men in the
whole colony for the future. So I was to live on, and hope and pray God
to lighten our lot for her sake.

. . . . .

It must be years and years since that time as I last wrote about. Awful
long and miserable the time went at first; now it don't go so slow
somehow. I seemed to have turned a corner. How long is it? It must be a
hundred years. I have had different sorts of feelings. Sometimes I feel
ashamed to be alive. I think the man that knocked his head against the
wall of his cell the day he was sentenced and beat his brains out in
this very gaol had the best of it. Other times I take things quite easy,
and feel as if I could wait quite comfortable and patient-like till
the day came. But--will it? Can it ever come that I shall be a free man
again?

People have come to see me a many times, most of them the first year
or two I was in. After that they seemed to forget me, and get tired of
coming. It didn't make much odds.

But one visitor I had regular after the first month or two. Gracey, poor
Gracey, used to come and see me twice a year. She said it wouldn't do
her or me any good to come oftener, and George didn't want her to. But
them two times she always comes, and, if it wasn't for that, I don't
think I'd ever have got through with it. The worst of it was, I used to
be that low and miserable after she went, for days and days after, that
it was much as I could do to keep from giving in altogether. After a
month was past I'd begin to look forward to the next time.

When I'd done over eleven years--eleven years! how did I ever do it? but
the time passed, and passed somehow--I got word that they that I knew
of was making a try to see if I couldn't be let out when I'd done twelve
years. My regular sentence was fifteen, and little enough too. Anyhow,
they knock off a year or two from most of the long-sentence men's time,
if they've behaved themselves well in gaol, and can show a good conduct
ticket right through.

Well, I could do that. I was too low and miserable to fight much when
I went in; besides, I never could see the pull of kicking up rows and
giving trouble in a place like that. They've got you there fast enough,
and any man that won't be at peace himself, or let others be, is pretty
sure to get the worst of it. I'd seen others try it, and never seen no
good come of it. It's like a dog on the chain that growls and bites at
all that comes near him. A man can take a sapling and half ki