Roxella's Prisoner

THE house part, painted white with neat green blinds, faced the village and the sunrise with an air of conscious rectitude, which quite overshadowed all suggestion of bad company. The dingy stone structure in its rear looked away through narrow close-barred windows to the open country and the hills. There were no other buildings near, for the shire town of Evergreen County was but a sleepy country village after all, and prospecting home builders by common consent avoided the near neighborhood of Evergreen County Jail. Yet it had been a not unpeaceful neighborhood in years gone by. For long months of many years the narrow stone rooms had stood closed and tenantless, or open only to admit a mild offender for the briefest possible term. Evergreen County was the banner county of the state, and Peterson Thomas, who had been its sheriff, and jailer for twelve successive years, boasted freely of the county’s record during that time. “We ain’t sent but three to State Prison in all them years, ” he was fond of asserting, “and one of them I never felt sure ought to gone; this circumstantial evidence is a terrible clincher when it comes to provin’ things that could have happened so and so whether they actually did or not. The other two I ain’t got nothin’ to say for. They might have been guilty of the crimes charged against ’em, and then again they might n’t. But I’m free to confess, after a close acquaintance of two months, that prison was the proper place for ’em both on any charge whatsoever that would gain ’em entrance there, whether they did it or not. I never could see no real good reason why the brains we send down to Augnsty year after year, and pay ’em high to go, could n’t make a law that ’ll take care of the natural-born criminal before he actually jeperdizes the safety an’ wellbein’ of the community. A villain ’s a villain so fur as that goes, and any honest man of good judgment can size him up first jest as easy as last. But then professional villains ain’t common to Evergreen County. No, sir. Our folks for the most part are an honest, good-intentioned sort of fellers, who ’d done a heap better if they had n’t meant so well. Weak wills and shiftlessness may be full as aggravatin’ as crime, but they ’re more respectable.”

For Jailer Thomas in his career as sheriff had learned to regard his prisoners with much the same loyalty which Dr. Roswell, president of a neighboring college, felt toward his students.

“If the other party don’t increase in power more ’n they have, Emily Ann, you and me bids fair to die in harness,” Jailer Thomas frequently assured his good wife. “Well, we might done worse. It’s a peaceful life, and our record ’s one to be proud of. Heaven grant there don’t no murders nor bank robberies come up in this county to disgrace us in our old age.”

That the thirteenth year of his term of office entered upon Friday was not at the time regarded by the good man as a specially ominous circumstance, yet he recalled it mournfully when, in the months following, the jail experienced what Mrs. Thomas declared to be “a terrible rush of business, ” and seven of its ten cells were occupied at once by offenders of varying degrees of crime. Peterson Thomas was plunged in gloom. “We ’re goin’ back on our record,” he declared mournfully. “I’d ought to let well enough alone, and refused to run the thirteenth year.” His dejection did not lessen when just before spring planting an attack of lumbago prostrated the energetic mistress of the house.

“I sh’ll have to have a girl, Peterson,” she said tearfully, — “I that ’s made my boasts never once to have hired a day’s work or a washing done in all my married life. Poor health in itself ’s a dretful affliction, but it ’s nothin’ in my opinion to the hired help which comes in its train.” Sheriff Thomas, sitting hopelessly on the edge of her bed, whistled a funeral march in dreary notes.

“ The case is peculiar, ” he declared as the tune came to an end, “and ordinary hired help ain’t fit to be trusted with county responsibilities. I wonder if one of Hiram Hodges’s girls would n’t come down for a spell jest to accommodate. The Hodgeses are mighty dependable stock, and in pickin’ a hired help for the county I feel jest as I did in pickin’ a wife for myself,— the best ain’t none too good.”

