Another incident I also recollect which happened on the ground at one of these celebrations—a poor boy the son of a widow climbed a tree, for the purpose of fastening a rope in its top for a swing for the children, his foot gave way and he fell to the ground, breaking one of his legs and receiving other very bad bruises. He was taken up of course, placed in a carriage and sent to his anxious mother, with a good contribution from the people to help repair the damage.
I did not run away, I felt some as Paul did when requested to leave the prison and would not. I recollect that in this instance I was rather one of the privileged. I rode to the ground in a buggy with the Supervisor, the distance being about two miles. This was the second time I had taken a meal outside of the institution since I entered it, and it seemed quite refreshing; more especially so, as we had such a dinner as is never got up in the institution. I remember of eating very heartily.
There is one thing which, perhaps, I should have noticed before, but it will come in quite as well at this stage of my narrative. About the third day after I entered the asylum I was sitting alone in a very melancholy state of mind, when I saw a man approaching me which I recognized as an old friend in 1848 and 1849, in Columbia county. I was shocked, I felt both glad and sorry to see him. I rose, he took me very cordially by the hand and said, “Brother Chase, how do you do?” I felt greatly embarrassed, choked up, turned either red or pale in the face, could not tell which, did not know what to say—I dare not say I was well, for I was in the asylum as a patient, and I did not feel sick, so I stammered out—“Col. Drier.”
I had known him when under very different circumstances—I was the pastor of the church in that neighborhood, he had often heard me preach, he was also a Minister of the gospel, and now the steward of the asylum, and was at the time I met him on the hall. He said a few kind words to me, which I do not now recollect, neither do I recollect what I said to him, if I said anything.
I wish here to record, that Col. Drier, the steward of that institution, is a man, a christian, and a gentleman, always mild, always sincere, patient to hear all the requests of the patients, and though he could not gratify all their whims, he nevertheless so treated them, that all loved him, and as soon as he appears on one of the halls, the patients flock round him like hungry children round their mother. I never asked him for a thing that he denied me. I never heard of his doing a low or a wrong act in connection with that institution.
The fall passed away, and I began to be restless that I had heard nothing from my family since my daughter left in July, except one letter soon after she left; this was from Sandy Hill, where her mother was living at that time. A letter soon came, however, from Illinois, stating that her mother was with her in that country.
On receiving this letter my mind was greatly relieved; the mother was now with her only child, and though widely separated, I felt perfectly easy regarding the welfare of my family; I was only in distress that I could not be with them.
How often did I think that could the doctors enter into my feelings for one hour, and make them their own, that I should soon be dismissed from the asylum. But I now made up my mind to never say anything more about leaving, as the doctor once told me that my own opinion would weigh nothing with them in relation to my own case. I saw that a patient was a blank in all matters of opinion.
It is the custom in the institution, when the doctor enters the hall, for the inspection of the patients, for the attendant to walk by his side; and unless the patient is an old fixture, and not accounted much insane, the doctor asks the attendant the questions he wants answered, instead of the patient. This is, no doubt, right in many cases, but to apply the rule as it is generally applied, great injustice is frequently done to the patient. The questions for instance are: “How does he sleep nights?” “What is his appetite?” “Does he talk much?” “What is the state of his bowels?” “Does he take his medicine regularly?” The patient stands by, makes no reply; the attendant answers all these questions. I have stood by and heard the attendant answer these questions in relation to my own case. “Does he sleep well?” “Pretty well,” is the reply of the ignoramus, looking blank at the same time, and why should he not look blank? What did he know of the patient during the last night? The patient was locked up in a room perhaps two hundred feet from the room of the attendant, and the attendant fast asleep, while, perhaps, the patient laid and rolled from side to side upon his couch, and never shut his eyes during the whole night. I have heard this answer concerning myself, “pretty well,” when I knew I had not slept one wink; and so with about all the answers.
There are a good many little things in themselves, like this, that are very annoying to a mind that is not insane, and yet somewhat sensitive. Being always fearful that I might accidentally violate some rule and thereby fall under censure, I was always on my guard, and I can now recollect many things in which I was over particular.