My tears almost choked my utterance as I called to her, "Callahan, stop that singing unless you mean to break my heart!"
O'Brien had been standing on the steps that led to the kitchen, only a few feet from me. She came along and sat down on a low stool at my feet.
"How different you are to what I thought you was when you came in here. You stepped round so square and independent, I thought we had got a hard mistress."
"Look here!" said Callahan, "it does me good to speak to you sometimes. It is easier to be patient, and the time don't seem so long. Look here! Do you love Hardhack?"
"I heard her in the kitchen scolding awhile ago, and you took it as cool as could be. If I'd been you I'd put her out. She has no right to come in your place and give orders. It sets me crazy to hear her."
"If I could not keep my own temper when I am annoyed, how could I teach you to keep yours?"
"That's it," said O'Brien. "Hardhack gets mad in the shop, and scolds us, and we scold back; and then we get punished. I wish there was somebody to report her, too."
"Girls, did you ever hear of One who said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'?"
"Yes; but I never saw anybody do it," said O'Brien.
"No! I always thought 'twas all moonshine. It'll do to preach about."
"It will do to practice, too. Suppose you try it towards Mrs. Hardhack, and see how much happier you will feel."
"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded through the prison in continuous echoes.
"It has done me good to laugh. I don't feel half so mad with her as I did."
"O'Brien, I came very near sending you to the shop to-day, when you scolded Allen so hard. Be careful or you will change your mistress before you know it. You keep me in constant anxiety lest the Deputy, or some of the other Matrons should come in and hear you. In that case it would be beyond my power to help you."
"If you do send me to the shop you will have me home again in less than twenty-four hours, one of your bread-and-water boarders."
"I don't know but Hardhack will get me into solitary as it is. When she came through the kitchen this noon, she saw me eating a piece of fish with my bread,--we'd been stripping it off for the hash, and I took a piece. She asked me who gave me liberty to eat fish. I told her, nobody. She asked me how I dared to eat that fish without permission. I should have made her a saucy answer only I knew it would make you feel bad, so I didn't say anything."