Jessie wrapped her arms about her ears. It was too pitiful.
Yet she had to listen. She understood by this time that the women were not talking to themselves but conversing from cell to cell. As the keepers presumably retired to the rotunda, and there was no danger of interruption, the voices became louder. Prisoners were not content with talking to their next door neighbours, but raised their voices to hail friends at a little distance. With dozens of conversations going on at once it was like a babel, yet with long practice each seemed able to pick out her particular voice and answer it.
Jessie presently distinguished a voice close to her, saying: "Hey, there! ... Hey, there! ... Hey, there! You girl in the next cell! Hey, you that was brought in this afternoon. Yella hair! ..."
Jessie realised that this had been going on for some moments. But the voice seemed to come out of the air; she could not localise it. "Do you mean me?" she asked astonished.
"Sure, I mean you. You're next to me, ain't you? You're on my right, I'm on your left. Come over close to that side, and we kin talk easy."
Jessie sat on the end of her bed. Leaning her head against the stone, and putting her lips to the lattice work she was within a foot of her unseen neighbour.
"I don't suppose you got a cigarette," said the voice wistfully.
"Yes, I got a couple." said Jessie.
"No!" said the voice full of delight. "How did you get by with it?"
"Hid 'em in my hair."
"They made me take mine down."
"Mine's already down. It's bobbed. But it's bushy."
"Yes, I seen you when you went by. Have you got a match, too?"
"Yep. In the same place. But how can I pass it to you?"
"You're a first offender, eh? Take a hairpin and unbend it——"
"I don't wear hairpins."
"Well, stick your thumb and forefinger through, and throw it best way you can. It's on'y a few inches. I got three hairpins I can twist together. I'll make out to hook it in."
Here there was a long pause in the conversation, while the girl next door fished for her prizes. At last there was an exclamation of satisfaction, and the striking of a match; presently followed by a groan of content.
"——! I wanted that, kid! ... How many more you got?"
"Two more," said Jessie. "I'm smoking now."
"Got any money?"
"A few dollars."
"Smitty'll get you some, if you want to pay the price. Smitty's the hard-boiled egg that brought your supper. She's a Shylock. God! I hate her! It's a dollar a pack."
"We'll have to have 'em," said Jessie.
"Say, I'm glad you're next to me, kid. I had a dope before you, and before her a murderess who got salvation."
Heads to the wall, and faces to the bars, they entered upon a long murmured talk. Prison had its alleviations after all. Looking sideways they could see each other's smoke drifting out. That made it wonderfully companionable. "What's your name? How old are you? What are you in for? What did you get?" such are the invariable openers. Jessie then listened to another tale of human frailty and misadventure which I shall not put down here, since it has nothing to do with this story. It made her heart swell with pity; it was not for her to judge.
The girl next door was Minnie Dickerson, and she was twenty-four years old. She had been in Woburn for over three years, and was looking forward to her release at Christmas. Her present predicament, "in solitary," was due to her having sassed the matron, but as the said matron was due to leave on September first, Minnie hoped that the offence would not count against her record.
Jessie took advantage of a lull to ask offhand: "Was it from this tier that Melanie Soupert escaped?"
"Sure!" said Minnie. "She had the fourth cell to the right from you. The window is the second one from the one in front of your cell. Funny you should ask about her. She was a pal of mine. When she was first sent up here over two years ago, we were cell-mates for a time. They all thought Melanie was a hard nut, but she wasn't hard to me. We meant a lot to each other. She was a bold and nervy girl; she attracted the attention of the big fellows...."
"What big fellows?" asked Jessie.
"Well, this one is called Jonathan Wild, but that's just a name they gave him. I think they got it out of a book. They say he's got an absolutely water-tight organisation. They say his influence extends right into the Governor's private office. He can do anything he wants. His particular graft is to help poor devils to break prison, and then set them to work for him, see? But as escaped convicts they belong to him body and soul, and I understand he's not one to let anything get by him. If they do anything to make him sore, he can have them back behind the bars within twenty-four hours, with added penalties. For that matter, he could have them knocked over the head, and stuck under ground if he wanted. Because in the eyes of the law they're as good as dead already. I say, you'd better be here."
