Ten Days in a Mad-House and Other Stories (9 page)

the fact that if I forgot where my home was I had not forgotten how

to eat. I tried the bread, but the butter was so horrible that one could

not eat it. A blue-eyed German girl on the opposite side of the table

told me I could have bread unbuttered if I wished, and that very few

were able to eat the butter. I turned my attention to the prunes and

found that very few of them would be sufficient. A patient near

asked me to give them to her. I did so. My bowl of tea was all that

was left. I tasted, and one taste was enough. It had no sugar, and it

tasted as if it had been made in copper. It was as weak as water. This

was also transferred to a hungrier patient, in spite of the protest of

Miss Neville.

“You must force the food down,” she said, “else you will be sick, and

who know but what, with these surroundings, you may go crazy. To

have a good brain the stomach must be cared for.”

“It is impossible for me to eat that stuff,” I replied, and, despite all

her urging, I ate nothing that night.

It did not require much time for the patients to consume all that was

eatable on the table, and then we got our orders to form in line in the

hall. When this was done the doors before us were unlocked and we

were ordered to proceed back to the sitting-room. Many of the

patients crowded near us, and I was again urged to play, both by

them and by the nurses. To please the patients I promised to play

and Miss Tillie Mayard was to sing. The first thing she asked me to

play was “Rock-a-bye Baby,” and I did so. She sang it beautifully.

Ten Days in a Mad-House

CHAPTER XI.

IN THE BATH.

A FEW more songs and we were told to go with Miss Grupe. We

were taken into a cold, wet bathroom, and I was ordered to undress.

Did I protest? Well, I never grew so earnest in my life as when I tried

to beg off. They said if I did not they would use force and that it

would not be very gentle. At this I noticed one of the craziest women

in the ward standing by the filled bathtub with a large, discolored

rag in her hands. She was chattering away to herself and chuckling

in a manner which seemed to me fiendish. I knew now what was to

be done with me. I shivered. They began to undress me, and one by

one they pulled off my clothes. At last everything was gone

excepting one garment. “I will not remove it,” I said vehemently, but

they took it off. I gave one glance at the group of patients gathered at

the door watching the scene, and I jumped into the bathtub with

more energy than grace.

The water was ice-cold, and I again began to protest. How useless it

all was! I begged, at least, that the patients be made to go away, but

was ordered to shut up. The crazy woman began to scrub me. I can

find no other word that will express it but scrubbing. From a small

tin pan she took some soft soap and rubbed it all over me, even all

over my face and my pretty hair. I was at last past seeing or

speaking, although I had begged that my hair be left untouched.

Rub, rub, rub, went the old woman, chattering to herself. My teeth

chattered and my limbs were goose-fleshed and blue with cold.

Suddenly I got, one after the other, three buckets of water over my

head–ice-cold water, too–into my eyes, my ears, my nose and my

mouth. I think I experienced some of the sensations of a drowning

person as they dragged me, gasping, shivering and quaking, from

the tub. For once I did look insane. I caught a glance of the

indescribable look on the faces of my companions, who had

witnessed my fate and knew theirs was surely following. Unable to

control myself at the absurd picture I presented, I burst into roars of

laughter. They put me, dripping wet, into a short canton flannel slip,

labeled across the extreme end in large black letters, “Lunatic

Asylum, B. I., H. 6.” The letters meant Blackwell’s Island, Hall 6.

By this time Miss Mayard had been undressed, and, much as I hated

my recent bath, I would have taken another if by it I could have

saved her the experience. Imagine plunging that sick girl into a cold

bath when it made me, who have never been ill, shake as if with

ague. I heard her explain to Miss Grupe that her head was still sore

from her illness. Her hair was short and had mostly come out, and

she asked that the crazy woman be made to rub more gently, but

Miss Grupe said:

“There isn’t much fear of hurting you. Shut up, or you’ll get it

worse.” Miss Mayard did shut up, and that was my last look at her

for the night.

I was hurried into a room where there were six beds, and had been

put into bed when some one came along and jerked me out again,

saying:

“Nellie Brown has to be put in a room alone to-night, for I suppose

she’s noisy.”

Ten Days in a Mad-House

I was taken to room 28 and left to try and make an impression on the

bed. It was an impossible task. The bed had been made high in the

center and sloping on either side. At the first touch my head flooded

the pillow with water, and my wet slip transferred some of its

dampness to the sheet. When Miss Grupe came in I asked if I could

not have a night-gown.

“We have not such things in this institution,” she said.

“I do not like to sleep without,” I replied.

