The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1882-03-16
A True Tale.

eyes, Captain"
mot very sorry about it, either?"
'No, Captain"
''Glad of it, perhaps?"
"Glad to get back, Captain, but sorry
1 had to do anything wrong to get here.
But no one suffered, and l meant that
no one should. The purse without q
penny gone was returned to the owner
after the trial"
"Yes, we heard about that Walked
right into the office, took the purse and
waited to be arrested"
'That was it, Captain"
Chow much did the Judge give you
this time, Tommy
Just as good as life, Captain. Sec
ond offense, you know"
Tommy grinned weakly.
"When the officers testified I'd been
up before the Judge looked mighty
hard. When he sentenced me, he says:
Prisoner, he says, prisoner, ccnsiderln
as how you are an old offender, may as
well put you out of the way of preyin' on
the public peace and welfare again. Fiji
teen years, he says, and here l am, Cap
tain"
"Well, Tommy, that is about as good
as life."
II reckon it is, Captain" and Tommy
sighed, also weakly, not, apparently at
the length of the sentence, but at the
thought that life would end even the
pleasure of being back in his old home
again, as it ends all pleasures.
Say, Captain, that was pretty rough
in the judge saying as how l must be
put out of the way of preyin' on the pub
lie peace"
Tommy grInred again, and the Cap
tain laughed outright at the thought of
Tommy being danger to the peace OF
any community,
''Suppose I'll have to go inside for q
while, Captain" Tommy said, wistfully
looking down toward the boat house, and
then, rather regretfully ut the high brick
walls.
Eyes, for awhile, Tommy. Well have
you outside in few weeks, if you behave
yourself"
"Ain't I raw one not to behave,
though" and Tommy trotted off, shak-
ing mildly under the stress of the joke.
He trotted off with a short, springy
little step, like man wEo had been ac-
custoned to do great deal of moving
about in a confined space, and he had
done much such moving about He had
trotted about his cell and the prison
yard at the San Quentin State Prison for
sixteen years. For four years after that
he had been, what is termed in prison
parlance, "outside" That is, from the
six o'clock breakfast until the last clock
up" bell, he had performed various kinds
of duties outside the prison walls. More
than that, for the last six months
before his first term expired, he had been
allowed to cook his meals and sometimes
to sleep in a little cabin down by the
officers bath houses. He was called
Tommy the boatman, and had done lit
tie besides look after the boat and bath
houses for the last three years. He was
"chipper" little old man, with feeble thin
lips, which trembled so when you spoke
kind word to him, or praised the tidi-
ness of his cabin, that he seemed to be
saying many more thanks than were audi
BILE. He was forty years old when he
went there first, but his life inside the
walls had done more than age him six
teen years. 1t had changed him so that
nothing was left of his former self but a
recollection. Even that seemed to be q
memory of some one else. The white
haired old boatman, with the feeble thin
lips and uncertain eyes. thought, with a
kind of pity, of the forty years old ma
chine whose honest life had been SO
strangely, terribly twisted. Tommy the
boatman with no spirit to assert even the
most modest want OF his own, was sturdy
enough in his defence and admiration of
the man whose sentence he was serving.
He, himself, now, was nobody, but the
man sentenced to prison from Sacra-
mento twenty years ago. was man OF
undoubted standing, nerve and WORTH
ness. 1t was curious study, this atti-
tude Tommy the boatman assumed
towards Thomas -, who appeared to
have ended his existence when his SEN
tence to San Quentin vRs passed.
The children OF the prison officers, who
listened 10 Tommy talk Of himself before
he was 'con.," doubtless had some
such thoughts a. come to us when We
hear drunken father praise his chill
dren, or see bright. decent children of
dissolute parents. We wonder how such
progeny can come from such stock yet
we do not doubt, for we see. Tommy
never complained, never denied his
guilt, or uttered longings--wild, i'm
patient longings--for the other life Of
freedom he had left. AL that was passed