While I had been in the University Hospital the first time all of the boys in my cottage and Mrs. Beebee moved to a new cottage.  Turner Hall was on the boys' side of the institution.  White Hall, the cottage they had all moved to was on the girls' side, it was to be for all boys under age twelve and since I was still eleven years old that was to be my new cottage.
    My troubles in the juvenile home all started shortly after returning from my first visit to the University Hospital.
    It was about the middle of March and it was still fairly cold out.  I had now been in the juvenile home for about six and a half months and as of that time I hadn't been in any trouble to speak of.  I had not ran away (to cold for that) nor had I been whipped, slapped or even scolded for misbehaving.  I had tried to avoid Mrs. Beebee as much as I could for I feared her sudden flares of temper.  I had seen what she had done to other boys and I didn't want any part of that.
    Every night before we went to bed all of us boys would have to go to the basement and take showers.  Mrs. Beebee would take her horse reins and stand in the basement and watch us boys taking our showers, on the slightest pretense slamming the horse reins across the wet body of a boy.  Whenever we took a bath I stayed as far from her as I could.
    The basement was a full basement under the cottage.  There were no walls or partitions.  Along one wall were three stools all of us boys had to share when we went to the bathroom.  When we used the stools in the evening before going to bed there was no privacy from other boys or Mrs. Beebee.  In front of the stools was a long sink for all of us boys to wash in prior to going to the dining hall or school.  In the middle of the room were the shower heads which came down from the ceiling, the controls for regulating the temperature of the water for the showers were on the wall, well over ten feet away.  Mrs. Beebee controlled the temperature of our showers, pity the "New Boy" that complained the water was too hot or too cold.  No boy ever complained twice.  Along two of the walls were pegs where we hung our clothes.  During the day our pajamas hung there, at night our clothes.
    This one night, about seven in the evening, all of us boys had undressed and were in the showers and unknown to me, Mrs. Beebee had seen some teen-age girls from a nearby girls' cottage peaking through the basement windows at us boys taking showers.  Mrs. Beebee had gone upstairs and outside catching the girls at the windows.  She had brought them into the front room of our cottage, having them stand just inside of the front door.
    Calling downstairs to us boys (who were not aware of the girls being upstairs) she told us to come upstairs without our clothes on.
    As usual I was the last one there.  I thought maybe someone had done something and she had found out while we had been taking our baths.  That someone was going to get a whipping with the horse reins.  Why else would she want us boys to come upstairs naked?
    Usually whenever she gave a boy a whipping she would make him take off all of his clothes bend over and grab the seat of a straight back chair.  Usually when she gave a boy a whipping she would make the rest of us boys watch.  Someone was going to get it tonight and I didn't want to be that someone.  So I had been the last one to enter the room.
    At first, when I had entered the room I hadn't seen the girls for the other boys had been standing in the way.  I could hear Mrs. Beebee saying, "If you want to see naked boys then you should come into the cottage where you can get a good look at them.  But I don't see what any girl would find interesting in a boy."  She had sounded as though she was disgusted with whoever she was talking to.  She went on to say, "Well there they all are for you to look at."
    Most of the boys had lined up with their backs against the wall in front of the girls.  The girls were about six feet away from the boys and facing them.  The girls had been giggling as they looked at all of the naked boys standing in front of them.
    When I had seen the girls I was horrified.  I had turned and ran back downstairs as hard as I could.  Mrs. Beebee came to the top of the stairs and yelled "Peterson.  You get back up here."  She was mad.  I was scared (boy was I scared) but I couldn't let the other kids see me cry as I came back into the room with a towel wrapped around me.
    The girls were still there giggling as they looked at the boys lined up in front of them.  One quick glance at the boys I could see that they were all scared, though I don't think half as much as I was.
    No sooner had I gotten back in the room, Mrs. Beebee was on me.  She grabbed the towel and threw it halfway across the room.  She told me to get a chair and bring it out to the middle of the room in front of the girls.  She didn't need to tell me twice, I was more afraid of her than what the girls could see of me.  At that precise moment those girls didn't even exist in my mind.
    I had gotten the chair as quickly as I could and had taken it to the middle of the room as she had instructed me to do.  She had told me to grab the seat of the chair, as I had seen many other boys do, she didn't need to tell me how.  I was hoping by doing everything she said, as quickly as I could, she wouldn't hit me as hard but I was wrong.  She had something to prove not only to me and the boys but also to the girls.
