"Well, to make a long story short, next mornin' airly, while the men was bein' rung out, I was a settin' things to rights in the warden's office, when he comes runnin' in in a great fluster, an' sez he to the deputy, 'Sweeney's fell from the third corridor, an' I guess he's 'bout done for. He's up,' sez he, 'in the hospital. Send for the doctor, an' the crowner, too, as quick as possible.' I was dretful flurried, but I got through my work somehow, an' by'm by I went inside to clean up the passage, an' when I see some spots o' blood there, I knowed what that meant. Arterwards, I heerd the warden an' the chaplain talkin' it over, an', as fur as I could larn, the little 'tuckered-out' man never spoke to nobody arter they took him up, though he lived half an hour. The crowners they sot on him, an' brung in a verdick of 'death by accident,' but I hed his goold ring on my finger, an' I knew all about Deely. 'An',' sez I to myself, 'some accidents is done a purpose, I reckon!'
"Next day was Friday, an' a feller who'd had a visit from his sister come along feelin' purty chipper, with a big bowkay in his fist. He pulled out a spice pink an' a couple o' sprigs o' rose geranium, an' gin 'em to me, an', thinkin' they might come in play, I put 'em by, in a bottle o' water.
"Well, long in the forenoon, I had to kerry some truck to the hospital, an' I took my little posy along. There stood the coffin, all ready for Tewksbury, for the warden was away that day, and they wa'n't goin' to have service over the body, as most ginerally they do. I asked the super ef I might look at the corpse, and sez he, 'Certainly, Hiram,' an' he steps up to the coffin an' lifts the forrard kiver, an' bless me! ef I wa'n't beat! There lay the little 'tuckered-out' man, as smilin' as a basket o' chips!
"I suppose I 'peared kinder took aback, for the super he says to me, sez he, 'Don't he look naterel to you, Hiram?' 'Nateral, sir?' sez I, 'an' that contented! Why, I never should ha' knowed him, ef I'd met him anywheres else!' Well, the super he kind er smiled, an' walked off, an' I stood there a minnit or so, a lookin' at the corpse, an' a thinkin'; an' sez I to myself, 'We know pleggy little 'bout t'other world anyhow. The Scripters, now,' sez I, 'doos say that arter death there ain't neither merryin' nor givin' in merrige. Howsomedever,' I sez, 'I'll put my spice pink an' my geranium sprigs inside the coffin.' An' I did. An' then I pulled off the goold ring with the two hearts an' the 'D' inside on't. 'Fur,' sez I, 'though I won't ezackly go agin Scripter, I'm sartin sure that Sweeney wouldn't lay here that smilin', ef he hadn't someways, in t'other world, got wind o' Deely.' So I slipped that ring on to his stiff merrige finger, an' as I shet the coffin up, an' come away, I e'en a'most thought I heerd him larf right out."
[A PRISON CHILD.]
AT an age when most children are tenderly wrapped in the cotton-wool of domestic seclusion, that golden-haired toddler, the warden's daughter, a motherless little creature, escaped from the careless durance of a busy maid of all work, had become, comparatively, a public character, and, no longer a private baby, had been tacitly appropriated by an entire prison community.