May-blossom, though not a sickly child, had never been robust; and when, at midwinter, she had taken the measles, this epidemic of childhood had gone hard with her. She had convalesced but slowly; an ugly cough had set in, and could not be routed; and now there were hectic afternoons, debilitating night-sweats, succeeded by mornings of lassitude; and, to-day, Doctor Foster had summed up his diagnosis in one dreadful word —consumption!
"The child," explained the good doctor – tears blinding his kind old eyes – "has grown up (as it were) in the cellar; delicate nervous organization; too much brain; too little out-door life; and the outcome of it all is simply this – with that cough, and that constitution (God help us!) an angel from heaven couldn't save her!"
Summer is coming. The buttercups are here. May-blossom is better. She sleeps well, coughs less, and her appetite is mending. Buoyed by deceitful hope, Miss Paulina takes heart, and the train for Boston, from whence, – crowned with the spoil of a half day's shopping, – she is, at this very moment, returning. The carryall fairly groans under its accumulated bundles; and the steel-clasped bag upon her arm is plethoric, to the last degree. Hours have passed since she parted from her darling. Hastily alighting, she hurries in. There is an under-quaver of anxiety in her voice as she calls, "May! May, May, dear!" Where can the child be, that she has not run to meet her! "May!" again, and louder – still no reply. Yet now a never-to-be-mistaken voice comes cooingly from the kitchen. "Who can the darling be fondling? (Harmy Patterson, though staunch and loving, is not one to unbend to endearments!) Her kitten, most likely."
She softly opens the kitchen door. Amazement stays her feet upon the threshold! Harmy, mute with horror, indicates with stretched forefinger her own clean patchwork-cushioned rocker, wherein, bolt upright, sits an unknown man, – and such a man! His coarse, dusty garments (evidently fashioned without the slightest reference to their present wearer) hang scarecrow-wise upon his graceless form. Under his slouched hat (which he democratically retains) he seems to skulk abjectly from the gazer's eye; as well he may, for, unshaven and unshorn, his wide mouth stained with tobacco, his hands and face begrimed with dust, he looks, every inch, the wretched outcast that he is! And (no wonder that old Harmy gapes distraught), seated lovingly upon this creature's knee, her dainty fingers clasping his dirty hand, her golden curls brushing his grimy neck, is May-blossom, – yes, May-blossom, her own sweet self, beaming, and fond, and absolutely unconscious of the incongruity of the situation. And this forlorn being, craving still of humanity but leave to carry on its shoulders the shamed head of a man, is a convict, – our old prison acquaintance, Peter Floome, May-blossom's sometime nurse, and always friend!
Lightly springing from her unseemly perch, the child hastens to greet Miss Paulina, and, hanging fondly upon her hand, cries eagerly, "Oh, auntie, darling, I'm so glad you've come! Here's Peter, dear old Peter! He's pardoned out, auntie, and, isn't it nice? He can come and see me every day now if he likes.
"Why, auntie! (somewhat crestfallen) aren't you glad? and won't you shake hands with him? Peter is nice, auntie, and he used to take such care of me when I was ever so little. You'll like Peter when he's washed up, and so will Harmy, though she does mind him just a little now, because she's not acquainted with him." (Harmy, sotto voce, and emphatically, "Lord sakes, no; an' don't never want to be!") Here, reminiscences of prison etiquette visiting Peter's dazed mind, he shuffles bashfully to his feet, and, pulling distractedly at his matted forelock, goes through a certain gymnic performance, supposed, by himself, to constitute a bow. The ice thus broken, Peter finds his tongue, and blurts out a "Good day, marm, hope I see yer well, marm."
Miss Paulina bows, a pause, ensues. Peter looks admiringly at May-blossom, and, thereby gaining inspiration, finds himself equal to a second attempt at conversation.
"She's growed, marm, like the mischief!" he asserts; "but I knowed her, I did, the minute I sot eyes on her out there in the mowin' lot! an' she knowed me, she did! Yes, yes, she knowed Peter; she knowed him. Poor old Peter! who don't hardly know himself nowerdays." Here Peter's voice gets husky, and, brushing away a dirty tear, with his greasy coat sleeve, he seems to await the issue. Peter Floome is downrightly the social antipodes of the lady of the homestead. Conventionally they do not stand side by side in the human group, but, like Swedenborg's unfraternal angels, "feet to feet." Yet in the artless harangue of this poor creature there is a touch of honest nature that at once makes them kin.
