“I have to work hard in this place.”
Ime a wheelin coal to the furnace and a wheelin hot cinders away.
It keeps me bizzy.
There are lots of men in here. A great many for beggin—jist as I am. Betsy, dont let the neighbors know they have me locked up. I feel so disgraced.
I feel that if that “Director of Charities,” that had me arrested and put in here, had known that I had feelins; if he had known that I was a honest old man; if he had thought of the difference between a old man, hungry, away from home and out of money—I say, Betsy, if he had thought of the difference between sich a man as I was and a man drawin $5,000 a year as a leadin city officer, like hisself, I dont think he could have had the heart to have had me arrested and sent to prison.
Lots of the fellers in here seem to be honest, kind-hearted people, but poor and away from home. Not bein known to the officers, they are arrested and sent out here.
Betsy, I long to see you. When I git out I will come back. I cant find any work up here. Nobody seems to want to hire me.
My hand is sore. I can hardly use it. But then the feller what watches me work keeps me a goin. He dont allow me to stop a minit from the time they let me out of my cell in the mornin till they lock me in it agin at nite.
The way I come to hurt my hand was—I had a dream. Ive been a dreamin more or less for some time. Ime so tired and my bed is so hard. I suppose I dont sleep sound is why I dream so.
I dreamed I was in this work-house and there was more than a thousand other men in, and a comin in from ten to thirty a day—mostly for bein hungry and beggin.