“I don’t believe but what they would, ” assented Mrs. Thomas in a relieved tone. “Never havin’ been used to village life, those girls would n’t be light-headed and flighty like so many young folks nowadays. You better set right down and write up to their folks. ”

So it came about that one April morning Roxella, youngest of Hiram Hodges’s seven daughters, stood just behind Jailer Thomas while he unlocked the heavy iron door which shut the stone jail off from the white house. Roxella’s rosy cheeks were a little pale. “I ’m almost scairt,” she acknowledged in an awestruck whisper. “Are they awful bad ? ”

“Bad enough,” returned Jailer Thomas, whose gloom was still apparent. “There ain’t no actual murderers among them that ’s ever manifested themselves as such, but there ’s one sheep thief which makes the general average pretty low. That ’s him sulkin’ by the window of his cell ’way down along. I’ve had several sheep thieves more or less in the last twelve years, but I can’t recall one that’s ever turned out well yet. Now mind, Roxelly, you ain’t to hold any converse with ’em whatsoever. I don’t know what your father ’n’ mother ’d say to me lettin’ you sweep this corridor anyhow, but I’m clear at my wit’s end unless you do. I ’m too fur behind with the county’s plantin’ to do any more such work myself, and I don’t dare risk Emily Ann gettin’ around to see it in this state. Like enough she ’d have a relapse. You ain’t scairt, be you? There ain’t none of ’em really dangerous. If they speak to you don’t answer. They get sassy sometimes.”

Left alone in the long chilly corridor, lighted only by a high window at either end, Roxella strove to quiet her fears. “There is n’t anything to be scared of, ” she assured herself, even while uncomfortably mindful of interested faces looking out upon her from five of the grated doors.

“Good-mornin’, miss, how long are you in fur? ” called a derisive voice.

“Sent up for stealin’ some poor feller’s heart most likely, ” added another. Roxella did not even glance toward the line of doors, but commenced her work in a far corner by an unoccupied cell. “ I won’t be scared, ” she insisted to herself, and in an attempt to prove it began the first verse of Pull for the Shore, in a voice which quavered noticeably at first, but increased in power as she sang. “That’s a handsome piece, miss; give us another, ” suggested the prisoner who had first accosted her, as the song came to an end. The voice at least held no note of wickedness, and Roxella, though mindful of her instructions to make no reply, summoned courage for a glance in its direction. The glance was followed at intervals in her work by others toward the line of faces still regarding her with deep interest. Roxella’s spirits lightened suddenly, and she was conscious that she had expected to find these prisoners not unlike the Wild Man from Orinoco, who had grimaced and gnashed his teeth at her from his securely barred cage in the circus at Plainville last summer. These men, hardened criminals though they were in Roxella’s estimation, differed not in general appearance from the customers she was accustomed to serve in her father’s little country hotel far up the river. Four of them were young, not so very far past her own age. The fifth, a gray-haired man, whose mild blue eyes smiled vacantly upon her, called her Susie, and begged her to bring him a handful of dandelions from the grassy yard below. Roxella hesitated. Jailer Thomas’s prohibition of conversation had not included dandelions. “He ain’t wicked so much as he is foolish,” decided Roxella as she passed the coveted blossoms through the grating. " And goodness knows I’ve seen fools enough in my life, so I need n’t be scared of them.” She shook her head in refusal of a polite request for squash blossoms from cell No. 4, and even smiled guardedly at No. 3’s petition for a fresh watermelon. It was not so bad after all; these young men might have been a party of honest woodsmen come in for supper after a hard day’s toil. She glanced with some apprehension at the occupant of No. 6, who had thus far taken no notice of her presence. “That ’s the sheep stealer, ” she remembered uncomfortably, with a second glance at the stalwart figure which stood back to the door with hands deep in its pockets, staring out of the narrow window. “He looks dangerous, ” decided Roxella.

There was one more prisoner, a little apart from the others, in cell No. 9. Roxella noticed with some curiosity that this cell was larger than the others and rather more comfortable. A vase of flowers stood upon the window ledge, and a table with writing materials occupied the centre of the room. A young man whose dress was somewhat superior to that of the other prisoners sat beside the table, his head pillowed upon his folded arms. Roxella observed that his hair was black and curly, and wondered as she carefully swept the corners of his doorway what injustice or misfortune had brought him here. “He certainly ain’t like the others, ” she decided, even before the prisoner lifted his head to regard her mournfully with large eyes set in a face of startling pallor. He sighed heavily and dropped his head upon his arms once more. The girl’s heart stirred with pity, and she began to regret the command which prevented an expression of it. She lingered a little by the door, wondering if he would address her, but he took no further notice of her presence.

