I washed my face and
hands in salt water. Then I went back to Parnassus and brewed
some coffee with condensed milk. I gave Peg and Bock their
breakfasts. Then I hitched Peg to the van again, and felt
better. As I drove into the town I had to wait at the grade
crossing while a wrecking train rumbled past, on its way back
from Willdon. That meant that the line was clear again. I
watched the grimy men on the cars, and shuddered to think what
they had been doing.
The Vigor county jail lies about a mile out of the town, an
ugly, gray stone barracks with a high, spiked wall about it.
I was thankful that it was still fairly early in the morning,
and I drove through the streets without seeing any one I knew.
Finally I reached the gate in the prison wall. Here some kind
of a keeper barred my way. "Can't get in, lady," he said.
"Yesterday was visitors' day. No more visitors till next month."
"I _must_ get in," I said. "You've got a man in there on a
false charge."
"So they all say," he retorted, calmly, and spat halfway
across the road. "You wouldn't believe any of our boarders
had a right to be here if you could hear their friends talk."
I showed him Governor Stafford's card.
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