; but that would bring my head so close to the grating that anyone from outside could poke me with his fingers. Moreover, it wouldn’t help matters, for as long as I know that grating is there I might as well look at it; I should certainly feel it even worse if I turned my back.

I heard the nine-fifty train drawing into the station. I wondered who, if any, of my friends were boarding the train for New York. How often have I done so without ever thinking of the poor fellows over here, lying restless in their cells and marking the time by the arrival and departure of trains. After a suitable interval I heard the train draw away. Then I knew that in a few moments my neighbor from the Warden’s rooms would be down.Soon I heard the opening and closing of a distant door, then stealthy footfalls along the corridor, the faint sound of a lock, and I saw the long iron bar slowly and noiselessly raise itself from the top of the cell opening. Then more stealthy footfalls, the sound of the great key turning in a lock close at hand, the click of a lever, and a few faint sounds through the wall at my right. Then the lever clicked again as the door closed, the key turned in the lock, soft footfalls died away along the gallery, the long bar dropped down, and all was so quiet for a moment that it seemed as if the very building were holding its breath.

Then through the wall I heard the very faintest possible sound: tap-ta-tap-tap; tap-ta-tap-tap. Then silence. It was so faint that if I had not been waiting for some sound I might not have heard it at all. Tap-ta-tap-tap. It said quite plainly, “How do you do?” I stretched out my left hand to the wall on my right and with my ring gave an answering signal: Tap-tap; tap-tap; tap-tap; which was the nearest I could come to, “All right; all right.” Then I waited to see if I was answered; and sure enough in a few seconds the answer came.

After some moments, during which I presume my unseen friend was preparing for bed, I heard again a different sound; rap-rap, rap-rap, rap-rap. It said as plain as possible, “Good-night, good-night.” So I returned it in the same way. Then turning over in my narrow bed I fell asleep, and although my sleep was neither deep nor continuous it was much better than the night before.