Free Shanty Irish by Jim Tully

keep everything to yourself. You’ll be safe then. For if two men know a thing in here—I’ll know it—I know everything any two men in here know—don’t trust anybody but God—and don’t pray out loud.”
    Lawler stood with intense silence before him. His manner must have worried the deputy warden—
    â€œTell me,” he said quickly, “how you came to be a thief.”
    Lawler made no answer.
    The deputy handed him a book of rules and a card. “Read them good,” he advised, “every time the card’s taken away it’ll mean you stay here that much longer.”
    Lawler nodded his head.
    The deputy handed him a sheet of paper, a pencil, an envelope and stamp. “You can write a letter now to whoever you want to—and one each month. The State’ll furnish the envelope and stamp.” Lawler handed the writing material back and shook his head, “No.”
    â€œDon’t want to write?” asked the deputy.
    Lawler answered tersely—“No.”
    For a month he was lonely and unbroken.
    The deputy warden talked to him at the end of ten days.
    â€œIt’ll come easier,” he said, “soon you can get a banjo and a boy and settle down for a while.”
    The years drilled deep into his consciousness.
    He learned that a prison was also run by politics. He learned the wisdom of the deputy warden. News traveled as if on invisible wings. Everything seemed written on faces for all to read.
    He was in charge of the “condemned cells” during the last two years of his imprisonment. He carried food and solace to men about to die. He often found notes in the cells of the men who had gone.
    One man was hung a week before another who had turned state’s evidence.
    â€œI’m damn glad to go,” he wrote, “I can hear the white buzzards of death flyin’ around my cell now. I’ll get started ahead of —— and wait along some dark road of hell and cut his throat as he passes by.”

    No one met John Lawler when he came from the penitentiary. He arrived in St. Marys at night—alone.
    My mother as usual, had been silent and sad. She walked between me and sister Virginia in the woods until sundown.
    Slowly, a few feet apart, we approached the house.
    The sun was a caldron of many colors. Above it were dark clouds. An owl hooted and made me afraid. Woman and girl caressed me, saying no word.
    Six miles away, the lights of St. Marys made a white splotch in the night.
    We walked into the yard. My father sat, in mud spattered overalls, near the kerosene lamp.
    The light shone through the window on the face of my mother. Her brown eyes were heavy with tears. The newspaper rattled in my father’s hands.
    Mother stepped backward as she reached the door.
    My sister urged her.
    â€œIn just a minute.” she said. “You get supper, dear.”
    Virginia went into the house.
    Mother took me by the hand and walked toward the road. She looked intently toward St. Marys.
    A man came out of the dusk. Mother held my hand.
    The man drew nearer, greeted my mother, and passed on.
    The echo of our neighbor’s feet could be heard on the lonely road.
    Late that night John Lawler came to the house. Three of his brothers were with him.
    Heavy bodied, they talked in low tones.
    He finally said: “They may want me in Illinois. If they get me—they’ll get me dead—I’m not safe here …”
    The arrival from prison was silent as doom.
    â€œThis is Virginia,” my mother said, “she was born afterward.” John Lawler nodded his head. “The three others were born afterward too—”
    The ex-convict looked at my father whom he had always liked. For Jim Tully had never passed judgment upon him.
    â€œAnd how are you Jim?”
    â€œFine John—are ye going to stay among us—there’s a home here—”
    â€œNo Jim—thanks,” was the