    With me grabbing the seat of the chair, bent over naked with my feet slightly apart and away from the chair that strap hit and hit hard.  As the twin leads of the strap had wrapped around my waist it was as though someone had taken a white-hot knife and sliced me.  The pain from the strap had almost turn me around and down.  But my fear of Mrs. Beebee had made me quickly regain my hold on the seat of the chair.  Again the horse reins hit, wrapping all of the way around from the backside to the front side of my body.
    Even though the girls and boys were watching me getting a beating by those horse reins I cried, I begged, I screamed and pleaded for Mrs. Beebee to stop.  I had even told her I would stand in front of the girls like she had told me.  But all of my pleading, begging and promising had been to no avail.  The whipping had gone on until after about six hard hits I fell to the floor.
    I was laying on my back naked, spread-eagle trying to protect myself from the strap with my hands.  Even as I laid there on the floor the strap kept coming at me, only now it was coming across the front of me.  Thankfully I was still only eleven years old for she wasn't too careful in where she hit me.
    I had seen the girls watching and nervously giggling as I laid there getting a beating.  She was showing those girls just how much she could hurt a boy.  I knew I would have to face those same girls the next day, knowing they had seen me laying there naked on the floor being whipped with the horse reins.
    Not being satisfied she was hitting me enough with the strap, she started kicking me with the heavy black shoes she wore.  Then again thankfully I wasn't older for some of her kicks had been directed to an area of my body no older boy would ever want to be hit.
    That night when I went to bed my body was crisscrossed with almost bleeding black and blue welts.  There wasn't an area on my body that didn't have a long one inch welt where the strap had left it's ugly mark.
    After we had gone to bed that night and Mrs. Beebee had gone into her apartment (on the same floor as the dormitory) I waited for about an hour for all of the boys to go to sleep.  Once I was sure all of the boys had gone to sleep, I painfully got up and tied my sheets together.  My bed was the third bed from the window that had a radiator by it.  I went over to the window, after tying one end of my sheets to the radiator I opened the window and I threw my sheets out.
    My dormitory was on the second floor and we had a partially exposed basement so the end of my sheets had only gone to about eight feet of the ground.
    I wasn't mad at Mrs. Beebee for what she had done to me.  I felt I had disobeyed her and it had been my fault I had gotten the whipping.  It was, I knew I couldn't take another whipping like that one and I knew that there would be others, there always were.
    As I climbed out the window and put my weight on the sheets it wasn't exciting, I was hurting a lot, not only from the pain she had inflicted on me but also from another type of pain that was deep within me.  I suppose, I had been close to tears as I slid down the sheets on that cold March night.
    Once on the ground I went around to the front door so I could get back into my cottage and go to the basement for my clothes.  Finding the front door locked I tried the back door and found it also locked. It had been very cold and I wanted to get my clothes.  So I had tried several of the basement windows and found all of them locked.  I found a rock but after hitting one of the basement windows a couple of times and it didn't break I gave that idea up for fear that Mrs. Beebee would hear the glass breaking and come down catching me getting my clothes.
    I decided it would be best if I went and found some place to hide for the night, so in the morning when everyone had gone to breakfast I could come back and get my clothes.  Going north from the institution for several blocks, I found a garage that had a loft where I could hide for the rest of the night.
    By now it must have been around nine or ten o'clock in the evening.  Thankfully there hadn't been much wind that night but it still was bitterly cold.  Though I had looked around the garage the best I could in the dark, I couldn't find anything to cover up with.  So I had sat there in the loft awake, shivering in my pajamas until dawn.
    It was still early in the morning when I had left the garage.  It was probably about six, the sky to the east had been getting light.  I was tired, cold and hungry but I wasn't going to give myself up.  I was going to get my clothes and take off where no one would ever find me.  My sights had been on Canada.
    I was cautious as I retraced my steps, walking on my bare feet and in my pajamas the few blocks back to the juvenile home.  Arriving at my cottage I noticed the sheets had been pulled in and the window was closed, so I knew Mrs. Beebee knew I had ran away.  I could tell by the noise inside of the cottage they hadn't left for breakfast yet, so I hid in the crawl space under the front porch.
    I had laid there for not much more than ten minutes when the boys came out the front door of the cottage and formed a double file on the sidewalk.  Mrs. Beebee had come out and with her at the back of the line they had all marched off to the dining hall.  I had given them extra time after they were out of my sight to make sure I wouldn't be seen as I crawled out from my hiding place.
    Once I was satisfied it was safe to come out from under the porch I crawled out and ran in the front door of my cottage as quickly as I could.  I knew I would have to be quick for I only had about a half hour to do what I had to do and be out of there before they came back from breakfast.