"And I, too, must know you, Peter," she says, cordially advancing and taking in her own clean palm his dirty hand.
Unable to express his appreciation of the honour thus conferred, Peter twirls his thumbs, ventures a side glance at Harmy, and, again utterly disparaged in his own eyes, looks uneasily at the floor.
Prompt to reconcile the cowed creature to himself, Miss Parker courteously says: "And now, Peter, you would, I think, like to go up to Reuben's bedroom and have a good wash. By and by Harmy shall give you tea, and then we must hear all about the pardon, and how you happened here, and what you mean to do with yourself, and what we can do for you. Come, Mabel, dear; Peter, you know, is your company. Show him up-stairs, my darling."
Again the small, soft hand is laid in the rough, brown paw, and Peter Floome, – in a state of absolute bewilderment as to his personal identity, – shuffles awkwardly off with the delighted child. And what says Harmy Patterson to all this? "Here's a convict, a horrid convict," cries she, "and invited to tea, an' that child a huggin' an' kissin' him, in cold blood! Lord! Lord! what is the Parkers comin' to?" Here, unable further to pursue the fallen social fortunes of the house, Harmy covers her face with her checked apron and bursts into tears. Grieved at the discomfiture of her old servant and friend, Miss Parker essays a word of expostulation. She appeals to her hospitality, her humanity, reminds her of her professed discipleship of Him who "sat at meat" with the sinner. In vain! as well might she have addressed herself to Harmy's stone molasses jug, which, dropped from her grasp in the sudden shock of Peter's advent, now lies prone upon the kitchen floor. Foiled in her kindly endeavour, the mistress quietly withdraws. Harmy, left alone, sobs herself into a comparatively tranquil frame of mind. Coming to the rescue of her molasses jug, she carefully ascertains that no minute fracture is consequent upon the fall, and that no wasteful drop has exuded from the wooden stopper, and, forthwith, sets vigorously to, on a batch of soft gingerbread, whose manufacture had been interrupted by the entrance of Peter Floome. While she stirs her cake, Harmy sighs, and profoundly resolves in her mind "the fitnesses." In her social lexicon a convict is a vile wretch. In her catechism he is given over to damnation from the foundation of the world – God-devoted to the very devil himself!
Miss Paulina Parker, in her chamber, washes her hands, and also ponders the "fitnesses." This starved outcast is her brother. She has taken him by the hand. Christian ethics demonstrate the fitness of this act. The hand was, no doubt, dirty. Yet, what matters it? Soap and water set one right again. Soap and water tell, too, upon Peter Floome, when, after a characteristically superficial ablution, he emerges from Reuben's bedroom, a trifle improved in complexion, but still a sorry specimen of humanity, and, escorted by May-blossom, is whisked out-of-doors, on a hasty tour of inspection. Led by this happy little creature (now holding his hand, now dropping it to run on and, turning, take in his effect, and then skip gayly in advance), Peter visits the chicken-coop, the beehive, the flower garden, the stables, and the pig-pen, and, last of all, the apple orchard, now rosy-white with bloom.
There, reclined upon the grass, beneath the flowering boughs of a patriarch tree, Miss Paulina ere long comes upon the oddly matched pair. Peter, wreathed with buttercups and dandelions, and wearing his flowery honours like another "Bottom," sits beside his "Titania," who in fond infatuation "His amiable cheek doth coy."
"Pity," thinks the intruder, "to spoil so quaint a picture." The sun is, however, already low, and she calls her darling in from the dewfall. In the kitchen, Harmy has made reluctant preparations for Peter's inner man; grimly remarking to Mandy Ann (who has meantime returned from an errand at the store) that "it does go agin' her, to put on span clean table-cloths for sich creeturs, an' to waste good vittels where they can't no how be sensed." A convict being, at Mandy Ann's estimate, an ineligible, if not dangerous guest, as Peter and May-blossom enter at one door, she vanishes by another. Harmy dons her cape-bonnet, and marches stiffly into the kitchen garden, leaving the disreputable visitor to his child hostess.
