A few comments in the cell house on the day of Tom Brown’s arrival at Auburn Prison to start his self-imposed bit.
“Hello, Bill! There he goes. And say, he just walks with the confidence of an old timer! Well, old pals, you will have to take your hats off to him as a game one, all right!”
By this time all the keepers in the cell house looking through the windows. But not with that same old smile they usually carry. Someone sung in a low tone that old time melody,
“O what has changed them?”
and the gang had to take to cover; a look from some of the sore keepers made it plain we better move.
While he was down getting dolled up in his new suit of gray, someone asked where the P. K. was; and Jack replied, “Why, he just passed me over in the alley; and say, fellows, he has got so thin I didn’t know him; I guess you’ll find him over in the jail office hiding behind a broom.”
Someone gave us the wire that Tom was coming up the yard again, and we made a bee line for a rubber. Sure enough there is Tom, coming up the line in his new college makeup and a prison towel in his hand. All the boys stood quiet and watched. In fact nine out of ten had a lump in his throat too big to swallow. I must confess I got a cold chill that ran down my back, and it jumped from limb to limb like a cobblestone. Well, after we all came to, “our brave Tom” was locked in his cell, 15-2-N.N.W.; and then the stoolpigeons was put to work to watch who went to speak with him.
These extracts, which are given verbatim, throw interesting sidelights upon the attitude and state of mind of the prisoners—their extreme sensitiveness, their instant response to kindness, real or fancied, their relations to their keepers, their ready cheerfulness and sense of humor. As one can see, there was arising among them at the very outset something quite unexpected—a deep sense of gratitude for what they persisted in thinking a great sacrifice on my part; an eager answer to the sympathy from the outer world which my coming among them typified. The lump in the throat at the first sight of Tom Brown clad as a convict is significant of many things. The fact that they all greatly exaggerated my personal discomfort and in so many ways gave me credit where none was due, is only an evidence of their hunger for the human relationship, for that sympathy from our fellowmen which we all crave so intensely, and from which convicts are very far from exempt. There is no need to comment further upon these interesting extracts.
It is a real pity that we can not have as well the views of the third party in the affair—the keepers. Frank comment from them would be also most valuable. I only hope that the one who, on a certain occasion, invited and came very near receiving, personal violence by ejaculating, “Damn fool!” behind my back, represented an exception. Unquestionably, however, he did voice a considerable amount of official sentiment within the prison, as well as much unofficial sentiment outside. That was so natural as to be inevitable. There are always those who will misunderstand one’s motives and actions, no matter how plain the explanation may be.