Of Prophets, Saints and Sinners - 4. Chapter 4: Dust-up Boys

Chapter 4: Dust-up Boys

~The mattresses may be of straw, but the bedding itself is of crisp white linen. The smell of the place is carbolic.

Monk finished the note in his reporter's pad and then plopped a hand on the nearest bed. He confirmed the rope stringing was taut. "And if the sheets are found to be soiled in the morning…?"

Assistant Superintendent Dodd halted his step, apparently offended by the mere suggestion. "If discovered in such condition, Mr. Monk, the errant boy will be punished."

They continued their tour of one of the top-floor dormitories, with a wayward thought in Monk's mind that 'sleep' in Latin, roof 'dormer,' and 'dormitory' all relate rhetorically to attic places exactly like this one. The room was large, with fifty or more identical beds pushed head-end against the long walls. High louver windows between the beams let in ventilation, but were barred from the outside.

Dodd eventually led them to a central corridor. Across the hall stood an open door to a room of equal proportions and outfitted with another fifty child-sized beds. Chairs were placed outside both portals where guards sat throughout the night 'protecting' the city's youthful wards, but in the newspaper color man's mind he saw all to easily the rickety Windsors had spend most of their lives leaning backwards, their inhabitants fast asleep, with folded hands upon vests and heads resting against the wall.

It meant the boys were on their own at night.

"And by punishment, Assistant Superintendent, you mean – "

"The city mandates corporal punishment against the errant lad, sir. Caning goes a long way to maintaining a firm discipline."

Dodd was a middle-aged man, a little wan of expression; his clothes were less than new, but the fringe of auburn hair circling his bald pate was well groomed. Monk suspected the presence of a Mrs. Dodd in the officious man's life.

"I imagine the rules are somewhat, shall we say, severe?"

"I can assure you, cruel and unusual punishment has been abolished at the House of Refuge, but flagrant violations – especially for disobedience – are dealt with in a way to make the transgressor a fitting example for the rest of the boys."

Monk jotted this in his notebook, not glancing up as he inquired, "And the female inmates?"

"Mrs. Dodd, the House Matron, rules roost over the other half of the facility. She has her hands full with her sixty girls, but corporal punishment is not used in her wing."

"I see."

"Shall we, Mr. McDonough?"

As Dodd conducted them towards the stairs, he replayed the boys' daily routine: up at dawn, down to the basement lavatory where they stripped and bathed together, then into the adjoining dining hall for porridge.

It struck Monk. "Bathe together? But you have House boys from ages two to twenty-one, both criminals and the poor and abandoned."

"Yes, Mr. Monk. Please note in your little book that I do not make the rules."

Instantly, unexpectedly, this little city functionary took on something akin to human sympathies; such a revelation momentarily stunned Monk.

He flipped to the beginning of his Refuge notes.

~ The visitor to the House of Refuge will be at once struck by its prison-like appearance. Twenty-foot-high walls surround the massive structure, which is itself gated and barred.

Monk recalled his trip here this morning. The institution is located in the southern part of the city where large swaths of undeveloped woods and farmland still abound. The House sits on a hill, only a few blocks up from the river. A paved wagon path leads directly to a quay and several city-owned warehouses at the water's edge.

As for the institution itself, the high walls are of mortar-set fieldstone and enclose a compound of about two acres.

From the sidewalk the only visible way in is through an iron gate. Monk had entered by way of this and proceeded down a sally port to the front door of a four-story brick building inside the walled area. Passing through another ironclad portal revealed Assistant Superintendent Dodd impatiently awaiting his arrival.

As they shook hands, Monk realized how frightening it must be for a boy – of any age – to be led here knowing he'd be locked away, 'criminal' or not.

Dodd first led them through the central corridor to the prison yard. Oddly formal, to the left and right, two-story structures like row houses formed residences for the warders. The forecourt was provided with a central fountain, surrounded by bleach-white gravel and rose beds. Behind this terrace, a field comprised the rear of the compound where the juvenile offenders could indulge in supervised exercise. In one back corner resided three slender silos, while a wooden water tank on stilts rose in the other.

At some point Monk had queried how many boys and girls 'go missing' a year. The reporter was surprised to hear the number was north of ten or twelve. When pressed to explain how the escapes were effected, the Assistant Superintendent was coy, saying only "Measure are re-evaluated and routes buttoned up as they become exposed."

"But these children are quickly rounded up by the police and returned…?"

Dodd was less than timid in replying. "A few, sir. A few."

The Globe man assumed the remainder successfully blent into their old neighborhoods, or perhaps headed for parts unknown.

At first, as the city employee lead them up to the fourth floor to begin their tour, Monk was not sure he liked Dodd. As time went on, he was less sure of his doubt. The reported sensed a man doing his duty, but perhaps not zealously committed to the lass than equitable aspects of his daily tasks.

