by Leah Pileggi
“Henry,” said Mr. Criswell, “you bringing a new man starting tomorrow?”
He was really taking that surprise thing all the way.
Henry nodded. “Rufus Jensen.” He was a smiley old man, a ranch hand got caught stealing. Didn’t matter what name Henry said, since I was the one gonna be working the hogs anyways.
Charles got caught in the surprise. “You mean I have to keep going to school?”
Mr. Criswell said, “Looks like it, Charles.”
And then without thinking, my mouth said, “Will I go to school, too, or will I just keep on working the hogs?”
Mr. Criswell leaned back and looked at me with his full face. He looked to Charles, too. And then I knew I was wrong ‘bout my foster family.
I started laughing. “Hey, just making a joke. I know y’all want me to stick around, but, well, I gotta go.” I started walking away.
“Hold up, Jake.” Mr. Criswell come on over to me.
“Mrs. Criswell and I talked to the warden. We wanted you to stay right here with us. But the decision had already been made, Jake. We tried to fight it, but …”
Charles stamped the ground. “It ain’t fair.”
“Don’t matter,” I said right quick. “I can get by anywhere.”
“Now don’t go off mad, Jake.”
I weren’t mad. I was … well, I didn’t know what I was.
Mr. Criswell put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re hoping you can come visit sometime.”
I leaned into him and asked kinda quiet, “You know where I’m goin’?”
“No, Jake, I don’t know. Henry, you know?”
Henry said, “I’m afraid I don’t. But maybe it’s not far from here.”
Charles come over and stuck out his hand. I shook it, but neither one of us had nothing to say.
Me and Henry walked back slow. I scuffed the path and looked up and around to the hills one last time. At the wood gate, I walked in for the last time. Nothing would be familiar from now on.
Ate my last dinner in my cage, extra bread included. Mrs. Ayres wished me luck and even shook my hand through the food slot. I packed up my stuff. Some old clothes, a couple books, a carved wood pig without a tail. Weren’t much more than I come with.
And then I set on my bunk the last time and opened Pa’s letter. Turned out I was fretting over nothing. I could read every single word.
Jake,
You won’t never red this anywho but I’ve a mind to put down what I think. Your ma took sick when yous just learnin to walk. Didn’t know what to do with ya when she up and died. Still didn’t know what to do when you took my gun and used it on Mr. Bennett. I ain’t a bad father, I didn’t never want to be one so it’s best you live somewheres away from me.
Got a new wife and she don’t want a leftover kid, so we’s goin on more west were I will work and make a new life. Don’t cause no troubles to no one. Do what yous told and keep that mouth shut.
Your pa
TWENTY-SIX
It was time to go. My belly was full and my head was overflowing.
Henry come for me. I picked up my bag and walked out and down them steps for the last time. The men was out doing their ninety minutes in the yard. I didn’t have much to say to any of them but Mr. Shin and Mr. Wu.
“Thanks for playin’ that nice music,” I said. “And for tryin’ to teach me to read.”
“You a good reader and good man, Jake,” said Mr. Shin. He shook my hand and give me a quick head bow.
Miles and Len shook my hand, too, and wished me good luck. And then me and Henry left through the round-top gate one last time. Behind us come Warden Johnson. We all stood outside the gate and watched a cloud of dust coming our way. A wagon pulled up hitched to two raggedy horses and driven by a skinny man wearing a washed-out red shirt and overalls and a hat looked like he set on it more than wore it. He didn’t turn his head, just said, “I’m to pick up the boy.”
Warden Johnson said, “Mr. Drummond, I’d like a word with you.” The man stepped down to meet with the warden.
I turned to Henry and said, “Once you’s a big-man lawyer, you can come on and visit me, let me know how lawyerin’ is.”
Henry reached out his hand, and we shook. A couple of tears run down his face, and he didn’t even try to wipe them away.
The warden handed some papers to Mr. Drummond. “These are Jake’s official documents, sir. We should have given them to you at the lawyer’s office.” He slapped Mr. Drummond on the back and left his hand there a second. “He’s a good boy.”
Mr. Drummond gave a quick nod. He folded them papers and tucked them inside his overalls. “Thank you kindly, Warden. Time to go, son.” He stepped on up one side and I stepped on up the other side, and them horses pulled away before I barely set down.
We took off, bumping along steady and slow. Mr. Drummond didn’t say nothing. I looked back at that fence, now all white stone, getting small behind me. Got kinda blurry-eyed, so I turned forward and didn’t look at nothing. We kept on aways, and then we started a gradual climb.
My mouth got to thinking out loud. “You sure you want me around, Mr. Drummond?”
At first I thought he didn’t hear me, but then he said, “Need some help with the livestock. Warden says you’re a worker.”
