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Updated: April 30, 2025
I tell you, you got to work and pervide for yo' chillen. I couldn't rest in my grave if I thought one of them'd ever have to go to a 'sylum. I see you last week give a knife to that Hawley boy. What if he was name for you? I don't keer if it didn't cost but ten cent. You'll land in the po' house and yo' chillen in 'sylums if you throw away yo' money on tother folks' chillens.
"That was one reason I stopped crying when Cousin Dink told us we must come here. You see, Cousin Dink used to tell me if we didn't behave she would put us in a 'sylum and that folks in 'sylums didn't give you nothin' to eat but calf neck an' sheep's tails an' sour bread an' scorched oatmeal.
'Do we ever get madmen? said Waterloo, in answer to an inquiry of mine. 'Well, we DO get madmen. Yes, we have had one or two; escaped from 'Sylums, I suppose. One hadn't a halfpenny; and because I wouldn't let him through, he went back a little way, stooped down, took a run, and butted at the hatch like a ram.
"Can't, hardly. Old cap'n's the jolliest soul ashore, I believe," said Jane. "An' if grandpa maybe goes alone, 'cause they don't take little girls, nohow, then that colonel'd have me sent off to one o' them Homeses or 'Sylums for childern that hasn't got no real pas nor mas. Huh, needn't tell me.
"Them ain't no children to be wanderin' about the earth afoot 'n' alone, 'same 's Hitty went to the beach; nor they ain't any common truck ter be put inter 'sylums 'n' poor-farms. There's some young ones that's so everlastin' chuckle-headed 'n' hombly 'n' contrairy that they ain't hardly wuth savin'; but these ain't that kind.
She went on to say that, having broken the pledge, he was sent to the workhouse for sixty days and she was left without money, with seven children to care for. "They want me to put the children away to the 'sylums, but we want to stay together, ma'am. We can get on elegant with a little help with the rent and a teenchy bit grocery order now and then.
"I know how to sweep and dust and wash dishes. We had to do those things turn about, you know at the 'Home." "You set right still," repeated Mrs. Collins, "and let some meat grow on yo' po' little bones. I know how they treat you at them 'sylums, making you work day in, day out. Oh, it's a dog's life!" "But, Mrs. Collins, they were good to me, and kind as could be. I didn't have to work so hard.
They tell their daughters never to put ivy leaves in their hair or brooch, because 'they puts it on the dead paupers in the unions and the lunatics in the 'sylums. Such an association took away all the beauty of the ivy leaf. There is nature in their hearts, you see, although they are under the polar draught of poverty.
The girl nodded her head vaguely. "They say as how mommer can't take care of us popper he's got to go to the work'ouse again. He wa'n't so very drunk this time but the judge sent him there mean old thing! And they say mommer can't take care of us and we'll have to be put away in 'sylums. And we don't want to go. She says if the Charity folks will help with the rent, we can get on.
"That po' thing ain't goin' to be drug back to no 'sylum," pursued his wife. "She shall stay here long as she's a mind to till her folks come for her or till she gets grown or something. And she shall have all she wants to eat, sho as my name's Lizabeth Collins. I've heard tell of them 'sylums. They say the chillen don't have nothin' to eat or wear but what folks give 'em.
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