I looked in wonder at the man speaking to me, scarcely believing him. He noticed my expression and said, "Those were his words, his very words. I remember them for they impressed me."
"Is this true?" I asked. "Is there a law in Massachusetts allowing a man to be condemned and thrust into a dungeon for ten days for a petty offense like this?"
"I have not told to you one hundredth part of the suffering I saw at Deer Island. The cells there are absolutely dark. There is a small slide in the door where the doctor peeps in to see if a man is dead, or gone mad."
"Well, if he has no friends, he is put into a box and carried just over the hill to the burying plot called 'The Haven.'"
I was so touched by this man's story, I could listen no longer. I got up and took him by the arm and said, "Let's cut out our fault."
He replied, "I'll have to, I guess, for its cutting me out."
I strolled on up the Common, and thought of all it meant, "The Haven" over the hill. This man told me he had been a citizen of Boston all his life. Who would believe this story of a destitute old floatsam cast up from the wreckage of America's temple of Elegance? Had he told me the truth or a lie? I have many reasons to believe every word he told me was true, but there is no man who can verify this story, except the man who has done forty days at Deer Island.
In a conventional visit to the Island, I looked into the men's prison just far enough to see tier upon tier of small cells in which all the prisoners are locked for twelve hours of every day. The dungeons I did not see as they are never open to visitors.
It was a clear beautiful day. Blue sky and blue sea, all around, white ships sailing by, the men working in the fields, the women busy in the sewing rooms, all inspired me to think that Deer Island could be made a place of hope and cheer. But that vision was far from the reality. The prisoners kept a funeral silence, happiness or hope was not for them. Even their work was stolen from them.
I said to one intelligent looking man who was working in the garden, "It helps a fellow to come down here, doesn't it?"
He answered, "Yes, if we are not made physical wrecks by the treatment we receive, it does help us. But then, when our time is up, we are disgraced and thrown back helpless into the same old slums of the city, just as before."