The next day, curiosity mastered fear. I asked my grandfather who had written that paper, and was told in reply that it was poor crazy Jacob. I then begged to see him, but this request my grandfather decidedly refused, saying that he was like a wild beast and lay without clothes upon the straw. I knew nothing of lunatics, and the idea of a wild man stimulated my curiosity to such an extent that from that time I teased my grandfather incessantly to let me see Jacob. He finally yielded to be rid of my importunity and led me to the cell in which he was confined. What a spectacle presented itself in the house that I had looked on as the abode of so much comfort! On a bundle of straw in a corner of the room, with no furniture save its bare walls, sat a man clad only in a shirt, with the left hand chained to the wall and the right foot to the floor. An inkstand stood on the floor by his side, and on his knee was some paper on which he was writing. His hair and beard were uncombed, and his fine eyes glared with fury as we approached him. He tried to rise, ground his teeth, made grimaces, and shook his fist at my grandfather, who tried in vain to draw me out of the room.
But, escaping from his grasp, I stepped towards the lunatic who grew more quiet when he saw me approach, and I tried to lift the chain which had attracted my attention. Then, finding it too heavy for me, I turned to my grandfather and asked, “Does not this hurt the poor man?” I had hardly spoken the words when his fury returned, and he shrieked:
“Have I not always told you that you were cruel to me? Must this child come to convince you of your barbarity? Yes, you have no heart.”
I looked at my grandfather: all my admiration of him was gone, and I said, almost commandingly:
“Take off these chains! It is bad of you to tie this man!”
The man grew calm at once and asked imploringly to be set free, promising to be quiet and tractable if my grandfather would give him a trial. His chains were removed the same day, and Jacob was ever after not only harmless and obedient but a very useful man in the house.
I never afterwards accompanied my grandfather. I had discovered a side in his nature which repelled me. I spent the remainder of my visit in the work rooms and the sick room, always secretly fearing that I should meet with some new cruelty, but no such instance ever came to my view.
On my return from my grandfather’s I found that a cousin had suddenly become blind. She was soon after sent to the ophthalmic hospital, where she remained for more than a year, and, during this time, I was her constant companion after school hours. I was anxious to be useful to her; and being gentler than the nurse, she liked to have me wash out the issues that were made in her back and arms. The nurse, who was very willing to be relieved of this duty, allowed me also to cleanse the eyes of the girl next my cousin; and thus these cares were soon made to depend on my daily visit.
Child as I was, I could not help observing the carelessness of the nurses and their great neglect of cleanliness. One day, when the head nurse had washed the floor and left pools of water standing under the beds, the under nurse found fault with it, and said, “I shall tell the doctor when he comes why it is that the patients always have colds.” “Do,” said the head nurse. “What do men understand of such matters? If they knew anything about them, they would long ago have taken care that the mattress upon which one patient dies should always be changed before another comes in.”
This quarrel impressed itself upon my memory, and the wish rose in my mind that some day I might be a head nurse to prevent such wrongs and to show kindness to poor lunatics.