CHAPTER XX

A DAY IN THE CELL-HOUSE

I

To K. & G.

Good news! I was let out of the cell this morning. The coffee-boy on my range went home yesterday, and I was put in his place.

It's lucky the old Deputy died--he was determined to keep me in solitary. In the absence of the Warden, Benny Greaves, the new Deputy, told me he will "risk" giving me a job. But he has issued strict orders I should not be permitted to step into the yard. I'll therefore still be under special surveillance, and I shall not be able to see you. But I am in touch with our "Faithful," and we can now resume a more regular correspondence.

Over a year in solitary. It's almost like liberty to be out of the cell!

M.

II

My position as coffee-boy affords many opportunities for closer contact with the prisoners. I a.s.sist the rangeman in taking care of a row of sixty-four cells situated on the ground floor, and lettered K. Above it are, successively, I, H, G, and F, located on the yard side of the cell-house. On the opposite side, facing the river, the ranges are labelled A, B, C, D, and E. The galleries form parallelograms about each double cell-row; bridged at the centre, they permit easy access to the several ranges. The ten tiers, with a total of six hundred and forty cells, are contained within the outer stone building, and comprise the North Block of the penitentiary. It connects with the South Wing by means of the rotunda.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CELL RANGES--SOUTH BLOCK]

The bottom tiers A and K serve as "receiving" ranges. Here every new arrival is temporarily "celled," before he is a.s.signed to work and transferred to the gallery occupied by his shop-fellows. On these ranges are also located the men undergoing special punishment in basket and solitary. The lower end of the two ranges is designated "bughouse row."

It contains the "cranks," among whom are cla.s.sed inmates in different stages of mental aberration.

My various duties of sweeping the hall, dusting the cell doors, and a.s.sisting at feeding, enable me to become acquainted and to form friendships. I marvel at the inadequacy of my previous notions of "the criminal." I resent the presumption of "science" that pretends to evolve the intricate convolutions of a living human brain out of the shape of a digit cut from a dead hand, and labels it "criminal type." Daily a.s.sociation dispels the myth of the "species," and reveals the individual. Growing intimacy discovers the humanity beneath fibers coa.r.s.ened by lack of opportunity, and brutalized by misery and fear.

There is "Reddie" Butch, a rosy-cheeked young fellow of twenty-one, as frank-spoken a boy as ever honored a striped suit. A jolly criminal is Butch, with his irrepressible smile and gay song. He was "just dying to take his girl for a ride," he relates to me. But he couldn't afford it; he earned only seven dollars per week, as butcher's boy. He always gave his mother every penny he made, but the girl kept taunting him because he couldn't spend anything on her. "And I goes to work and swipes a rig, and say, Aleck, you ought to see me drive to me girl's house, big-like.

In I goes. 'Put on your glad duds, Kate,' I says, says I, 'I'll give you the drive of your life.' And I did; you bet your sweet life, I did, ha, ha, ha!" But when he returned the rig to its owner, Butch was arrested.

"'Just a prank, Your Honor,' I says to the Judge. And what d' you think, Aleck? Thought I'd die when he said three years. I was foolish, of course; but there's no use crying over spilt milk, ha, ha, ha! But you know, the worst of it is, me girl went back on me. Wouldn't that jar you, eh? Well, I'll try hard to forget th' minx. She's a sweet girl, though, you bet, ha, ha, ha!"

And there is Young Rush, the descendant of the celebrated family of the great American physician. The delicate features, radiant with spirituality, bear a striking resemblance to Sh.e.l.ley; the limping gait recalls the tragedy of Byron. He is in for murder! He sits at the door, an open book in his hands,--the page is moist with the tears silently trickling down his face. He smiles at my approach, and his expressive eyes light up the darkened cell, like a glimpse of the sun breaking through the clouds. He was wooing a girl on a Summer night: the skiff suddenly upturned, "right opposite here,"--he points to the river,--"near McKees Rocks." He was dragged out, unconscious. They told him the girl was dead, and that he was her murderer! He reaches for the photograph on his table, and bursts into sobs.

Daily I sweep the length of the hall, advancing from cell to cell with deliberate stroke, all the while watching for an opportunity to exchange a greeting, with the prisoners. My mind reverts to poor Wingie. How he cheered me in the first days of misery; how kind he was! In gentler tones I speak to the unfortunates, and encourage the new arrivals, or indulge some demented prisoner in a harmless whim. The dry sweeping of the hallway raises a cloud of dust, and loud coughing follows in my wake. Taking advantage of the old Block Captain's "cold in the head," I cautiously hint at the danger of germs lurking in the dust-laden atmosphere. "A little wet sawdust on the floor, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, and you wouldn't catch colds so often." A capital idea, he thinks, and thereafter I guard the precious supply under the bed in my cell.

