A POUND OF DRY BREAD
and unlimited water and considerable salt was the bill of fare, my revolted appetite refused to be led into such pastures. As before, my rations were eagerly seized by my fellow-prisoners.
When Turnkey Allan came in for the working squad after breakfast, he chose me as a member of it. This frightened me almost to death. I had visions of men working on the roads in chains, and I said tremulously that I wasn’t able to work. “Oh, you’ll feel better outside. You won’t have to work very hard.” So out I went wheeling a barrow with a pick and shovel in it. The squad were engaged in taking clay out of a bank on the hill beside the jail, and were wheeling it down to the road. No one who has not undergone captivity, can understand the feelings of a prisoner. It was a lovely summer day this, and as I looked from the brow of the hill up and down the wide-reaching valley of the Don, I could not believe that I could not obey my own inclinations, but was bound to submit my goings and comings to the will of the two turnkeys who were in charge of the squad. I was very weak, and I thought my heart must break.
“Here, B⸺,” said one of the turnkeys named Norris, “take hold of this wheelbarrow.”
They were very considerate to me, giving me very small loads of clay, but nevertheless in half an hour my hands were so blistered that the handles of the infernal vehicle seemed as if they were red-hot. At length I fell on my knees from pure exhaustion—prostrated in mind and body.
“He’s not able to work,” said one of the other prisoners.
“Let him lie on the bank,” said one of the turnkeys to the other. “He’ll be better out here than inside.”
And he was right. I lay in the warm sun, and presently began to experience a feeling of hunger. Just as I was experiencing this hopeful sensation I heard some one say on the bank below, “Where is that man B⸺?”
MY HEART GAVE A GREAT THROB,
the blood rushed into my head, and everything swam before me. I did not swoon, however. I was taken back to the jail by the turnkey, who had been sent for me. There I found my sister talking with the deputy-governor. I could not speak; I shook her hand. I was taken upstairs and had my own clothes restored to me, and in ten minutes was walking down the hill. The evulsion of feeling was so great that I had no sense of shame. I simply felt like a new man—and I was. That jail experience of mine was the turning point of my life. I determined to stay right in the city here and live down my disgrace. For six weeks I went out every morning and looked for work, but without success. I returned to my home every evening and stayed there. It was very discouraging, and required all the resolution I was capable of to keep myself from slipping back. One day I went to my present employer. I had heard that he wanted a junior bookkeeper. I told him my whole story. He engaged me. That was over five years ago, and I am there yet.”