“Are you willing to put on prison dress and go to the workroom?” said he.
I said, “No.”
“Don’t you know now that I am Mr. Whittaker, the superintendent?” he asked.
“Is there any age limit to your workhouse?” I said. “Would a woman of seventy-three or a child of two be sent here?”
I think I made him think. He motioned to the guard.
“Get a doctor to examine her,” he said.
In the hospital cottage I was met by Mrs. Herndon and taken to a little room with two white beds and a hospital table.
“You can lie down if you want to,” she said.
I took off my coat and hat. I just lay down on the bed and fell into a kind of stupor. It was nearly noon and I had had no food offered me since the sandwiches our friends brought us in the courtroom at noon the day before.
The doctor came and examined my heart. Then he examined my lame foot. It had a long blue bruise above the ankle, where they had knocked me as they took me across the night before. He asked me what caused’ the bruise. I said, “Those fiends when they dragged me to the cell last night.” It was paining me. He asked if I wanted liniment and I said only hot water. They brought that, and I noticed they did not lock the door. A negro trusty was there. I fell back again into the same stupor.