In little ways I seek to help the men in solitary. Every trifle means so much. "Long Joe," the rangeman, whose duty it is to attend to their needs, is engrossed with his own troubles. The poor fellow is serving twenty-five years, and he is much worried by "Wild Bill" and "Bighead"

Wilson. They are constantly demanding to see the Warden. It is remarkable that they are never refused. The guards seem to stand in fear of them. "Wild Bill" is a self-confessed invert, and there are peculiar rumors concerning his intimacy with the Warden. Recently Bill complained of indigestion, and a guard sent me to deliver some delicacies to him.

"From the Warden's table," he remarked, with a sly wink. And Wilson is jocularly referred to as "the Deputy," even by the officers. He is still in stripes, but he seems to wield some powerful influence over the new Deputy; he openly defies the rules, upbraids the guards, and issues orders. He is the Warden's "runner," clad with the authority of his master. The prisoners regard Bill and Wilson as stools, and cordially hate them; but none dare offend them. Poor Joe is constantly hara.s.sed by "Deputy" Wilson; there seems to be bitter enmity between the two on account of a young prisoner who prefers the friendship of Joe. Worried by the complex intrigues of life in the block, the rangeman is indifferent to the unfortunates in the cells. Butch is devoured by bedbugs, and "Praying" Andy's mattress is flattened into a pancake. The simple-minded life-timer is being neglected: he has not yet recovered from the a.s.sault by Johnny Smith, who hit him on the head with a hammer.

I urge the rangeman to report to the Captain the need of "bedbugging"

Butch's cell, of supplying Andy with a new mattress, and of notifying the doctor of the increasing signs of insanity among the solitaries.

III

Breakfast is over; the lines form in lockstep, and march to the shops.

Broom in hand, rangemen and a.s.sistants step upon the galleries, and commence to sweep the floors. Officers pa.s.s along the tiers, closely scrutinizing each cell. Now and then they pause, facing a "delinquent."

They note his number, unlock the door, and the prisoner joins the "sick line" on the ground floor.

One by one the men augment the row; they walk slowly, bent and coughing, painfully limping down the steep flights. From every range they come; the old and decrepit, the young consumptives, the lame and asthmatic, a tottering old negro, an idiotic white boy. All look withered and dejected,--a ghastly line, palsied and blear-eyed, blanched in the valley of death.

The rotunda door opens noisily, and the doctor enters, accompanied by Deputy Warden Greaves and a.s.sistant Deputy Hopkins. Behind them is a prisoner, dressed in dark gray and carrying a medicine box. Dr. Boyce glances at the long line, and knits his brow. He looks at his watch, and the frown deepens. He has much to do. Since the death of the senior doctor, the young graduate is the sole physician of the big prison. He must make the rounds of the shops before noon, and visit the patients in the hospital before the Warden or the Deputy drops in.

Mr. Greaves sits down at the officers' desk, near the hall entrance. The a.s.sistant Deputy, pad in hand, places himself at the head of the sick line. The doctor leans against the door of the rotunda, facing the Deputy. The block officers stand within call, at respectful distances.

"Two-fifty-five!" the a.s.sistant Deputy calls out.

A slender young man leaves the line and approaches the doctor. He is tall and well featured, the large eyes l.u.s.trous in the pale face. He speaks in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Doctor, there is something the matter with my side. I have pains, and I cough bad at night, and in the morning--"

"All right," the doctor interrupts, without looking up from his notebook. "Give him some salts," he adds, with a nod to his a.s.sistant.

"Next!" the Deputy calls.

"Will you please excuse me from the shop for a few days?" the sick prisoner pleads, a tremor in his voice.

The physician glances questioningly at the Deputy. The latter cries, impatiently, "Next, next man!" striking the desk twice, in quick succession, with the knuckles of his hand.

"Return to the shop," the doctor says to the prisoner.

"Next!" the Deputy calls, spurting a stream of tobacco juice in the direction of the cuspidor. It strikes sidewise, and splashes over the foot of the approaching new patient, a young negro, his neck covered with bulging tumors.

"Number?" the doctor inquires.

"One-thirty-seven. A one-thirty-seven!" the Deputy mumbles, his head thrown back to receive a fresh handful of "sc.r.a.p" tobacco.

"Guess Ah's got de big neck, Ah is, Mistah Boyce," the negro says hoa.r.s.ely.

"Salts. Return to work. Next!"

"A one-twenty-six!"

A young man with parchment-like face, sere and yellow, walks painfully from the line.

"Doctor, I seem to be gettin' worser, and I'm afraid--"

"What's the trouble?"

"Pains in the stomach. Gettin' so turrible, I--"

"Give him a plaster. Next!"