“Roxelly, ” said Peterson Thomas doubtfully, three mornings later, “do you s’pose you could give the boarders their feed, come noontime, for a spell? Now we ’re workin’ on that northeast medder I could save an hour for the county ev’ry day by not comin’ home. I hate to have you do it, but it don’t seem jest right to waste the county’s time. You would n’t be scairt, would you ? ”

Roxella consented readily. “Not a mite,” she declared.

“So fur as that goes,” Peterson Thomas continued musingly, “I s’pose you’ve fed worse criminals ’n they be, many ’s the time, and never give it a thought. The criminals ain’t all behind bars, and there ’s some men in that ought to be out, though that ain’t for us to settle. I ain ’t sayin’ but what there ’s such in this very jail. However, our part is to keep ’em safe and give ’em enough to eat. Nobody livin’ can’t say a prisoner ever went hungry from this jail yet. You ’re sure you ain’t scairt? Well, don’t talk to ’em, and above all don’t let ’em think you feel scared.”

“I ain’t,” Roxella declared stoutly. “I ’ve got all over that.”

“It ’s funny,” she said reflectively, sitting by Mrs. Thomas’s bedside a week later. “But there ain’t a man up there that ’s done a thing to be put in for without it ’s the sheep stealer, and he don’t say a word as to whether he did or did n’t. They don’t any of ’em say a word about each other, but accordin’ to each man’s own story there ain’t a guilty one there.”

“There never is,” replied the prostrate mistress of the house skeptically. “In all the years I’ve been here we’ve never had one that was guilty by his own showin’, except a crazy man who confessed to a crime he never committed, and was proved innocent against his own testimony. You can’t help their running on to you I s’pose, but you must n’t talk back to ’em, Roxelly. Peterson would be terrible put out.”

“No, ma’am, I don’t, ” replied Roxella obediently, adding a moment later, “that is, not without it ’s just to pass the time of day, or say ‘ do tell ’ or ‘is that so ? ’ or something. I don’t even do that much talkin’ with the sheep man. He acts dreadful ill natured. You don’t suppose he’s dangerous, do you? ”

Mrs. Thomas shook her head contemptuously. “There never was one of his breed had spunk enough to be dangerous, ” she said. “They ’re a bad lot all through, and Peterson and I both hope he ’ll get a long term when his case comes up. Just let him sulk it out and take no notice of him.”

Roxella portioned the plain fare provided by Evergreen County for its prisoners into seven narrow tin trays, and surveyed it doubtfully. “I s’pose a hotel bringin’ up makes this look meaner, ” she mused ; “but the county’s well-to-do, and on the ground of holdin’ every man innocent till he ’s proved guilty I must say I can’t see any justice in it. No. 9 don’t eat enough to keep a mouse alive, and I believe his appetite needs temptin’. Neither the county nor Peterson Thomas would want him to go into a decline on their hands.”

She resolutely added a rhubarb pie to the tray, and carefully cut it in seven impartial sections. “Nobody ever told me not to, ” she protested to her conscience as she traversed the long corridor, “and anyhow rhubarb ’s cheap.”

“I ’ll leave it for you to say,” she said, standing pie in hand before the door of cell No. 1. “The county ain’t been accustomed to servin’ desserts, but those that think they ain’t undeservin’ of pie can have it.”

There was no apparent feeling of unworthiness until she timidly repeated her formula at the door of No. 6. To her surprise the tall prisoner smiled and shook his head. “I guess I ain’t worthy, miss, ” he admitted, attacking his bread and potatoes with the appetite of a hungry man. Roxella reflected upon his hardened character as she went on to No. 9, who pushed aside the plainer food disdainfully, but consumed the two remaining pieces of pie with apparent relish. “It reminds me of home,” he said in a subdued tone. “I was longing for a piece of my mother’s pie this morning when I saw you pulling rhubarb in the jail garden. I have watched you far more than you know in the past two weeks. You can never realize how a true woman’s presence brightens even a gloomy prison. I hope your womanly powers of perception have revealed to you that I am not like these others.” Roxella blushed.

