The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-04-02
CHAPTER XIII.

to me that something more must come;
that what I had gone through could
mean the life Of day must surely be
impossible. Was there nothing before
me but isolation so complete that no
whisper from the outside world could
reach me-that world which, compared
with the death into which I was being
absorbed, seemed the only world of the
living?
Had I actually nothing to look for
but the most repulsive work under the
most repulsive conditions? I said there
must be surely some change; that wheel
ing mud forever was not the doom of
any man and could certainly not be
NINE
looked about my little cell, the still
ness of the grave without, the utter soil
tude within. The untouched ration
which formed my supper was on the
table-eight ounces of black bread. Try
as I might to cheat myself with hope
knew that hope for many long year
there was none; that, so far as the most
vindictive sentence could compass it, for
many long year the earth with her
bars was about me.
No ''De profundis'' cry could ever as
cend from the abyss to the bottom Of
which had fallen. What was outside
Of me had nothing but the hideous.
But although the visible seemed cor
ruption and the things which my soul
and body, too, had refused to touch were
become my sorrowful meat, yet I could
not but feel that the invisible, that part
Of me which no bars could hold and no
man deprive me of, was still my own,
and that in it I might and would find
sufficient tosupport what began to feel
was, after all, the only man.
To face the actualities of the position
was the first thing; not to cheat myself,
the second. had seen the sort of men
was to be with. set to work to study
and to understand the kind of life we
were to live together.
At early dawn we rose, receiving i'm
mediately after the nine ounces Of brea,.
and pint of oatmeal Cruel which COM
posed breakfast; at $50 to chapel to
hear one Of the schoolmasters drone
through the morning prayers Of the Eng
ish church service and listen to some
hymn shouted out from Threats never
accustomed to such accents. Then the
morning hours would drag slowly on in
the summers sun and winters blast un-
til the noon hour; then there was the
long march back from the scene of my
toll to the prison for dinner. Arriving
there, each man went to his cell, closing
his door, which snapped to, having q
spring lock. Soon after dinner is given,
consisting of 16 ounces Of boiled potatoes
and five ounces Of bread, varied on three
days Of the week with five ounces of
meat additional. At O'Clock the doors
were unlocked, and we marched out to
our work again. At night, returning to
the prison, eight ounces of black bread
would be doled out for supper. Then
came the hours between supper and bed
time, when, shut in between those mar
row walls, one realized what it was to
be prisoner.
In the corner Of the cell there was q
board let into the stonework that served
as bed, table and chair. There was a
thin pallet and two blankets rolled up
together during the day in corner of
the cell that served for bedding, but so
thin and hard was the pallet that one
might almost as we'll have slept on the
board. For the first few weeks this bed
made my bones ache Most men have
little patience and small fortitude, and
this bed kills many Of the prisoners
mean breaks their hearts simply because
they have not the wit to accept the mat
ter philosophically and realize that
they can soon become used to any hard
ship. It took six months for my bones
to become used to the hard bed, but for
the next 10 years used to sleep as
sweetly on that oak board as ever did
or now do in bed Of down, only, like
Jean Vatican in ''Les Miserables," I
had become SO used to it that upon my
liberation I found it impossible for a
time to sleep in bed
I have related how the Sunday after
my sentence in my despair ! took the
little Bible of the shelf. The other
books had at Chatham besides the BIZ