"Take a broom and sweep that platform! Don't bring any tales to me from the other Matrons! When I wish you to teach me how to treat the women, I will ask you." Berry chose to consider herself a very much injured woman, and began to snivel and grumble. "I am going down to the shop to work. Maggie is so saucy I can't get along with her." She dared not express her disaffection towards me. "Well, Berry, when you find yourself so much your own mistress as to go where you please, I will give you 'a character,' and you may go to the shop to work." "What kind of a character?" asked O'Brien, who happened along at that moment. "A good one. You are a pretty good woman, Berry. There is one fault which I think might be corrected by going to the shop. You are very much disposed to tattle, and that sometimes makes mischief. If you go to the shop, where you are not allowed to speak at all, you can't do that kind of mischief. That would save me, if it did not yourself, a great deal of trouble." I heard no more about going to the shop. The kitchen was quiet after dinner and the work, before supper, done. I threw my head back, in the large chair in which I was resting, and drowsed. The women sat buzzing, on low stools, just behind me. I had been too sleepy to notice what they were saying; finally a word or two that I heard attracted me to listen. "Was you here, O'Brien?" asked Maggie; "when Ida Jones was pulled into the hospital by the hair of her head?" "Yes, I was, and I saw it with my two eyes. The Master pulled her by the hair of her head, and kicked her as he went along the walk; and she a poor, half-witted thing too. That was six weeks ago, and she has been in the hospital ever since." I was wide awake--thoroughly aroused when that story was completed. "Maggie Murray, do you mean to say that you saw the Master pull Ida Jones along the walk, by the hair of her head, and kick her as he pulled her? You ought to be very careful how you tell such stories, unless they are true." "It is the truth, ma'am!" said several of them in a breath. "He took her by her pug, like this," and she took hold of the coil of hair on the back of O'Brien's head, "and dragged her along. We all saw it, and the Housekeeper saw it, and she said he ought to be reported to the Board. And that Matron, that skinny person, I forget her name, that was here, she saw it. There were a plenty that saw it. When you go down to the hospital, you can ask Ida what is the matter, and she will tell you so too." "What did he do it for?" "She said she was dead with work--she could not sit at it another minute--she was ready to fall; and Hardhack reported her; and the Master was so mad,--some of 'em said so drunk,--he dragged her himself out of the shop, all of the way to the Hospital." My face must have expressed the horror that I felt. "Indeed it is the truth, ma'am!" said O'Brien. "The Master was crazy to get a lot of work done that night, and it made him awful mad to lose a hand."