When a man is in stir he begins to see what an ungrateful brute he has been; and he begins to separate true friends from false ones. He thinks of the mother he neglected for supposed friends of both sexes, who are perhaps friendly at the beginning of his sentence, but soon desert him if he have a number of years to serve. Long after all others have ceased coming to see him, his old mother, bowed and sad, will trudge up the walk from the station to visit her thoughtless and erring son! She carries on her arm a heavy basket of delicacies for the son who is detested by all good citizens, and in her heart there is still hope for her boy. She has waited many years and she will continue to wait. What memories come to the mother as she sees the mansion of woes on the Hudson looming up before her! Her son is again a baby in her imagination; or a young fellow, before he began to tread the rocky path!—They soon part, for half an hour is all that is given, but they will remember forever the mothers kiss, the son's good-bye, the last choking words of love and familiar advice, as she says: "Trust in God, my lad."
After one of my mothers visits I used to have more sympathy for my fellow convicts. I was always a keen observer, and in the shops or at mess time, and when we were exercising together in lock step, or working about the yard or in the halls, I used to "feel out" my brother "cons," often with a kindly motive. I grew very expert in telling when a friend was becoming insane; for imprisonment leads to insanity, as everybody knows. Many a time a man I knew in stir would grow nervous or absent-minded, then suspicious, and finally would be sent to the madhouse at Dannemora or Matteawan.
For instance, take a friend of mine named Billy. He was doing a bit of ten years. In the fifth year of his sentence I noticed that he was brooding, and I asked him what was the matter.
"I am afraid," he said, "that my wife is going outside of me."
"You are not positive, are you?" I asked.
"Well," he answered, "she visited me the other day, and she was looking good (prosperous). My son was with her, and he looked good, too. She gave me five dollars and some delicacies. But she never had five dollars when I was on the outside."
"She's working," said I, trying to calm him.
"No; she has got a father and mother," he replied, "and she is living with them."
"Billy," I continued, "how long have you been in stir?"
"Growing on six years," he said.