PLANNING LYONS'S ESCAPE
"Why, Doctor," I said, "I'm a sick woman, and besides I don't know how to do any kind of work. I've never had to work for a living."
"Well, my good little woman," the doctor replied, "you'll have to learn to work. You're in here for five years, and nobody is allowed to play the lady in Sing Sing Prison, you know."
"But, Doctor," I said, "you wouldn't have Sophie Lyons be anything but a lady, would you?"
"I'd like to make an honest woman of you, Sophie—that's more important than being a lady," he answered gravely, "and I'm going to try. I've got enough confidence in your sense of honor to give you a position as assistant nurse in the prison hospital. If you profit by your opportunities there, you can learn a good trade which will enable you to make an honest living when your term is up."
Nothing could have suited me better. A position in the hospital is the easiest work the prison offers, and it would give me just the opportunities I needed to help my husband escape. But I tried not to let Dr. Collins see how delighted I was and pretended to be very tearful and penitent as I thanked him for his kindness.
My husband was allowed to come and see me once a week under guard of a prison keeper. My conduct was so good and had given the matron and Dr. Collins such confidence in me that Ned and I were soon permitted to talk without any prison official being present to listen, as the prison rules required.
On these visits we had opportunity for discussing various plans for escape, but we both agreed that no one of them would probably succeed. I favored trying to get a forged pass—a counterfeit of the passes given to visitors, which the keeper at the prison door must have before he allows anybody to leave the building. But my husband had serious doubts.
About this time the matron's two children were taken sick and I was assigned to her house to take care of them. So faithfully did I nurse them back to health that the matron became quite fond of me and wanted me to remain there permanently as her personal servant.
When Ned Lyons came to see me again he was amazed at my good fortune in receiving a position which was the next best thing to liberty itself. It not only gave me all sorts of liberties but it enabled me to dress like any servant girl instead of in the regulation prison costume. This last fact would prove of tremendous advantage when my opportunity to make a break for liberty came.