I whispered to Everett, thinking him one among this
company of enthusiasts who might have a little common
sense left. “We had better get him away
from here!” And Everett put his hand gently on
the prophet’s shoulder, and said, “The
prisoners in the jail are hoping for us.”
I took him by the other arm, and we began to lead
him down the street. When we had once got him
going, we walked him faster and faster, until presently
the crowd was trailing out into a string of idlers
and curiosity seekers, as before.
The party came to the city jail, and knocked for admission.
But no doubt the authorities had taken consultation
in the meantime, and there was no admission for prophets.
The party stood on the steps, baffled and bewildered,
a pitiful and pathetic little group.
For my part, I thought it just as well that Carpenter
had not got inside, for I knew what he would find
there. It happens that my Aunt Jennie belongs
to a couple of women’s clubs, and they have been
making a fuss about our city jail; they have kept on
making it for many years, but apparently without accomplishing
anything. The place was built a generation ago,
for a city of perhaps one-tenth our present size;
it is old and musty, and the walls are so badly cracked
that it has been condemned by the building department.
It is so crowded that half a dozen men sometimes sleep
on the floor of a single cell. They are devoured
by vermin, and lie in semi-darkness, some of them
shivering with cold and others half suffocated.
They stay there, sometimes for many months unheeded,
because the courts are crowded, and if Comrade Abell’s
word may be taken in the matter, every poor man is
assumed to be guilty until he is proven innocent.
I have heard Aunt Jennie arguing the matter with considerable
energy. Our banks are housed in palaces, and our
Chamber of Commerce and our Merchants and Manufacturers
and our Real Estate Exchange and all the rest of our
boosters have commodious and expensive quarters; but
our prisoners lie in torment, and no one boosts for
them.
Did Carpenter know these things? Had the strikers
or his little company of agitators, told him about
them? Suddenly he said, “Let us pray;”
and there on the steps of the jail he raised his hands
in invocation, and prayed for all prisoners and captives.
And when he finished, Comrade Abell suddenly lifted
his voice and began to sing. I would not have
supposed that so big a voice could have come out of
so frail a body; but I was reminded that Abell had
been practicing on soap-boxes a good part of his life.
He was one of these shouting evangelists—only
his gospel was different. He sang:
Arise, ye pris’ners
of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the
earth!
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world’s in
birth.
I think I would have shuddered, even more than I did,
if I had known the name of this song; if I had realized
that this group of fanatics were sounding the dread
Internationale on the steps of our city jail!
I suspect that what saved them was the fact that the
guardians of the jail had no more idea what it was
than I had!