Now, as they turned the corner and landed on the third floor, Monk asked, "How many visitors do you receive?"

"More than you'd suspect, Mr. Monk. This city is amply supplied with moral busybodies."

Yes, Monk was warming to the man.

He pulled up by a closed door and halted. "I was taken aback, sir, to learn a newspaper man wanted to 'slum,' so to speak. We do not get many correspondents making inquiries."

"At once time, I was quite a well-known social reformer. If you saw my column in the days before the General Strike – "

"I did, Mr. McDonough. And I trust the light of a subtle and socially conscious mind like yours will paint a fair and accurate picture of what you see here today."

Invitation to be critical; Monk definitely liked the man now.

He raised his pad and wrote, saying as he did, "Rest assured."

~ A member of the public arranging for a tour will have a companion—in all probability, Assistant Superintendent Dodd—an agreeable, chatty gentleman, whom one will find to be perfectly frank in communicating his knowledge to the visitor.

"Shall we go in, Mr. Monk?"

"By all means."

"This is the caning shop."

Dodd led the way into a commodious but remarkably quite room. One large open space, thirty boys – younger ones – were arrayed up and down the longer dimension in rows. Each child had a chair on the patch of floor before them, and they stood upon tiptoe to dexterously weave reed strands into the neat octagonal grids of caned seats. Sallow, deprived of adequate light, Monk saw several of the boys had raw and bleeding fingers.[1]

Dodd prattled, pointing to the back portion of the room where stacks of chairs climbed to the rafters; to the left were completed ones, to the left, ones waiting for their seats to be put in. "Seven hours of the day, sir, my boys are kept occupied. Well, the smaller and more nimble of stature, but also the ones whose mentality is deemed to be sluggish, shall we say. The House provides chair-caning for several manufactures who have contracts with the city."

"Is seven hours a fair day's work, in your opinion?"

Dodd misconstrued and replied, "The boys must attend three hours of schooling a day as well."

"Ten-hour days of labor."

"Yes. One hour for dinner and afternoon recreation in the yard, and one more for super and private study, and then their twelve hours is considered 'served' for the day. And then the lights are extinguished."

"They are put to bed?"

"Indeed."

"Active lads who are fifteen to twenty years old have the same bedtime as exhausted toddlers and seven-year-olds?"

A wry expression appeared; the man glanced to Monk's notebook. "I do not make the rules, Mr. McDonough. I only see to it that they are strictly enforced."

˚˚˚˚˚

Standing in front of a similar door on the second floor, the din coming from behind it was already noisome.

"What place is this?" inquired Monk loudly.

Dodd opened the portal, and had to nearly shout to be heard: "The shoe shop!"

Inside, an equally large room as upstairs was crowed with whirring equipment and older boys huddled at workstations in close proximity to one another. The reporter's eyes were drawn to the sharpness all around the kids – thick sewing needles, cutting blades to slice leather around tin patterns, stamping presses to cut decorative 'lace' in the tanned hides. As if not menacing enough, one corner of the shop had stoves with red-hot burnishing irons needed to make the patent shininess only the rich could afford.

As they walked around, Dodd relayed facts at the top of his lungs: "Sixty boys are kept out of trouble and off the streets. Three to four hundred pairs of nicely sewn shoes for boys and men, girls and women, are produced here every day. Our equipment is up to the minute, being leased and maintained via city contract with one of the largest shoe operations in the country."

As he glanced around, Monk thought he saw some tough cases amongst the older young men here – more the delinquent class in charge of the shop over the meeker boys.

They made their way and exited the same door as they had arrived. It was a relief to McDonough's eardrums when the portal was finally closed and Dodd led them down the steps.

He spoke to the reporter in an oily tone. "I hope, sir, you noted how every child wears a spotless uniform."

In his thoughts, Monk had indeed – drab of color, formless, and of a coarse material – he was sure those clothes were intended as subtle punishment as well.

"All the boys must have close-cropped hair?" Monk asked.

"I'm afraid so. Boys will be boys, and boys will pick up lice from one another. To keep this facility officially free of the vermin, heads must be inspected and shaved uniformly short once a week, every week."

When Monk only nodded, Dodd continued in a more boastful manner. "And I trust you observed each boy is provided with shoes. No bare feet are permitted."

"Yes, shod with boots wrought by their own fingers."

"Indeed."

McDonough felt nauseated that the Assistant Superintendent could so misconstrue Monk's blatant rebuke; Dodd had turned it into a moment of pride.

As they continued on their way, the officious man added, "Besides daily schooling for the three R's, we have a weekly rotation of visiting instructors who expand the boys' horizons. They teach diverse subjects, such as physical education, debate and speechmaking, fine arts, and even dancing."