    Instead of going to the basement where my everyday clothes were (coveralls and light coat) I went up to Mrs. Beebee's apartment where my warmer Sunday clothes and coat were kept.  I also knew she had candy in her apartment that she would sell to the boys that had money, money that had been deposited in their personal account by their parents when they had come to visit the boys.
    The door to her apartment was locked.  Even though I was only eleven years old, not weighing much more than seventy-five pounds I kicked the door in on the third try.  Going in I got my clothes.  Then stripping out of my pajamas and not having any underwear I put my dress clothes on.  I hated those clothes for the pants and the jacket were made out of wool.  I had a white shirt to put on but nothing to protect the lower part of my body from the pants.  Once I had found my Sunday shoes and socks I had quickly put then on.
    Once dressed, I filled my pockets full of candy then finding my heavy Mackinaw coat, which  had been put away only days before because of the warmer weather ahead, I headed for the door.
    As I was about to leave her apartment I noticed several bottles of hair oil Mrs. Beebee also sold to the boys.  Thinking I could burn the oil to keep warm, I took a couple of bottles of oil and some matches that I also found there in the apartment.
    Once again outside of my cottage I again headed for the garage I had stayed in most of the night.  Feeling it would be safer to stay there until nightfall when it would be a lot safer for me to travel under the cover of darkness.
    I spent most of that day napping off and on, once in awhile lighting some of the hair oil in a small pan I had found in the garage.  It had been well after dark by the time I felt it was safe for me to come out of the garage.
    I climbed down from the loft and went to the door.  At the door I stopped and looked through a crack.  It was dark out but with the light on in the house I could see the area between the house and the garage.  It had looked safe but I was still scared as I slowly opened the door.
    The house was only a few feet from the garage so I was being as quiet as I could, as I slowly closed the garage door behind me.  Once the door was closed I started around the garage to the ally behind it.  Paying more attention to the house, than what was in front of me I hadn't noticed the man standing alongside of the garage until I had almost ran into him.
    The first I knew of his presence was when, with my head turn back over my shoulder watching the house, I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder and I heard a booming voice directly in front of me, "I thought I heard a noise up there in the loft when I was in the garage earlier today."  He must have come into the garage while I had been sleeping and I must have made a slight noise for I hadn't heard him come in during the day.
    He didn't seem to like me too well the way he talked and jerked me around.  He must have known something about the institution for he had taken me directly to the hospital were the isolation unit was.  I didn't know about those rooms then but I was soon to find out.
    When we had gotten to the hospital we had to wait until the nurse had come and unlocked the door.  When it was opened he handed me over to the nurse and told her how he had caught me coming out of his garage.  How he knew I was from the institution by the clothes I was wearing.  All boys in the juvenile home wore the same style of dress out-fits.
    He seemed proud of himself, how he had waited and caught me as I came out of the garage.  Of course later he was to get a ten dollar bounty that was placed on all runaways' heads.
    The nurse had taken me into a room and told me to take all of my clothes off.  I did like she had told me.  I was scared for I didn't know what they would do to me for running away.  I knew what they would have done back at the orphanage.  But I wasn't there anymore and whatever they did here I felt would be worse.  After all Mr. Guold had warned me when he brought me to the juvenile home, running away was something I didn't want to do.  I had taken from that warning, it would be much worse for me here than it had ever been whenever I had ran away at the orphanage.
    When I was undressed I stood there in front of nurse as she went through my pockets finding the matches, hair oil and rest of the candy I hadn't eaten.  She laid all of those items on the table and then satisfied there was nothing else in my pockets she picked up all of the things she had found in my pockets and my clothes, then turning to me she told me to take a shower and then left the room.  Not saying anything about the welts that crisscrossed my body.
    I had taken a bath and had patted myself dry (it had been too painful to rub) by the time she came back, standing there naked waiting, not knowing what they were going to do to me.  I still didn't know about those rooms in the basement. I didn't feel embarrassed as I stood there without my clothes on, for it was very seldom an adult wasn't present when I was undressed.  Other boys my age it was the same thing.  Girls were an entirely different matter and I was to soon find I would have to pay a heavy price for that modestly.
    I felt ashamed though of all of the marks that were on my body.  Fearful she would ask me something about them for I didn't want to discuss them with her.  It was bad enough with the memory so fresh in my mind.
    Seeing I had finished my bath she took me, still naked, to the basement of the hospital where the isolation rooms were.
    At the bottom of the stairs she had handed me a metal pitcher and told me to fill it full of water, pointing to a sink there in the basement.  Once I had the pitcher filled she handed me a metal pot and told me it was for going to the bathroom in.