"I say so, too," murmured Jessie.
"I was approached a little while back," Minnie went on, "but I made out I didn't get it. I on'y got six months more to serve; I'd be a fool to risk all the rest of my young days.... This Jonathan Wild has a house somewheres in New York—I don't know where it is, where the cons are kept under cover. Pretty damned well under cover, as I understand, for they're never let out by day or by night except there's a job to be pulled off; a safe to be cracked; a mail truck held up; or the pearls plucked from some dame. Then they're shut up again after. All the regular business of the gang is carried on by the outside fellows who are not convicts. And they never come to the house, see? Oh, it's slick! It wasn't Melanie told me all this, I picked it up from the talk around the prison.
"And none of the poor birds in that cage are ever allowed to see the big boss. They feel his power without ever clapping eyes on him. He's a sort of a myth to them. His representative in the house is a woman. I've seen her. They say she has the entree to every prison in the State. Smooth as velvet she is. I wouldn't like her to get her hooks into me.
"But Melanie was a lively girl; you know, the hell-to-pay and don't-give-a-whoop kind. Always had to be doing something. So she fell for the proposition, and they got her out. This was over two years ago, and I suppose she's been working for them ever since. I never heard from her. Then she was sent back here, but we were both in solitary, and she was five cells away. We could holler to each other, but we couldn't have any intimate talk.
"But pretty soon I heard they were getting her out again. Of course everybody on the corridor knew about it; we could hear the rasp of her saw when all was quiet. Word was passed along to me from cell to cell what night it was going to be, so I waited up. As soon as she was out she come to my cell, and we saw each other again. She hadn't changed any, but she was better-looking. Her eyes were shining.
"She says: 'Hello, old kid! What's the good word?' And I says: 'Give my regards to Broadway.' She says: 'I can't stop; the boys are waiting for me. I just wanted to take a squint at your ol' mug.'
"She wanted to give me her saws, but they wouldn't have done me no good, as I had nobody on the outside to help me. It would only have got me in Dutch.
"I was half crying; all I could say was: 'Oh, Melanie!' And poke my fingers out through the slats at her. She says, making out to jolly like she always did: 'I been through hell, kid. And I'm going back—to the hottest part.' 'Don't do it! Don't do it!' I says. 'Thirteen years!' says she; 'I can't face it. I'd hang myself to the door of my cell with my stockings. Besides,' she said, 'I had a taste of heaven outside, too.' 'The real thing?' I says. She nodded. 'Like a book,' she says.
"She says: 'He was on the outside and I was on the inside, and the boss wouldn't let us be together. So we flew the coop. And got stepped on. The word went out that it was back to Woburn for me. In order to save my lad I made out to turn him down, see? Call him all names. He thought I meant it, and I never had no chance to explain. It's a near thing for me now. They're laying for me, and if I so much as cock my eyebrow crooked, it'll be Nearer My God to Thee.'
"She says: 'Promise me something, Min., you'll soon be out of here. If you ever come up with my lad, tell him I never changed. His name is George Mullen, and he's got an old mother keeps a little stationery store on Columbus Avenue. Her name is Harvest. Maybe you can reach him through her. If they keep me from him, or if they do me in, tell him I never changed, see? Tell him that one week was worth all the rest, and my last thought would be of that, see?'
"I was fair bawling by this time, and I couldn't say nothing, just nod my head. Melanie kissed me through the slats, and beat it. I watched her climb up the bars inside the window, and I saw them help her through at the top. I ain't heard nothing since, of course. I was half hoping they'd catch her. She'd be safer here."
The long hours dragged by with deathly slowness. During the day a keeper sat at the end of the corridor, and any talking between cells would bring down a reprimand. For the most part the occupants of the solitary cells stood hour after hour pressing their bodies against the cell doors, all with heads turned to the left, in the hope of seeing somebody come along the corridor. But, except at meal times, there was rarely an occasion for anybody to come.