Peter Floome had not figured at a tea-drinking for many a long year, and, naturally, his company manners are somewhat rusty. Possibly, his table etiquette (or, rather, his entire lack of it) might have shocked his too partial entertainer (who, with fine innate courtesy, has laid herself a cup and plate, and is keeping her guest in countenance by taking her own tea with him), had not his evident satisfaction in the meal entirely engrossed her mind, for (Harmy to the contrary, notwithstanding) Peter is inherently inclined to "sense good vittels." It is quaintly picturesque, this tea-drinking of "Bottom" and "Titania;" this odd contrast of loutishness and elegance, although (as I grieve to record) "Bottom" does absolutely ignore the butter-knife; does thrust his wet spoon into the sugar bowl; and, vigourously blowing his hot tea, in scorn of popular prejudice, lap the same from his slopping saucer, and shovel in the apple sauce with his knife-blade. "Titania's" pretty efforts to put "Bottom" at his ease are, indeed, a thing to behold; for, conscious of his own want of keeping with the unwonted occasion, Peter is, to the very last degree, awkward and abashed. Nevertheless, the encouraging smiles of his small hostess carry him victoriously to the end of this harrowing experience. Other social exigencies yet await this much-tried man. Directly after tea, he is taken by May-blossom to that inner sanctuary, Miss Parker's parlour, where, amid oppressively elegant surroundings, he is further weighed to earth by the disparaging sense of his own abjectness.
Prison life, on the solitary plan, is not conducive to colloquial glibness, nor is Peter Floome habitually garrulous. Many cups of Harmy's strong green tea have, however, limbered his tongue, and, once he is well seated, and has made a final, though terribly unsatisfactory, disposal of his long arms and obtrusive legs, he finds himself sufficiently at ease for narrative effort, and, at the request of his gracious hostess, wades desperately into his subject.
"I s'pose now, marm," he begins, "that you dun' know as my real name ain't Peter Floome. No more, either, does this pretty little creetur. The Ballous, you see (Ephryam Ballou's my name), was allers stuck on theirselves, an' when it come to prison, I says to myself, anyhow, I won't spile the fambly-tree, so I got put down anonermous-like on them prison books, an' Ephe Ballou ain't never been heerd on to the 'palace,' you bet. Its twenty-three years, come next fall, marm, sence I sot Hiram Hall's barn afire. I was mighty peppery in them days, an' Hiram an' me, we had a fallin' out. He served me darned mean, Hiram did, an' my dander was up an' so was his'n, an' we had it hot an' heavy, an' (savin' your presence, marm, an' hern) I told Hiram I'd give him h – l some day. After that, I cooled off some, and went home. I was pretty riley yit, though, an' all suppertime I sot thinkin' to myself how I'd come up with that d – d blasted sneak. That's what I called him then, marm, fur I'd had a leetle too much old cider, an' didn't feel like pickin' out my words. 'By jiminy!' says I to myself, 'I've got it now! I'll hide in Hiram's barn, an', when folks is turned in, I'll jest let the critters out, and set fire to the old shebang! That'll plague him fust-rate.' Well, arter supper, I sez to mother, sez I, 'I'm goin' to be out middlin' late to-night, mother, an' you better not set up for me. Put the key under the door-mat, an' I'll be all right,' sez I.
"Poor old mother!" continued Peter, reflectively, and lowering his voice. "Arter that I was out; and a long while, too, an' she sot up fur me, mother did. Bless her patient old soul! Yes, yes, she sot up fur her bad boy jest five year an' six months, an' then her old heart broke, an' she turned in for good an' all, mother did, an' I couldn't so much as see her kivered up!"
Here Peter is fain to take breath and heart, and Miss Paulina (herself in tears) comforts May-blossom, who is sobbing aloud. After this pathetic interruption, Peter, apparently composed by a prolonged fit of sneezing, regains the thread of his narrative.
