“Do you understand anything?” asked the Deputy.

“Well, some things, marrying for instance,” was my answer.

“I want no joking or blackguardism about this matter,” said the Deputy; “them simple fact is, you’ve got to work; if you don’t we’ll make you.”

So I kept on at hewing, making no improvement, and in a day or two more the shopkeeper undertook to show me how the work should be done.  I protested I never could learn it.

“You don’t try; and I have a good mind to punish you.”

The moment the shop-keeper said it I dropped the snath, raised my axe, and told him that if he came one step nearer to me I would make mincemeat of him.  He thought it was advisable to stay where he was; but one of the prison-keepers was in the shop, and as he came toward me I warned him that he had better keep away.

All the men in the shop were ready to break out in insubordination; when I threatened the shop keeper and the guard, they cheered; the Deputy Warden was soon on the ground; he stood in the doorway a moment, and then, in a kind tone called me to him.  I had no immediate quarrel with him, and so I dropped my axe and went to him.  He told me that there was no use of “making a muss” there, it incited the other prisoners to insubordination, and was sure to bring severe punishment upon myself.  “Go and get your cap and coat,” said he “and come with me.”

“But if you are going to put me into that black hole of yours,” I exclaimed, “I won’t go; you’ll have to draw me there or kill me on the way.”

He promised he would not put me in the dungeon, he was only going to put me in my cell, he said, and to my cell I went, willingly enough, and stayed there a week, during which time I suppose everyone of my shopmates thought I was in the dungeon, undergoing severe punishment for my rebellions conduct.

I had learned now the worst lesson which a prisoner can learn-that is, that my keepers were afraid of me.  To a limited extent, it is true, I was now my own master and keeper.  In a few days Deputy Morey came to me and asked me if I was “willing” to come out and work.  I was sick of solitary confinement, and longed to see the faces of men, even prisoners:  so I told him if I could get any work I could do I was willing to try it, and would do as well as I knew how.  He asked me if I knew anything of locksmithing?  I told him I had some taste for it, and if he would show me his job I would let him see what I could do.

The fact is, I was a very fair amateur locksmith, and had quite a fondness for fixing, picking, and fussing generally over locks.  Accordingly, when he gave me a lock to work upon to make it “play easier,” as he described it, I did the job so satisfactorily that I had nearly every lock in the prison to take off and operate upon, if it was nothing more than to clean and oil one.  This business occupied my entire time and attention for nearly three months.  Then I repaired iron bedsteads, did other iron work, and I was the general tinker of the prison.