However, it was in the middle of the afternoon, when the heavy sullen figure of the keeper they called "Smitty" stumped down the corridor, followed as far as possible by every white face, and stopped at the door of Jessie Seipp's cell.
"You're ordered before the doctor," she grumbled.
"There's nothing the matter with me," said Jessie, surprised.
Smitty brought her face close to the lattice work. "Ah-h! what's the matter with you?" she whispered. "Are yeh so crazy about it in here? Don't you want a walk?"
"Why, sure," said Jessie.
The door was unlocked, and she stepped out. Though it was only the prison corridor, she felt like a released bird. She tried her legs with delight, and discovered that they still performed their office. She had the merest glimpse of her friend, Minnie, as she passed, bits of a white face in the interstices of the lattice-work, with a suggestion of sunken brown eyes; fingers clutching the iron straps with nails bitten down to the quick. From other cells, cries, jocular and envious, greeted her.
"What yer doin' out of yer room?"
"Graft!"
"The Warden's got a crush on her!"
To all Jessie prudently answered: "Going to the doctor."
When they were near the end of the corridor, Smitty whispered out of the side of her mouth: "Don't let them see you out in the rotunda. Keep behind me, and when we get to the bottom of the stairs slide up. I'll follow you."
The chair, inside the gate, where the male keeper usually sat, was empty, and Jessie supposed that Smitty had an understanding with him to keep out of the way while they passed through. This was the gate which was locked at night. On the other side there was a little vaulted entry into which the stairs for that wing descended, and through the entry, the great rotunda of the cell block, where there were always people moving.
Jessie turned aside to the stairs, and Smitty, facing about, joined her. "You got a visitor," she said, leering with a horrible oiliness that was the natural complement to her usual brutality. "A real nice lady. I hadn't the heart to disappoint her, though it's as much as me job's worth. You wouldn't do me dirt, would you, when I'm tryin' to put somepin your way?"
It was revolting to have to play up to this creature, but Jessie swallowed the dose. "Absolutely not, sister," she said. "I don't know what the dope is, but I'm ready for anything."
"A real nice lady!" said Smitty again. "She visits the prisoners just out of kindness. You can depend on what she says."
Jessie thought: "A recommendation from you ought to be enough to warn a one-year-old child."
They went up four flights of stairs. Inside the gate to each tier sat a male keeper, who glanced at them indifferently as they passed. They were no business of his. At the top they turned to the right, and came out on the topmost gallery encircling the rotunda. Since each wing had its own enclosed stair, these galleries were very little used. Half-way round the gallery, Smitty, with sly looks all around to make sure they were unobserved, suddenly pulled Jessie through a small door, which she made haste to close softly behind them. Inside, Jessie stumbled over some steps. Following Smitty up the steps, she bumped her head on a wooden trap-door in the floor overhead.
Smitty scratched on the trap in a peculiar way. There was the sound of a heavy weight being moved overhead, then the trap was lifted, and daylight came down. They mounted the remaining steps, and came out into a vast attic, or rather a series of attics, over the entire cell block, lighted by an occasional dormer window. Except for miscellaneous litter, the place was empty, and was apparently put to no use. The architectural design of the prison called for a pointed roof, that was all, and here it was. The centre of the space was closed in by the false dome of the rotunda, and the wings radiated out like the spokes of a wheel.
"What strange rites am I to participate in up here?" thought Jessie.
When she turned around she saw the person who had lifted the trap. She was surprised, because this woman suggested the most intense respectability. She looked like the mistress of a successful boarding-house; a woman with money, who considered every penny before she let go of it. Her face was a mask, but that was in character, too, for city boarding-house keepers have to learn to mask their features. It was rather a comely mask, with commanding gray eyes and a resolute mouth. She was over fifty, and what is called "well-preserved." Her hair was as black as coal. Her clothes were of excellent quality, but several seasons out of date—or of no particular date. These were her Sunday clothes, only put on for an occasion, and therefore expected to last for a long time.
Jessie could make nothing of her. She thought: "She'll have to give herself away when she begins to talk."