"'Scuse me, marm," he apologizes, "I b'leeve thinkin' o' mother I got a leetle grain ahead o' my story, but, as I sed, I'd made up my mind how to come up with Hiram, an' that night I got ahead on him sure afore he locked up, for there I was, stowed away in his haymow, as slick as grease! Well, jest as the Presberteren meetin'-house time struck 'leven, I crep' down to the stalls, turned out the cow an' the horse, an' druv 'em down to the medder lot; then I walked back, put a match er two under the mow, an' made tracks fer hum. Well," sighed Peter, "the rest on it's an ugly story, marm, an' p'r'aps you druther this innocent little creetur shouldn't hear it." May-blossom is now "all ears," and Miss Parker, signifying her assent, Peter goes on. "Well, 'bout 'leven the wind riz, an' afore that barn got well agoin' it blowed a perfect harrycane, an' them sparks was a flyin' like the mischief! 'Lord help us,' sez I, looking out my bedroom winder, 's'pos'n' it kerries 'em as fur's Hiram's house!' An' sure 'nuff, it did; an' it bein' a dry spell, the ruff blazed up like tinder! I was there in a jiffy, helpin' on' em git out the truck. I'd got all over my huff now. I was sober as a jedge, an' I'd' a' gin my head for a football to had that night's work undid! Well, there was lots o' furnitoor in the house, an' Hiram he was a graspin' man, an' bound to git the hull on it out, an' arter it got too hot fur the rest on us, he hung on, an' – well – the last time he went in, he stayed. Poor Hiram! I could e'en a'most have changed places with him; for arter that, I wa'n't no ways sot on livin'. I knowed I wa'n't nothin' less than a murderer, an' I wa'n't easy nowhere, 'specially to hum, where mother was round, settin' as much store by me as ever. Well, by'm by, when folks got wind o' my havin' a spat with Hiram, an' his owin' on me, they put this an' that together, an' I was took up for arson; an' I can't say as I was sorry, neither.
"Well, to make short on't, I was nigh about hung; but the governor, he stepped in at the last minnit, an' sent me to State Prison for life. When it come to that pass, 'I won't disgrace the fam'ly,' sez I. 'The Ballous figgered pooty well in the revelooshing,' sez I, 'an' that name sha'n't never be writ in the prison 'count book, ef I kin hinder it.' So, es I've told you, marm, I had myself writ down as Peter Floome. I hadn't no nigh relations 'cept mother and sister Betsy. Uncle George's family'd settled in Illinoise, an' we didn't hear from 'em once in a dog's age. Betsy was a young gal then an' had a beau. She was allus pooty toppin', an' sez I, 'it don't stan' to reason she'll be comin' to the State Prison to see her own brother; but there's mother,' sez I, 'she'll come reg'lar, I reckon; same's she did to the jail;' so I writ her a letter, an' gin her word how I was, an' who she must ask arter in case she come. Bless her dear old soul!
"The very next Friday, there she was on the spot! Arter that, reg'lar as clock work, once in three months, rain or shine, there was mother!
"Mothers, you see, marm, never misses. Wives, an' sisters, an' children, now an' then do keep up to the mark, but mothers, on the hull, is about the only reg'lar prison stan'bys. Well, mother sot a good deal o' store by me, an' when I see her gittin' thin, I knowed what fretted her, an' sez I to myself, 'she won't hold out forever, an' when she's gone, the Lord help me!'
"Well," continued Peter, huskily, "by'm by she went, mother did; but (dropping his voice to a confidential whisper) mothers is master hands to hang on, an' no mistake! An' sure's you're 'live, ef she didn't keep right on with them visits! jest as reg'lar as ef nothin' hed turned up! Ev'ry time the quarter come round, on a Friday night, jest as the clock struck one, there stood mother, large as life, at the gratin' o' my cell. She never once opened her head; but, when I see her stan' there so smilin' an' pleasant, I sez to myself, 'she's done frettin', anyhow;' an', though I warn't never no great hand at prayin', I did thank God for that. I never let on 'bout them visits, for 'bout that time things got pesky upside down with me, an' the boys they used to say, 'Peter's cranky.' 'So,' sez I, 'ef I was to tell 'um, they wouldn't none on 'em b'leeve me.' An' I jest kep' dark, an' year arter year mother come reg'lar, an' we had it all to ourselves. By'm by Hiram, he come. Not reg'lar, like mother did, but off an' on. Well, ghosts is poor company, marm; an' arter a while I got clean upsot, and wa'n't wurth an old shoe.