“Of course I could n’t help seeing there was a difference, ” she acknowledged shyly.

“A political prisoner has much to endure of injustice and persecution, ” he continued sadly; “but he has the satisfaction of knowing that no one, not even his enemies, can rate him with the common criminal. My only crime is in loving my native land too well. Yet in the dreary days which passed before you came to lighten the darkness I never regretted it.”

Roxella listened attentively. It sounded like a book.

“It’s a downright pity,” she declared in deeply sympathetic tones. “I wish there was something more I could do for you, ” she added bashfully. “Could you relish a custard, do you suppose ? ”

“Your sympathy is more help than you realize,” he replied sadly. “Custard, did you say? Yes, mother used to make those too.”

The six worthy prisoners dined upon custards next day. “For I ain’t goin’ to show partiality even if he is different, ” Roxella decided.

The day following there was ice cream. “The county can afford it,” Roxella assured herself, resolutely stifling a guilty pang.

She went one afternoon to answer an unaccustomed peal of the front door bell, and received from the hands of a ten-year-old girl a large basket and a bouquet of lilac blossoms. “For pa,” the child explained. “Hiram Risley, you know. He ’s stoppin’ here a spell. ” Roxella hesitated. “I don’t know whether it ’s against the rules or not,” she acknowledged frankly, “and Mis’ Thomas is havin’ a poor day, so I can’t ask her. Her lumbago ’s developed into nervous prostration. Never mind, sis, I ’ll risk it. What ’s your pa’s number did you say? ”

The child looked puzzled. “What’s he in for? ” Roxella continued.

“Nothin’ at all,” the child returned hotly. “They said he stole John Fremont’s sheep ; but he never, for ma says he never.”

Roxella carried the basket to the door of No. 6 and tapped gently.

“Your folks have sent you some little tokens,” she explained. The tall prisoner’s face lighted.

“Well, now, that ’s something I was n’t lookin’ for,” he said,

“Most people get more or less that they don’t really deserve,” remarked Roxella. “I hope ’t will lead you to serious thoughts of a better life.” She crowded the lilacs through the grating as she spoke and looked doubtfully at the basket. “This won’t go through; shall I open the basket and pass the things in? ” she asked. He looked with interest at the doughnuts and sponge cake.

“I don’t know why it should be made easier for me any more than other men,” he said aloud. “I guess I won’t eat any, miss. You just pass the sweet stuff round among the boys wherever you think it ’s needed most, and give the flowers to Uncle Petingill. He ’ll like ’em to play with, poor old soul. For me, I ’ll take jail life just as it comes. ”

Roxella delivered the lilacs to the delighted old man, then carried the basket straight to No. 9.

“The sheep man don’t feel worthy of all this which his folks has sent, ” she explained. “And I’m glad to see him show a little proper feelin’. Could you relish a piece ? ” He finally accepted the entire loaf of cake under protest. “The others like doughnuts best, so I will leave them all for them, ” he said. “The cake is n’t frosted as mother used to do, but it may be I can eat a piece.” He slipped a folded paper through the grate.

“This will show you how I brighten the weary hours,” he explained.

It was a little poem, written upon a sheet of letter paper and entitled A Fettered Bird. “It was just lovely,” Roxella assured him next day as she passed a tiny dish of early strawberries through the grate.

She was becoming very good friends with most of the prisoners, even while following Sheriff Thomas’s command to say little to them. “ You can get pretty well acquainted with folks by just listening,” Roxella decided. She brought to the gray-haired man in No. 2 a daily offering of spring blossoms, wrote occasional letters for illiterate No. 3, and one June afternoon paused triumphantly before the door of No. 5, bearing upon Mrs. Thomas’s best china platter a frosted mound encircled by exactly two dozen wild roses. Upon the snowy surface of the cake, wrought in pink candy, was the inscription “No. 5 aged 24.” “It ’s angel underneath,” Roxella announced. “Too bad you can’t have it whole, but I’ve brought a long knife so you could cut it yourself through the grating and then take in the pieces. I heard you holler to No. 4 this mornin’ about to-day bein’ your birthday.”