“Hogs?” I asked.
“Sheep,” he said.
Sheep.
So they was gonna work me. Well, if I was gonna work, I had to know was I gonna eat.
“Will I get dinner every day?” I asked. “I got dinner in there every single day.”
I thought I saw his chin twitch, but all he said was “You’ll eat.”
That’s all I needed to know.
We kept on, the horses slowing even more with the climb. The air felt like it was thinking ‘bout spring as the trail wound up around a hill. And then, there stood a tall crookedy house and a small slapped-together barn and some chickens and a fence full of sheep. I didn’t know sheep and weren’t happy ‘bout that. But the critters that really shook me up stood lined up on a porch that leaned a little to one side. Them critters was girls, every darn one of them.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I counted seven girls in a row, starting ‘bout my waist high and on up taller than me. The last girl weren’t a girl, she was Mrs. Drummond, and she was as skinny as Mr. but with a tight, dried-up face.
“You get on to work, Jake,” she said. I jumped down and followed Mr. Drummond to them stinky old sheep. With the day getting on late, mostly I learned what I’d be doing from then on. Mr. Drummond pointed some here and there, and he didn’t say one word more than he had to. I figured out we was done for the day when he wiped his hands on his pant legs and started walking toward the house. I followed him up the creaky steps.
It was time for their dinner meal, my second one that day. I set at the table with them six total silent girls and Mr. and Mrs. Drummond. A small girl whispered, “He’s a boy.” That got all them girls to giggling. Mr. Drummond snickered, too. Mrs. banged her fist on the table, and everybody hushed up. But I could still see them all grinning.
I ate what the oldest girl put down in front of me. Weren’t no heap of food like I was used to, but I wouldn’t starve.
“You’ll do what you’re told, Jake,” said Mrs. “You’ll work the sheep and the chickens and anything else Mr. Drummond needs. And you will go to church every Sunday and study your Bible. And you will sing with us when Mr. Drummond plays his banjo, and you will do it all without complaint.”
I chewed and listened.
“And you will go to school when time affords. You will read, and you will not be ignorant.”
School. Me going to school. Without thinking, I asked, “Are the Criswells in school, ma’am?”
“Speak up, boy! Who?”
I shouted, “The Criswells!”
Those girls giggled again.
“The Criswells attend the school. And you will have Miss Margaret as your teacher, seeing as you’re likely behind.”
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br /> I ignored her comment and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and by then I was grinning, too. I’d see Charles at school. And Margaret would be my teacher.
Darkness set in, and lanterns were lit.
“You’re in the attic,” said Mrs., handing me one of the lanterns. “You come on down here when you’re called.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and all six girls kept up that group giggle. The smallest had snuck up beside me and took hold of my hand, pulling me to a set of narrow stairs. I stepped up, but that little hand wouldn’t let go.
“Hannah!” barked Mrs.
Hannah let go and clapped her hands together like her own private handshake.
Mrs. said, “Get goin’, Jake. And you girls finish your work.”
I continued on up, listening to six girls shuffling around, doing whatever work that girls do. At the top of the steps, I seen a ladder. I held on to my lantern tight and climbed on up. Stepping through a opening, I felt dust flying around my face, but it didn’t matter. There set my old canvas bag in a attic room way bigger than my cage ever was. I could stretch on out, even run a few steps if I wanted. I knew Mrs. wouldn’t like that, so I set down on a old lumpy straw mattress and took off my boots. Nasty smells from inside and outside them boots. I walked them across the room to a six-side window hole filled with a six-side piece of wood. Thought I’d open up that window and air out them boots.
I set the lantern down and tried to get hold of that piece of wood. Pull in, I knew. Wouldn’t do to push out and have to run down to pick it up, hoping it didn’t crush nobody on the way down. But I couldn’t get a grip. It held tight like it grew there. I had to loose it up somehow. A nail laying in the corner caught the lantern light. I picked it up and poked it in all around the six sides.
And then, feet firm against the wall, I grabbed that cover and give the biggest heave I had in me. I ended up on my back with that piece of wood on my chest.
“You better not be breakin’ things!” Mrs.’s voice come chasing up the ladder.
“No, ma’am,” I hollered. “Just openin’ the window.”
“You make sure to close it before you leave that attic!” she called out. “And shut off that lantern before you burn the place down.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I laid aside the window cover and shut off the lantern. And then I walked to the six-side window opening. Even with a spring chill in the air, I didn’t leave that spot all night.
The moon was way brighter than any lantern could ever be. It lit up the valley that run off for miles from that high-up room in that high-up house. And the stars helped out, too, shining and twinkling. And I seen lights in the valley, maybe some of them new electric lights, maybe a street lamp or maybe a house with people settling in for the night.