"But I'm gittin' kinder ahead o' my story. Arter mother died, Betsy she thawed out some, an' come to see me twice, an' then she got married an' went to Californy. She writ one or two letters to me an' I answered 'em punctooal, but by'm by she left off writin', an' I knew she'd gin me up. An' then I got sorter cross-grained an' callous; an' sez I to myself, 'what's the odds anyhow, it can't last to all etarnity; an' by'm by I'll go out o' this, feet fust, an' I hope 't 'ill be the last o' me.'"
"But Peter, my poor fellow," piously interposes Miss Parker, "you read the Bible sometimes, I trust, and found some comfort there; you couldn't have doubted God's providence, all His blessed promises to the penitent and believing soul?"
"Why, yes'm," responds Peter; "I read my Bible some, purty reg'lar, too, 'long at fust; an' mother bein' a church-member, I was brung up to set on providence 'en sich like; but them promises you tell on works best outside o' prisons; an' 'long 'bout the time I got upsot, I'd gin up readin' even in the Bible; for 't wa'n't no use; the letters all stood wrong eend up. I did hang on to providence a spell, but by 'm by, I see that wa'n't no use, nuther. 'Providence,' sez I, 'don't take no 'count o' me, an' I may as well try to jog along on my own hook.'
"Well, finally, I was took down with roomatic fever, an' went into the hospital a spell; an' arter I got round agin, I wa'n't strong enough to go back to the shoe shop, an' the doctor said a change would set me up agin. Twelve year I'd ben a workin' there at the same bench, an' one day exactly like t'other, till it 'peared to me as ef I was a sewin' one 'tarnal everlastin' shoe, over an' over, an' back an' forth, an' no mortal hope o' comin' to the eend on't in this world or next. An' when they sot me to runnin' arrants in the prison, an' doin' chores fur the warden's folks, I was mighty glad, I tell you! An' things kinder got right eend up agin. 'T wa'n't long arter that, afore this dear little creetur come to town. Children air strange now, ain't they, marm? Would you b'leeve that, afore that child could set alone, she took a reg'lar shine to me! I was beat, I tell you! An' when I felt them two little arms 'round my old neck, things somehow lifted up like; an' though I didn't go to prayer-meetin', and didn't ezackly git religin, as some on 'em do, I took a reg'lar hitch on to the Almighty; 'fur,' sez I, 'it's right down handsome in Him to send a blessed little angel to sich a place as this.' Fur she was a reg'lar angel to us, a growin' up there, so innocent, purty an' lovin'; an' she did our souls a heap more good than all the chaplain's Sunday sermons; an' when the boss got killed, an' you took her off, it seemed as ef there wa'n't nothin' left. I s'pose I took on, to myself, a leetle too hard, fur arter I'd had one or two poor spells, the doctor he overhauled me, an' I heered him say there was trouble with the heart; an' sez I to myself, 'you're right there is!' Next day as I was cleanin' up his office, the warden asked me 'bout my folks; an' how long I'd ben to the prison, an' how long I'd got to stay, an' so I told him, nigh as I could, the hull story, 'cept 'at I didn't let on 'bout mother, an' them reg'lar visits. He wouldn't 'a' b'leeved me, you see, an' besides, I never did like to let on much about her.
"Well, that was long in the neighbourhood o' Fast Day; an' now an' then on holidays, marm, as p'r'aps you know, the gov'nor makes a p'int to pardon a prisoner; an' when the warden gits up them days in chapel, with a paper in his hand, we know what's comin', an' some hearts there gives awful thumps, I tell you! There's lots of 'em, you see, has hopes, havin' folks a tryin' fur 'em outside, or bein' took up by the prayer-meetin' or the inspectors; but I hadn't eny hopes; so that day when the warden riz, with his pardon, an' begun to make a speech, I sot there as unconcerned as ever.
"'Twenty-two years ago,' sez he, 'one of your number in a state of intoxication committed a great crime, an' was sentenced for life to this prison. Durin' these twenty-two years,' sez he, 'he hain't sot foot outside these walls; an' durin' the hull o' that time,' sez he, 'he hain't once ben reported for bad conduct. In his sober moments he's allers ben sorry fur his crime,' sez he, 'an' now he's a worn-out old man, an' I have spoken in favour of his pardon. His name,' sez he, 'is Peter Floome.'