No. 5 sliced the cake carefully, concealing beneath a gay exterior some real emotion. “There never was any woman livin’ ever made me a birthday cake before,” he said solemnly as he swallowed the last pink crumb of the “5,” “and this ’s the first time I ever even tasted angel. I would n’t be surprised if it went clear through and made another fellow of me. Now, miss, please pass some of it to the other boys. ”

Even No. 6, after a moment’s hesitation, accepted a piece, and No. 9, having eaten his, spent the rest of the afternoon in writing a poem entitled The Angel of the Prison.

A week later Nos. 4 and 5, having served their ninety days’ sentence for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, were dismissed, and the gray-haired prisoner finished his term for vagrancy soon after. Roxella found her midday duties lightened. She was becoming deeply interested in the political prisoner, who confided to her by degrees long portions of his early history and blighted career.

“My real name is Philip Cartwright,” he whispered one day. “I wanted you to know, though for political reasons I am now bearing another. It does n’t matter, since the rest of my life will undoubtedly be passed in prison. If I could only be brought to trial all might yet be well. But my enemies prevent that, knowing that my innocence could soon be proved.”

“I did n’t know those things ever happened outside of story books, ” Roxella assured him with distressed face.

No. 6 beckoned to her one day as she passed his door. “It ’s none of my affair,” he said kindly, “but I sh ’d want somebody to meddle if ’t was a sister of mine. I ’m no hand to talk about my neighbors, and I would n’t for the world carry tales to Peterson Thomas as mebbe I ought to do, but I want to advise you as a wellwisher not to go too far with any of us fellows in here, or to take too much stock in what we say. Our judgment gets warped till we think too well of ourselves and too little of other folks, and we ain ’t to be trusted. I would n’t listen to that fellow in No. 9 quite so long to a time, if I was you.”

Roxella’s cheeks blazed. “That ’s about what I should have expected from you,” she said with indignation. “If I want advice, thank you, I can get it outside the jail.”

Next day she defiantly spent a full half hour in conversation with No. 9. The political prisoner was looking ill from his long confinement. “I am wasting for want of sunshine and fresh air,” he reluctantly admitted when Roxella anxiously remarked upon his failing health. “Roxella, would it not be possible for you to grant me a brief hour in the open air, sometimes ? It would be perfectly safe. The wall is far too high for me to scale in my weak condition even were other bonds than my word necessary. Let me have an hour there with you in the moonlight, since sunlight is no more for me.”

Roxella assented eagerly. “It’s just what you need,” she declared. “I’ll ask Sheriff Thomas this very night. ”

He stopped her sadly. “That is worse than useless, ” he said. “It would only end in depriving me of the one pleasure left in life — your visits. No, if you do not pity me enough to grant this little boon without the knowledge of any one, I must still languish here. ”

For a week Roxella held firm against pleading and reproaches, while No. 9 grew paler and weaker each day. Then she yielded.

“Broad daylight’s the best time,” she said shortly. “Sheriff ’s gone all day, and Mis’ Thomas’s room is on the front. You ’ll give me your word of honor to come back when the hour is up ? ” He cast a reproachful look upon her, “This — from you, Roxella, ” he said weakly.

He drew in deep breaths of the summer air as they sat in the shadow of the south wall upon a long bench. A huge elm tree drooped its branches from the other side, and fragrant odors of summer floated about them. “Oh, to be free again and go my way unhindered — with you beside me, ” he sighed. Roxella rose hastily. “The kitchen clock ’s striking four,” she announced.

She locked the door of No. 9 upon him once more, and went back to preparations for the evening meal with troubled face. “It’s nothing short of unfaithfulness to them that trust me,” she acknowledged to her conscience. “I ’m choosin’ a wrong course deliberately rather than see a fellow bein’ who is really innocent waste away before my eyes.”

The following day was rainy, but Roxella and her charge walked for an hour up and down the gravel walk beneath a large umbrella.

“Even the rain is a blessed privilege — with you,” he whispered.

On the fourth day, as they sat again beneath the wall, the prisoner leaned suddenly toward his jailer. “Dearest ” — he began, but Roxella shrank away. “Don’t! ” she commanded.