I took Pa’s letter from inside my shirt and tore it into tiny pieces. And then I tossed them one at a time out the window and watched the night breeze take them away.
Here I was in my new life. Full up with hard work and chickens and a hundred dumb sheep. But dinner every day and Charles and Margaret and music and even reading.
And a whole mess of sisters.
Cells at the Old Idaho Penitentiary
AUTHOR’S NOTE
On a scorching hot day in June of 2007, I took a tour of the Old Idaho Penitentiary in Boise, Idaho, a historical site known as the Old Pen. As I tried to find even a sliver of shade, the docent mentioned that the youngest prisoner ever incarcerated there was ten years old. That prisoner’s name was James Oscar Baker, and he had served time for manslaughter back in the 1880s.
I couldn’t imagine anyone living at that place at that time in history, let alone a ten-year-old kid. No air conditioning. No refrigerators. No electricity at all. And what about winter? Living in a cell without heat. How had he possibly survived?
I contacted the Idaho Historical Society to see what I could find out. They sent me a copy of James’s entry from the Convict Registry: James Oscar Baker. Prisoner 88. Received on May 31, 1885. 4’6” tall. Age 10. Sentenced to five years for manslaughter. But there weren’t any records of his day-to-day life inside the walls of the Old Pen. That’s when Jake’s story was born.
Prisoner 88 is not about James Oscar Baker, but Jake’s story was inspired by what I learned about James’s predicament, including this article that appeared on May 2, 1885, in the Idaho Register, a newspaper in Eagle Rock, Idaho:
SHOOTING AT SODA.
E. T. Williams Shot by a Ten Year Old Boy.
We got meager particulars of a shooting scrape which occurred at Soda Springs on Tuesday afternoon. It seems that E. T. Williams, proprietor of the large new hotel there and a man named Campbell, a relative, had been drinking, and entered Mr. Whittier’s saloon, which was in charge of J. W. Baker, and called for a pint of whiskey, which Baker told him he could not have unless he produced an order from Mr. Whittier. Williams said they would fool with him until he killed some one, and after repeated requests for the whiskey, and stating that Mr. Whittier said he could have it; accusing Baker of calling him a liar, and after parleying started after Baker, who went around the billiard tables, with Williams after him. After making two or three circuts Campbell stepped up and they then came together. Just at this time a ten year old boy of Baker’s who was behind the bar, stepped out with a pistol in hand, and aiming at Williams, shot him through the heart. Baker at once gave himself up as the responsible person, and was taken to Blackfoot where [he] waived examination and was remanded to jail.
According to the trial transcripts from May of 1885, James’s case was tried before a jury. The judge explained to the jury, “If the evidence clearly shows that this defendant knows the distinction between good and evil [at the time of the crime], then he is responsible for his acts although he may not be fourteen years of age.” Back then, the courts presumed that anyone age fourteen and over automatically knew right from wrong.
Before a verdict was reached, James pleaded guilty to manslaughter, possibly to avoid a harsher sentence if convicted of murder. That was an unfortunate decision. In the Petition for Pardon submitted less than a year later, it was explained that not all of the jury members were convinced that James knew he was doing wrong when he picked up the gun and fired. According to retired Idaho judge Ron Wilper, who interpreted the legal documents for me in May of 2008, because the jury members couldn’t reach a unanimous decision, James would have been acquitted.
Instead, James was sentenced to five years. Back then, there weren’t any separate facilities for juvenile offenders, so he had to serve his time at the penitentiary. His fellow prisoners were serving time for counterfeiting, assault with a deadly weapon, perjury, first-degree murder, robbery, embezzlement, introducing liquor into Indian country, and even stealing letters from the US mail. Some were miners, ranchers, laborers, or herders. Inmates included Mormon “cohabs” and also Chinese men, who had likely been brought to the United States to build the railroads.
The Old Pen as I depict it in Prisoner 88 is based on its real history. It was completely self-sufficient from the time it began in 1872 up through the Depression. Prisoners worked on nearby farms and orchards; they did laundry and tended animals. Eventually there was a library and a pig farm. Prisoners actually used dynamite to blast rocks that became the walls of the Old Pen. And, in the 1960s, there really was a prison cat. The Old Pen was closed in 1973.
After Jake’s story was finished, I discovered more information about the boy who inspired Prisoner 88. Although I chose to make Jake an only child with only one parent, I knew that James Oscar Baker actually had a mother and father. I was astounded, however, to find that he was one of thirteen siblings! James’s parents gave up guardianship of him when he was released from prison, but he eventually reunited with his mother and some of his siblings.
According to census records, James learned to read and write but only attended school for four years. Records also reveal that he worked as a laborer and fought in World War I. He died in 1944.
I hope that he had a good life.