"By the Moses, marm! when I heerd my name called, ef I wa'n't beat! Well, I riz up to go forrard. My knees was mighty shaky, an' the chapel was spinnin' round like sixty. I heerd 'em clappin' on me, an' then, well, that pardon was a leetle too much for me; an' I jest up an' fainted dead away. Arter a spell they brung me to; an' arter riggin' me out in a bran-new coat an' weskitt an' trowsis, they brung me into the guard-room. Well, there was the warden, the chaplain, an' the deputy, an' lots o' folks, an' all as smilin' as a basket o' chips. Lots on 'em shook hands with me, an' wished me joy. A tall man in a long, black coat, an' green specs, was a stannin' along side o' the warden. He was powfell glad to see me, an' gin me lots o' good advice (out o' the Scriptures, I should say), though I didn't ezackly sense, bein' cumflustered like. Arter that, I got leave to say good-by to some o' the boys; an' then the warden he sent fur me to come into his office, an' there was two of the inspectors, an' the chaplain, an' the State agent, an' the chap in the long coat an' the goggles, as big as life.
"Well, each on 'em talked a spell to me, an' treated me, on the hull, I should say, considerable han'some. An' the tall man he gin some more d'rections 'bout my behaviour. Some on it, I took it, was his own words, an' some on 't was Bible, an' sounded mighty han'some. The State agent he gin me the four dollars a comin' to me from the State; an' sez he, 'when you've made up your mind what you're goin' to do, come to my office, Peter, en I'll do what I kin fer ye.' An' arter he'd gin me a card with the street an' number o' his place on 't, I shook hands all round agin, an' off I goes. Lord bless you! Marm, when I gits outside that prison ef I ain't e'en a'most as helpless as a baby! an' where to go to, or how to go at all, is more'n I knowed! Howsumdever, I kinder scooted off, best way I could; for thinks I, I'll git over to Boston and put up to a tavern there, where folks don't know me, an' 't won't leak out 'bout my havin' ben in prison. So I goes on, an' arter I turned the corner, an' got into another street, an' walked on a piece, somebody steps up behind me, an' teches me on the shoulder. 'Lord,' thinks I, 'what is comin' now!' but I jest turned round square ter face the music; an' who should I see but Mr. Holt, my old instructor in the shoe shop! An' sez he, 'Peter,' sez he, 'I want you to go 'long o' me. You'll make a poor fist on 't jest now, goin' round streets alone. You come to my house a spell,' sez he. I was glad, I tell you, marm. Well, I staid to his house three weeks in all, an' durin' that time got sorter steady in my head, an' used ter goin' round loose.
"Well, arter goin' to his office five times, I ketched the State agent in, one day. He knew me right off, like a book; but he was awful busy, an' couldn't talk to me but a minute. I told him I had a own uncle an' some fust cousins out to Illinoise, an' I reckoned I'd go out there an' stay a spell, ef he'd a mind to put me through. Sez he, 'I can send you as fur as Buffalo, Peter, an' arter you git there, you'll mebbe git a job an' make enough to carry you on to your folks. The West'll be the makin' on you. It's the very place for you convicts,' sez he. So he gin me a ticket, an' hustled me off.
"Well, I went home to Mr. Holt's, an' we talked it over, that night, an' next day he went to Boston with me an' clean over to the deepott to put me into the right keer, an', arter thankin' on him a thousand times, I set out for Buffalo. But, Lord a massy, marm! how them keers does scoot! It's 'nuff to take away your breath – to say nothin' o' yer senses. Arter a while we come to a stop an' I wa'n't a bit sorry. 'I'll git off a spell,' sez I, 'an' kinder stiddy my head, an' stretch my legs, while the ingine's restin'.' The railroad hedn't come our way till arter I was shet up, so I was middlin' clumsy round keers, an' goin' down them pesky high steps, I gin my left ankle a turn, an' out it goes! I sot down a minnit; folks was goin' an' comin', but nobody twigged me. Arter a spell, I riz up, an' hobbled inside the deepott buildin', an' jest as I was takin' off my shoe an' stockin' to look at the damage, that plaggy keer-man blowed his whistle, an' afore you could say Jack Robinson, off went them divilish keers, an' me left in the lurch, with a ticket that sez 'good for this trip only!' 'O Lord,' sez I, 'what shall I do! Fust thing,' sez I, 'I'll count my cash;' so I took out my little wallet, an' there was the four dollars 'at the State agent 'lowed me, an' ten dollars 'at Mr. Holt gin me the day I cum off.