A sudden push sent her headlong upon the soft grass. Half stunned she scrambled to her feet, to find her prisoner scaling the high wall in a manner which indicated both strength and agility. Already his hands were grasping the very top. In Roxella’s bewildered brain there was room for but one thought, — her responsibility to Evergreen County. She flung herself against the wall, grasping his right foot with desperate energy, while the other flourished wildly about her head, and threats of dire vengeance all unheeded floated down to her from the top of the wall.

“Help — help — help! ” screamed Roxella, though hopeless of aid ; for Sheriff Thomas and his farm hands were two good miles away.

A well-aimed kick struck the top of her head. Roxella felt her brain reel and her grasp weaken. He would escape, and she had betrayed the trust of Evergreen County. Her hands weakly slipped from their hold, but a pair of strong arms reaching above her head pulled the escaping prisoner to the ground.

“You contemptible villain!” cried the indignant voice of No, 6. “I don’t see why I did n’t stop you before you got this fur.”

He marched the recaptured prisoner back to his cell, delivering upon the way sundry pungent bits of advice and warning, while Roxella, with aching head and deep humiliation of spirit, followed with the political prisoner’s hat.

“How ’d you get out ?” she questioned of No. 6 as they locked their prisoner in once more.

“I ain’t ever been locked in,” replied No. 6 lightly. “Pete Thomas said he could n’t help my bein’ fool enough to come here, since that was a matter between me and my own brains or the lack of ’em, but he swore he would n’t never turn a key on me, and he has n’t.” He turned to Roxella. “What did you s’pose I was here for? ” he asked. “No, I ain’t goin’ in again. My time was up two days ago, but I made a bogus excuse to Pete and hung on here to watch that fellow. I knew he was up to something of this kind, and I ’d ought to stopped him sooner. What ’d you say you thought I was here for? ”

He laughed shortly at Roxella’s faltered confession.

“That ’s Hi Risley in No. 9,” he said with some sarcasm. “Mighty slick talker, ain’t he? ”

Roxella, sitting down in the side doorway of the white house, subsided into a flood of emotion. No. 6’s sarcastic tone changed instantly.

“Oh,come now, little girl,don’t take it that way,” he pleaded. “’T ain’t any wonder after all. Hi ’s the slickest liar I ever saw, and he ’s fooled many a shrewd man who had long experience in the art himself. Why should n’t he take in a tender-hearted little woman, who, bein’ the soul of truth herself, has a right to expect it in other folks ? That interestin’ paleness of his was chalk, and them circles round his eyes black lead. More or less of it got rubbed off in rescuing him, but he ’ll have it on again before he goes before a jury. There, there, never mind. He ain’t worth sheddin’ a tear over. But with all his lyin’ propensities there never was truer words spoke than those poetry pieces he wrote off about sunshine and angels gettin’ into the jail.”

“I would n’t never believed it of a Hodges, Roxelly, ” said Sheriff Thomas in a reproachful tone as he listened to Roxella’s confession. “I ’m terribly disappointed. But there, as Tom Leslie says, it wa’n’t any more than natural for one so innocent and trustin’ to be taken in, and I’ve a strong suspicion your father ’d say I was the one to blame. Anyhow, Tom made me promise I would n’t blame you, so we won’t say no more about it. Court sets next week, and we ’ll soon be rid of this blot on a respectable institution.”

“Mr. Sheriff,” questioned Roxella a few moments later, “who is No. 6, and what was he here for ? ”

“That,” replied Peterson Thomas with satisfaction, “was Tom Leslie. He ’s been one of my best deputies for years, for all he ’s a young feller. And he ’s jest served a term of sixty days for contempt of Court in refusin’ to testify against a neighbor, and send him to jail away from his dyin’ wife and little children. It ought to been settled by a fine, but Tom and the Court was both stuffy, though the judge says to me afterwards, says he, ' Every inch of that fellow’s six feet is clear man,’ says he. And that ’s the truth. You ’ve done well for yourself, Roxelly, and your father, who knows the Leslies, won’t find no fault with me on that ground.”

“But it ’s not — I did n’t — I have n’t done anything,” protested Roxella with burning cheeks.

“You wait and see,” replied Sheriff Thomas in prophetic tones.

Harriet A. Nash .