ak-eyed girl had been called away for a moment, and Ralph stood
looking into a cell, where there was a man with a gay red plume in his
hat and a strip of red flannel about his waist. He strutted up and down
like a drill-sergeant.

"I am General Andrew Jackson," he began. "People don't believe it, but I
am. I had my head shot off at Bueny Visty, and the new one that growed
on isn't nigh so good as the old one; it's tater on one side[24]. That's
why they take advantage of me to shut me up. But I know some things. My
head is tater on one side, but it's all right on t'other. And when I
know a thing in the left side of my head, I know it. Lean down here. Let
me tell you something out of the left side. Not out of the tater side,
mind ye. I wouldn't a told you if he hadn't locked me up fer nothing.
_Bill Jones is a thief_! He sells the bodies of the dead paupers, and
then sells the empty coffins back to the county agin. But that a'n't
all--"

Just then the weak-eyed girl came back, and, as Ralph moved away,
General Jackson called out: "That a'n't all. I'll tell the rest another
time. And that a'n't out of the tater side, you can depend on that.
That's out of the left side. Sound as a nut on that side!"

But Ralph began to wonder where he should find Hannah's mother.

"Don't go in there," cried the weak-eyed girl, as Ralph was opening a
door. "Ole Mowley's in there, and she'll cuss you."

"Oh! well, if that's all, her curses won't hurt," said Hartsook,
pushing open the door. But the volley of blasphemy and vile language
that he received made him stagger. The old hag paced the floor, abusing
everybody that came in her way. And by the window, in the same room,
feeling the light that struggled through the dusty glass upon her face,
sat a sorrowful, intelligent Englishwoman. Ralph noticed at once that
she was English, and in a few moments he discovered that her sight was
defective. Could it be that Hannah's mother was the room-mate of this
loathsome creature, whose profanity and obscenity did not intermit for a
moment?

Happily the weak-eyed girl had not dared to brave the curses of Mowley.
Ralph stepped forward to the woman by the window, and greeted her.

"Is this Mrs. Thomson?"

"That is my name, sir," she said, turning her face toward Ralph, who
could not but remark the contrast between the thorough refinement of her
manner and her coarse, scant, unshaped pauper-frock of blue drilling.

"I saw your daughter yesterday.