"Well, arter I thought it over, I put on my shoe and stockin', an' sung out to a feller who 'peared to be hangin' 'round for a job, an', sez I, 'Mister, this here ankle's awful; an' I'll be obleeged to you, ef you'll take me to the tarvern; an' mebbe, as we go 'long, you wouldn't mind stoppin' at the 'poth'cary shop to let me git a bottle o' Opedildock?'
"Well, to git to the eend o' my long story, that ankle, marm, laid me up a hull week; an', by the time I got round agin, my cash was 'bout gone. My ticket wa'n't no arthly valloo, nuther. So I gin up Illinoise, paid the damages to the tarvern, bought a lot o' crackers an' cheese, an' sot out on my travels, dead broke. I guess 't wa'n't more'n ten miles from Boston where I bust my ankle; but I made up my mind not to ask no questions, fur, sez I, 'Peter, 't won't do to show your ignorance, ef you do 't may leak out 'bout the prison.'
"Fust, I thought I'd look 'round for a job; but I dursn't, fur folks would naterly want to know where I come from, an' ef the boys got wind o' my bein' a convict, they'd prob'ly holler arter me, an' p'rhaps set the dogs on me. So I jest shet my head tight, an' sot out.
"I'd ben travellin' 'bout two days when my grub gin out, an', long in the arternoon o' the third day, I come in sight o' this here buildin'. Thinks I ter myself, 'I can't drag on much furder, anyhow, an' it does look mighty pooty there in that green lot with the yallar buttercups a bloomin' all round. I reckon I better tumble over them bars,' sez I, 'an' lay down a spell under that big warnut tree. Mebbe,' sez I, 'I sha'n't git up in a hurry (fur I was clean beat out), but 't ain't no matter,' sez I, 'there's folks close by, an' when my troubles is over, they'll find me layin' a top o' the buttercups, an' they can't do no less'n put me under 'em.' You see, marm, livin' behind the bars, a feller gits shaky on Providence, and I didn't once suspicion 'at Providence was bringin' me to the right shop; 'at I was makin' a bee-line fur the only creetur in the hull world 'at wouldn't turn the cold shoulder on me. So, when I clim over them bars, I couldn't (beggin' the Almighty's pardon) ha' flipped a cent fer my miserable old life. When I laid down under the warnut tree, I felt kinder drowsy-like, an' so I shet my eyes; but the birds, they was singin' like all possessed, an' the grass smelt sweet as new butter, an' I hadn't seen a mowin' lot risin' o' twenty year. So I riz up on my elbow, to take a squint 'round, an' there, not more'n ten rods off, I seed this blessed little angel a pickin' buttercups. She'd grown, marm, but I knowed her, fur all that, the minnit I sot eyes on her. 'T ain't nateral I shouldn't, when there ain't another like her in God's world. Yes, I knowed her, an' she knowed me, she did, though when I sot straight up, an' kinder coughed, she gin a leetle start. An' then I sez to myself, 'O Lord! she's goin' to run away! As sure as the world, she's afeared of her poor old Peter, 'at used to tote her in his arms!' But she didn't run. She jest turned round an' gin me a good look, an' then she claps her two hands, she does, an' sez she, 'Peter! Peter! it is Peter!' an' runs straight up to me, with her cheeks as pink as roses, an' puts her two arms 'round my miser'ble old neck. An' then, marm, I broke right down, an' cried like a baby. But I didn't want to make her pooty little heart ache, so I wiped up, an' told her all 'bout the pardon, an' 'bout the folks over to the 'palace' (that's our name, marm, for the prison), an' it 'peared to me she'd never git through askin' questions 'bout one or 'nother, for bein' brung up in the prison, she kinder took to us, though we do seem poor shucks to you, I reckon. Use is everything, an' no matter how bad convicts is, they all sot the world by her. Well, arter we'd talked a spell, an' I'd et a hunk o' gingerbread she gin me, I perked up, an' told her I'd go along home with her; 'fur,' sez I, 'I can't leave her now, nohow. I've ben starvin' too long for the sight on her,' sez I. So here I am, marm, an' you know the rest.