My first object was to lead the women to make me the central, regulating power, in the kitchen, so that I could reduce the chaotic state of affairs to something like order.
"In a week," I said to the Deputy that day, "I hope to get something like order established."
"I will give you a month to get the run of things."
"You want the meals well cooked, and promptly passed out at the time; the place kept quiet and clean."
"Be patient, and in a week or two we shall arrive at that."
"I shall find no fault till I see occasion."
That night, after the work was done, I called them all around me, and told them they would find me kind and pleasant, if they were obedient. If they were not, they would surely find themselves in trouble, because it was a part of my duty to make them obey, and it must be done by the rules of the institution; I could not change them. I saw that their work was hard; but I would make it as easy as possible. The work was there, and they were put there to do it. The more willingly they undertook it, the easier it would go off. If they tried to help themselves, I would help them.
They all assented, and thus we made a compact to be kind to each other.
It was my third morning in prison. I stood beside the mush boiler with Annie O'Brien, who had been scraping it, and was wiping it out with a dry cloth.
McMullins came along, and demanded the cloth from her. An altercation ensued. I hushed the noise, and asked,--
"You might let me have it a moment just to wipe this out!"
"I don't know, ma'am. I left it on the boiler, and some one has taken it."
"I want my dish-cloth; I'm in hurry," said McMullins, impatiently.
"Give her the dish-cloth, and go find your own!" I said.
Annie O'Brien's temper was like a lucifer match. At the command she threw the cloth in McMullins's face.
Quick as a cat would spring upon a mouse, McMullins was upon her; and the report of the slaps that fell quick, and followed each other fast on the side of O'Brien's face, sounded through the room.
It was in vain that I called upon them to stop. O'Brien was enraged. She caught up an iron rod that lay upon the window seat, and struck McMullins a blow upon her forehead that brought blood.
I called the other women to the spot, and they were soon parted.