“Well, I don’t care about that,” she said. “You are in a public

institution now, and you can’t expect to get anything. This is charity,

and you should be thankful for what you get.”

“But the city pays to keep these places up,” I urged, “and pays

people to be kind to the unfortunates brought here.”

“Well, you don’t need to expect any kindness here, for you won’t get

it,” she said, and she went out and closed the door.

A sheet and an oilcloth were under me, and a sheet and black wool

blanket above. I never felt anything so annoying as that wool blanket

as I tried to keep it around my shoulders to stop the chills from

getting underneath. When I pulled it up I left my feet bare, and when

I pulled it down my shoulders were exposed. There was absolutely

nothing in the room but the bed and myself. As the door had been

locked I imagined I should be left alone for the night, but I heard the

sound of the heavy tread of two women down the hall. They

stopped at every door, unlocked it, and in a few moments I could

hear them relock it. This they did without the least attempt at

quietness down the whole length of the opposite side of the hall and

up to my room. Here they paused. The key was inserted in the lock

and turned. I watched those about to enter. In they came, dressed in

brown and white striped dresses, fastened by brass buttons, large,

white aprons, a heavy green cord about the waist, from which

dangled a bunch of large keys, and small, white caps on their heads.

Being dressed as were the attendants of the day, I knew they were

nurses. The first one carried a lantern, and she flashed its light into

my face while she said to her assistant:

“This is Nellie Brown.” Looking at her, I asked:

“Who are you?”

“The night nurse, my dear,” she replied, and, wishing that I would

sleep well, she went out and locked the door after her. Several times

during the night they came into my room, and even had I been able

to sleep, the unlocking of the heavy door, their loud talking, and

heavy tread, would have awakened me.

I could not sleep, so I lay in bed picturing to myself the horrors in

case a fire should break out in the asylum. Every door is locked

separately and the windows are heavily barred, so that escape is

impossible. In the one building alone there are, I think Dr. Ingram

told me, some three hundred women. They are locked, one to ten to

a room. It is impossible to get out unless these doors are unlocked. A

fire is not improbable, but one of the most likely occurrences. Should

the building burn, the jailers or nurses would never think of

releasing their crazy patients. This I can prove to you later when I

come to tell of their cruel treatment of the poor things intrusted to

their care. As I say, in case of fire, not a dozen women could escape.

All would be left to roast to death. Even if the nurses were kind, which they are not, it would require more presence of mind than

women of their class possess to risk the flames and their own lives

while they unlocked the hundred doors for the insane prisoners.

Unless there is a change there will some day be a tale of horror never

equaled.

In this connection is an amusing incident which happened just

previous to my release. I was talking with Dr. Ingram about many

things, and at last told him what I thought would be the result of a

fire.

“The nurses are expected to open the doors,” he said.

“But you know positively that they would not wait to do that,” I

said, “and these women would burn to death.”

He sat silent, unable to contradict my assertion.

“Why don’t you have it changed?” I asked.

“What can I do?” he replied. “I offer suggestions until my brain is

tired, but what good does it do? What would you do?” he asked,

turning to me, the proclaimed insane girl.

“Well, I should insist on them having locks put in, as I have seen in

some places, that by turning a crank at the end of the hall you can

lock or unlock every door on the one side. Then there would be some

chance of escape. Now, every door being locked separately, there is

absolutely none.”

Dr. Ingram turned to me with an anxious look on his kind face as he

asked, slowly:

“Nellie Brown, what institution have you been an inmate of before

you came here?”

“None. I never was confined in any institution, except boarding-

school, in my life.”

“Where then did you see the locks you have described?”

I had seen them in the new Western Penitentiary at Pittsburg, Pa.,

but I did not dare say so. I merely answered:

“Oh, I have seen them in a place I was in–I mean as a visitor.”

“There is only one place I know of where they have those locks,” he

said, sadly, “and that is at Sing Sing.”

The inference is conclusive. I laughed very heartily over the implied

accusation, and tried to assure him that I had never, up to date, been

an inmate of Sing Sing or even ever visited it.

Just as the morning began to dawn I went to sleep. It did not seem

many moments until I was rudely awakened and told to get up, the

window being opened and the clothing pulled off me. My hair was

still wet and I had pains all through me, as if I had the rheumatism.

Some clothing was flung on the floor and I was told to put it on. I

asked for my own, but was told to take what I got and keep quiet by

the apparently head nurse, Miss Grady. I looked at it. One underskirt

made of coarse dark cotton goods and a cheap white calico dress

with a black spot in it. I tied the strings of the skirt around me and

put on the little dress. It was made, as are all those worn by the