I felt then, Betsy, as though I was strong enough, and God knows I was willin, to provide a home for you as long as we both lived. Dont blame me, Betsy. Ive done the best I could. You know Ive worked hard, and we have lived savin, but by some unknown reason all I have aimed is gone. Mr. Richer has $3,800 of it. Ive done the best I could. I have to work hard here in this place, but Ime not complainin, nor wouldent complain if I was gittin paid for what work I do, so that I could help you. [Illustration: “I have to work hard in this place.”] Ime a wheelin coal to the furnace and a wheelin hot cinders away. It keeps me bizzy. There are lots of men in here. A great many for beggin—jist as I am. Betsy, dont let the neighbors know they have me locked up. I feel so disgraced. I feel that if that “Director of Charities,” that had me arrested and put in here, had known that I had feelins; if he had known that I was a honest old man; if he had thought of the difference between a old man, hungry, away from home and out of money—I say, Betsy, if he had thought of the difference between sich a man as I was and a man drawin $5,000 a year as a leadin city officer, like hisself, I dont think he could have had the heart to have had me arrested and sent to prison. Lots of the fellers in here seem to be honest, kind-hearted people, but poor and away from home. Not bein known to the officers, they are arrested and sent out here. Betsy, I long to see you. When I git out I will come back. I cant find any work up here. Nobody seems to want to hire me. My hand is sore. I can hardly use it. But then the feller what watches me work keeps me a goin. He dont allow me to stop a minit from the time they let me out of my cell in the mornin till they lock me in it agin at nite. The way I come to hurt my hand was—I had a dream. Ive been a dreamin more or less for some time. Ime so tired and my bed is so hard. I suppose I dont sleep sound is why I dream so. I dreamed I was in this work-house and there was more than a thousand other men in, and a comin in from ten to thirty a day—mostly for bein hungry and beggin. Well, I thought one bright mornin one of the guards come through the buildin a hollerin and poundin on a big gong, and tellin all the fellers “to come into the big yard” that is in this place. He said that they had some good news for us. “Glad tidings of great joy,” says he. I thought we all stopped work and went a hurryin to that big yard, and when I got there the yard was alive with people, men waitin to hear them “tidings.” Well, when we all got into that yard two nice-lookin men climbed up on the platform that is in the middle and one of them says: “FELLOW-CITIZENS, GENTLEMEN AND BROTHERS: We are delegated by the proper authority to declare unto you this beautiful morning a new law that has been made by our brothers, the law-makers at Washington. We solicit your undivided attention for a few moments.” He then read: