Loafing Down Long Island
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ALONG SUNLIT AND MOONLIT ROADS T TAVING rested royally by the road, we fared on to Bayside; but first we turned in at a pair of big gates, thinking we were entering some rich man's estate, and caring not at all whether we were desired or not. "But I hope we won't be taken for Bolsheviki," Jim said. A man in uniform moved here and there, but we did n't pay much attention to this fact, until a building loomed ahead of us that could not possibly have been a private dwelling. A sergeant and a corporal sat on the veranda, and as Jim and I were very thirsty, we asked for a drink of water. The sergeant immediately took us within, where it was dim and cool, and I noticed some barred doors immediately in the center of a great space. There was a painful silence allabout, but as I went into a little side
...room to get my drink, I heard a click-click, click-click, as of some one walking up and down with a cane. I asked the sergeant what this noise could be, and pointed to the barred door, and, my eyes having become accustomed to the gloom, I saw the shadowy figure of a young soldier on crutches pacing up and down the corridor of a huge cell. "Would you like to go in?" the sergeant asked; and when I said I would, for I have always been interested in prison conditions, he unbolted the great door, and the one occupant of the place said, "Good afternoon, sir," and seemed really glad, as I suppose any one in his situation would be, of human companionship. He was lame, and I asked him how it came about that a boy wounded in the war should be undergoing this punishment. "Oh, I overstayed my leave," he said; and then I knew we had come right in to Fort Totten, having left the main road when we entered the gates. If, ten minutes before, any one had told me that soon I would ...
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