    Directing me to a hallway in the north end of the basement she had me stop at a door.  She unlocked the door and told me to go in.  After entering the room she closed the door behind me and locked it.  Then from the outside of the room she turned the light out.
    The light had been on long enough for me to get a quick glance around the room.  It was about fifteen feet long by about ten feet wide.  On the floor, in one corner of the room was a mattress with a sheet over it.  There were two windows, one small and too high up for me to see out of and another one that was about three feet wide by about five feet high.  It had been painted over so I couldn't see through it.  I couldn't knock the glass out of the window and go out that way for the panes of glass were small.  Several of them made up the window.  The window frame was completely made out of steel and couldn't be opened.
    This was the first time I had been put in isolation.  Back at the orphanage, when I had been locked in the room on the third floor of the hospital, I didn't feel I had been isolated for I knew that on the other side of the door, walking up and down the hallway were people.  This was the first time I felt I was in real isolation.  It was to be the last time while I was alone I was to have a mattress and a sheet while locked in isolation.
    There were three of these rooms.  One across the hall on the east side of the building and one at the south end of the building under the girls' ward.  In time, through the next couple of years to follow, I would be locked in all three of them not once but several times.
    This room was warm and I had quickly fallen asleep not waking until the next morning when another woman unlocked the door.  She had a bowl of milk and about a quarter of a loaf of bread on a tray.  She had handed the food to me and said "Eat this and I will be back in a little while."  Then she closed the door and locked it.
    I was hungry but I was also still tired.  So placing the tray on the floor beside the mattress, I crawled under the sheet again and fell asleep.
    Hearing the door open again I had awakened with a start.  I hadn't meant to fall asleep again.  "It is all right with me if you don't want to eat."  The woman had said in an uncaring voice as she entered the room.  She went on in the same voice "Give me the tray."  By now she was standing at the foot of the mattress.  I was laying on my side, half un-covered, propping myself up on my elbow trying to clear the sleep from my mind.
    Getting up on my knees the sheet fell clear of me.  I reached off of the mattress and picked up my tray, then getting up the rest of the way I took the tray and food to her.  I was hungry but I felt it was my own fault I didn't get to eat.  Keeping my eyes downcast as I approached her I handed her the tray.  I didn't know what kind or how much trouble I was in but I had an idea that it was a lot.  All I wanted her to do, was to go away and leave me be.
    No such luck. After I had handed her my tray she told me to get my pot and to follow her.  Doing as she had told me, I picked up the pot and followed her to a small room where there was a slop sink and a stool.
    After dumping the pot out in the stool she told me to rinse it out in the sink then take it back to my room.  Doing as she had told me I then turned to go back to my room.  "As soon as you get that in your room you get back out here and get a mop and pail of water."  Her voice had sounded very uncaring and my body was filled with fear I would make her angry at me.
    Again doing as she told me, I got a mop and pail and returned to my room and moped it out.  Then once she was satisfied, I returned to the slop sink dumping the dirty water and washed the mop out.  After cleaning the stool, sink and room she took me back to my room and again locked me in.
    After I was locked back in my room, I found there was nothing to do for the rest of the day.  I could look out the window where there was a little piece of paint missing but there was nothing to see with the bushes in front of the window.
    I would pretend I was an actor on a stage and sing all of the songs I knew.  Outside of a few religious songs I didn't know many songs.  The songs that weren't religious I only knew parts of them.  There was "Bell-bottom trousers coats of navy blue."  "She loves the sailor the sailor loves her too."  "Lavender blue dilly, dilly, lavender green, if I were king dilly, dilly I'd make you queen."  Of course there was my run away song "Over here, over dell, going to hit the dusty trail."  Sometimes I would sing "Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care."  Thinking of my little brother for his name was Jimmy.
    I did an awful lot of crying there thinking about the past, my mom, dad, brother and sister.  Usually, I cried so much I would wear myself out and had to take naps off and on throughout the day.
    Lunch was about noon, supper time was about 5:00 o'clock.  After that there wasn't anything to do but lay there and think and eventually go to sleep until the next morning when the day would repeat itself.
    At first I didn't know how long they would keep me locked in Isolation.  I didn't ask, I was accepting whatever they did to me.  I knew when they were ready to let me out, they would and not before.
    I didn't know what they were going to do to me when they did let me out.  So I wasn't in too big of a hurry to get out of Isolation.  I knew I didn't want to go back to my cottage, for I felt Mrs. Beebee was my only threat.  Boy, was I wrong in more ways than one.