"Dancing?"

"Yes. With each other, naturally. The boys and girls no not mix."

Down on the first floor, a yeasty aroma greeted the newspaper color man. It was a scent similar to the insides of his favorite coffee shops downtown.

They passed through a wide doorway into large production room. The temperature and humidity level instantly rose on Monk's cheeks.

The far wall was tiled and stacked with metal oven doors. Closer to him, troughs the size of kitchen tables were attended to by apron-wearing boys working in tandem to knead mountains of dough.

Dodd strolled farther into the room, and Monk followed him past metal racks where baked loaves cooled.

The Assistant Superintendent's prideful tone was back. "The entire city system is laid out for efficiency and profit. The institutions supply one another: work gangs from the female prison go out and pick reeds along the Missouri River Bottoms; the raw hides from the city's stockyards are tanned in the Jail's shop, then sent here and cobbled into footwear for every person under the city's 'care.'"

Monk stopped cold. "But you said your boys make many hundreds of pairs a day. A week's output would set the city's need for a year."

"Efficiency and profit, Mr. Monk. We have contracts from the State as well. We sell the shoes the insane wear in Arsenal Street, and the rest pour into the warehouses of local shoe distributors, all at a handsome rate of return for the city."

The man laughed, and Monk reconsidered his earlier 'pass' on Dodd's character. They moved on, walking by tray after tray of the most delicate, and expertly decorated pastry and teacakes.

"And this bakery, Mr. Dodd, why does it exist?"

"The same reason, Mr. Monk. It operates on an identical principle: wheat, barley and rye are grown on the city's Poor Farm. It's sent here to our silos where our vocational bakers turn it into five hundred loaves a day, enough to feed the city's entire population of incarcerated and warders."

"And these dainties?"

Before Dodd could answer, there was a flurry of activity. A pair of boys appeared before the ovens with long wooden peels, and more showed up to hold down the oven doors; out popped fancy looking boules of brioche with bun tops.

"Ah, those," said Dodd. "Those are for the elite. These delicate pastries will make their way to City Hall and the Four Courts Building to be served to the Mayor, Alderman, Justices and Police Chief for their afternoon tea."

"And – just out of curiosity – what would happen if one of these 'vocational bakers' happened to eat a slice of his own cake?"

"The punishment for such a serious breach of discipline would be severe, Mr. McDonough. Severe."

Monk pretended to make note of it, asking archly, "And you, Assistant Superintendent Dodd, do you think the practice is fair for boys from age two to twenty-one to be locked together; the merely penniless and forgotten crammed cheek-to-jowl with pickpockets, and worse?"

The man appeared to collect his thoughts. "I, sir, am simply a functionary whose opinions are bought and paid for by my city salary. If a high-minded gentleman, such as yourself, feels it is unfair, than I, a mere cog in this self-perpetuating system, can not prevent you from writing about it."

They moved on. One lad opened a larger oven door, and two older boys stepped forward with heavy towels in their hands. They grabbed onto a baking tray, which was really a metal frame holding a dozen loaf pans. They set the baked bread on a table in front of them, and Dodd swiftly moved behind to collar one of the boys, the handsomer of the two with a smudge of flour on his cheek.

"And this," said the assistant superintendent, "is the reprobate you wanted to see specifically."

The second boy, a little larger but not as bright-eyed as the first, appeared ready to sock Dodd for his rough handling.

Then Monk witnessed his young cousin gesture with his eyes for his larger pal to stay calm.

Once he glanced back to Monk, and Dodd had released him, a slow dawning of hope spread across Felix's expression. It affected Monk in an indescribable way. All the pallor and despair of The House of Refuge suddenly took on a face, a very human one.

˚˚˚˚˚

It was eerily quiet in the cavernous visiting room. Several large tables spread out from a central aisle, and here paced a guard with truncheon in hand. Monk glanced and felt it was pitiful to see children in uniforms – one per massive table – on one side with desperate looking mothers and fathers on the other.

Felix cleared his throat. "Thanks for coming, Cousin Monk."

Banal platitudes of 'You're looking well' would not serve, least of all because they were not be true; Felix appeared tired and wan. In addition, his cousin was a boy he hardly knew.

His hand massaged his beard. "Do they feed you in this place?"

"Potatoes, with canned meat most days. Cabbage soup with roasts of salt pork or salt beef on Sundays. Vegetables from the Poor Farm. We get bread and butter, and some fruit. It ain't bad. There's enough of it."

"Do they make you work too much?"

"No more than what I did as a dust-up boy."

Monk knew Felix was referring to a job the boy had had in a neighborhood pie shop. Starting at age nine, after his parents pulled him out of school, he would sweep up, tote flour sacks – do any grunt work – and begin an apprenticeship.

