All the women attended rehearsals. They brought their crocheting, their bits of sewing, and sat quietly while the picked fifty tackled long words and difficult choruses. This in itself was a big concession. The women were all supposed to be in their rooms, and it was argued that they would be restless and unmanageable, given so much liberty. But they weren’t. They looked forward with the keenest enjoyment to the rehearsals, and it was because the company was accustomed to playing before an audience that not a member showed the slightest evidence of “stage fright,” or even of self-consciousness, at the final performance.
While the performance was going on the rest of the women were working on the prison grounds, in the kitchen, in the laundry, in the machine rooms, but they were as excited about the event as though they were to be present. Whenever a matron appeared, or Mrs. Hodder, the head of the prison, stopped to say a word to them, they asked eagerly about the guests, were there many of them, had the Governor arrived, did they get a sword for the Major General?
Upstairs in the chapel a squad of girls worked for several hours before the performance, setting the stage. The scenery had been painted by the girls themselves and would have done credit to Granville Barker. Towering rocks, a rolling ocean in the back, a cave that looked as though it might harbor any number of murderous pirates, and real trees. Little birches had been cut down, and the girls worked long and earnestly setting them in pails of water behind “rocks.” In spite of a couple of savage onslaughts, one from the pirates in full force with daggers drawn, and one from the energetic police, the trees stayed upright with only a couple of quiverings.
The team work displayed by these outcast members of society, who do not fit into our “organization,” was something of a revelation.
“Get out of this dust, Julia,” cried the stage hands dragging birch trees to their places, as the pirate king appeared in the chapel doorway. “Don’t you know dust will ruin your voice?”
“Mis’ Wilki’son, don’t you touch them trees, you’ll get your hands so rough you can’t play this afternoon,” and, “Mabel, I thought you was goin’ to lay down and get rested—you’ll be all worn out.”
“Emma, don’t let Mis’ Wilki-son sweep the floor—Mis’ Wilki-son, let us have a matron up here and you go and get some rest, we can fix everything now.”
What this means will be realized fully only by those who know the general temper of the women confined in our penal institutions, who have seen the sullenness, the bitter vindictiveness, the complaining spirit of the greater part of them. The girls of the old-style reformatory or prison have much time to themselves, and they put in every minute of it inspecting and piling up their grievances. Even when they are occupied they are thinking about themselves; naturally, they take little interest in doing kitchen or laundry work, or in running machines.
Sullenness and distrust, a hardened suspicion of everything that is done for them, are the biggest difficulties in the way of the woman who tries to “get at” the girls. Mrs. Wilkinson has shifted the emphasis. She does not think so much about “getting at” the girls. She tries rather to get them away from themselves.
She does not bother with the girls’ little sordid histories. She sees in them so many voices, so many dancers. Her mind is intent on just one thing—the operetta, the minstrel show, the Easter chorus that is in progress. Her enthusiasm is unlimited. The girls see her up at 5 o’clock in the morning getting ready for rehearsals, trying out voices, arranging tableaux, planning costumes down to the smallest detail, as if this were the most important thing in the world, and they gradually forget to sulk, and turn in to work.