The opportunity came. In the middle of the night my pal and I tied the ends of our bed sheets together and noiselessly slid to the ground, fifty feet below. We walked five miles to the railroad and boarded a train that took us speedily away from our former prison. It was good to be free again. The stars shone like diamonds in what seemed to me the bluest sky I had ever seen. The air was soft and cool and the rattle of the train was like music to our ears. We were bound we knew not where, contented with the fact that we were free. I have thought since then that I can imagine the feeling of a bird as it rises wing on wing in the bright heavens after a cage life of weary years. Daylight found us in a city by the sea in southern New Jersey. I shall never forget my first sight of the ocean on that eventful morning. It was the season of summer. The atmosphere was clear as crystal, save for a glimmering haze in the distance, above which the morning sun was now sending down rays of golden color. To the far right an ocean liner was lazily steaming along, the smoke from its funnels darkening the cast of the sky overhead. Before us a schooner, sails full set, rolled to the swell of the ocean. The dull moan of the waves as they broke against the sand-strewn beach seemed full of symphonies. Above all was the silence of the early morn, broken only by the call of the wayward gull. Since then I have seen some of the famous scenery of the world, but never have I been impressed by the beauty of nature as I was on that morning of long ago. My contemplation of the beautiful picture before me was rudely interrupted by a slight noise behind me. I turned and was confronted by one of the officials of the school, his arms outstretched before him in the very act of laying hands upon me. I tried to dodge, but the attempt was useless. In a minute he had the handcuffs on me and I was being led back again to my prison. CHAPTER VII DISCIPLINE Punishments for escaping were usually severe. I was put in what was called the lockup. Each cottage possessed one. It was a narrow closet of a room about five by seven feet. There wasn’t a sign of a window in it, the door was made of several thicknesses of wood, reenforced by numerous steel plates. A narrow slit in the wall acted as a ventilator. There were no toilet facilities. There was no bed but a board, and there was no covering. My outer clothes were taken from me before entering. Can you imagine the feelings of one confined in such a place? Each morning, about eight o’clock, the officer of the family unlocked the door, a boy placed a piece of bread about the size of a half a loaf and a cup of water inside the door, emptied the excretion of the night, and another day began. In this place I spent the next eighteen days. In all that time I was denied the privilege of exercising, of seeing the sun, of even washing myself.