"We're lucky I got me and Hampden in the Bakery – it's hot, but the work's more mixed up. Poor simpletons weaving caning all day ain't got nothin' to think about."

"Hampden's the boy I saw you with just now?"

"Yes, sir. We – we got pinched together, sentenced together, and all that."

"Do they let you get enough sleep?"

Not so surprisingly, that simple question evidenced an emotional response from his adolescent cousin, but it was swallowed down quickly. The boy laced fingers together, spread his elbows out and leaned on the table towards the reporter. Showing considerable whites beneath his limpid blue eyes, he said softly, "This is a rotten system, Monk. I fare okay, and keep Hampy safe, but some of the younger boys have it rough." He sat back on his chair with a flourish; his arms folded. "I don’t want to talk about it."

Monk diverted the conversation, thinking it best anyway. "I was trying to think of the last time we saw each other."

Felix did not respond.

"Yes," the reported went on. "I think it was Christmas '76, at our grandparent's farm. Do you remember? You must have been about…."

"Thirteen years old. Yes, I remember that Christmas. So far, it was my last."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean in here, the day don't exist. I've almost forgotten what it's like."

Monk realized with sudden force that Felix and 'Hampy' had sacrificed three Christmases to the system already.

"This place may be bad, but you have school here. You'd never get that as a dust-up boy at a pie shop."

The boy leaned forward again. "We know it. I've applied myself in class and now have an 8th grade education. Hampden's done the same, and Miss Waverly says he's up to a 6th grade level."

"That's good."

"I knew she'd find you."

"Miss Waverly. You did?"

"Yes. And convince you to come here."

"I suppose she's nothing if not persuasive."

"Yeah – persuasive."

"She brings me extra reading material from time to time. I read them to Hampy at night, before lights out. He prefers action books, like Fenimore Cooper, Horatio Alger, and Jules Verne. Right now we're reading one by Alexandre Dumas."

Although plainly spoken, Monk saw a spark of enthusiasm in his young cousin's eyes. He realized they were all of the same literary blood.

"And poetry?" the reporter asked.

Felix shrugged.

"I like verse," Monk affirmed. "I bet you would too. I like words in general, for example, I wonder if you know what 'Hampden' means."

"It has a meaning?"

"Yes. It's an Old English word, meaning 'Home in the valley.'"

Again, his cousin's reaction was understated, but a definite wave of emotion crested briefly over the young man's face.

Felix sighed, sitting up straight. "I wish to hell the General Strike never happened, or…or that Hampden would have steered clear. Those four nights were, were…well, you know. You were there."

Monk didn’t want to 'talk about it,' but he had to know. "How exactly did you two get caught up in it anyway?"

"Hampy is a bit gullible, but loyal. He's younger too, but big, so some of the labor organizers got it into their heads to use him as a messenger, only Hampden didn't know he was doing anything wrong. Except he was. The notes were full of coded information on where guns and ammo were stockpiled in peoples' houses. Things…well, things got complicated during the worst of it."

Monk's mind heard phantom booms, saw torchlight and smelled gunpowder.

The boy shook him out of it with a soft-spoken: "I'm sorry for your loss."

The newspaper color man steadied his tone. "It was three years ago…. I'm also sorry you boys got swept up in the aftermath. It was not a time when the Saint Louis P.D. acted precisely 'honorable.' Many were rounded up and locked away for little or no reason, other than being poor and hopeful for change."

"So if you feel that way, will you help us now?"

"I – "

"There's the age difference. If we stay 'in' until I'm twenty-one, then Hampy will be alone here for a whole year, and I don't think he'll survive on his own."

"He looks like a big lad – one who can hold himself well."

"He is, and he ain't a coward either. What I mean is his temper towards others, towards injustice, would cause him real problems. They'll probably trump up more charges and keep him past twenty-one; move him to the city Jail or Work House. I can't let that happen, cousin. I just can't."

There were more flashes across Monk's senses: piercing lights in the night; shock-blasts; gun smoke. Fear. He knew he was unprepared to deal with them here and now….

"Will you help us?"

Monk blinked and brought himself back to the moment. He pitied them. They were just curious boys caught up in the excitement of the General Strike, in the history-making quality of it, in the thrilling whiff of revolution. They were heady times, and in the roustabout fervor of the corrupt and frightened 'powers that be,' many of the guiltless were targeted to be made a lesson of. This horrible system of inter-linked institutions existed to exploit and break them, but wound up teaching the innocent the necessity of becoming true criminals through privation and fear.

"And your parents will not sign for you?"

"No, cousin. There are rumors out there, spread by my brother, so our folks don’t want nothin' to do with either of us."

"I don’t know – a lot's at stake for me if this thing goes wrong."

"I understand, Monk. But please, please help us. You're the only chance we've got."