Prisons -- United States; Women prisoners -- United States
"She's green, Doctor! Tell him! he wouldn't let me tell him anything!
Many's the time I've been locked up and didn't know what 'twas for. Look
here, wouldn't it make you mad to be locked up when you wasn't to blame?
Look here, do you blame me for being mad?"
I could not say yes, and tell the truth. There is not a human heart but
what would resent such injustice. There are but few who would not resist
it if they could. I could not say no, because it might be construed into
encouraging insubordination. I did not feel it incumbent on me to think
the Master in the right because he was the Master, and she the convict.
I deliberately committed the vulgarity of listening to a convict's
story; but did not think it necessary to tell her my thoughts.
"Callahan, you mustn't ask me such questions. I am sorry for you, and
will make you as comfortable as I can."
The doctor put some compresses on her arm, wet them with water, and
ordered her some to drink.
"Some water for Callahan to drink! Quick! The doctor has ordered it!" I
echoed. I thought I heard an officer's step at the farther end of the
prison, and it was a legitimate supposition that if it were the new
Deputy, who was coming, she would get no such favor. Unless she got the
water and drank it before he came, she would not get it at all.
It had been whispered to me that the Master had thrown Callahan on the
floor in his anger, when she caught up the chair, and put his foot on
her neck. I saw a mark of dirt on the lower part of her cheek and neck.
I looked closely at it. The skin was grazed as though a boot-heel had
been ground against it.
"Callahan, what is that dirt on your cheek and neck?" I asked.
She put up her hand and passed it across her face and neck at the place
where I saw the dirt. She knew exactly where to find the mark of which I
spoke. The boot had evidently been there.
"He did hurt me some," she said.
"Who?" I asked.
"The Master, he put his foot on me."
"On your cheek and neck?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What for?"
"To hold me down."
"Let me see."
I examined the flesh; it was a little discolored as though it had been
bruised. It was evident that the tale that had been told me was true.
Was it necessary for that man--or the monster--in taking the chair away
from that woman, with two men to help him, to throw her upon the floor,
and place his foot on her neck?
"He was pretty well seas over. He's always savage when he is. I knew
he'd just had a horn when I saw him coming, and that's one thing made me
mad. Look here; folks are sent down here for getting drunk. Do you think
it'll ever cure 'em to put a drunkard over 'em?"
I did not make Callahan any reply; but I thought of the old proverb, "It
takes a rogue to catch a rogue;" but whether a rogue may be
advantageously set to cure one, is another question, and one upon which
a great deal of discussion might be spent, before popular judgment
would decide it in the affirmative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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