Walled In: A True Story of Randall's Island

When the world was made, a number of islands were loosely scattered around at the mouth of the Hudson River. To this day, the old river works steadily on, trying to change the saltness of the Atlantic by pouring in fresh water, and trying to widen its own mouth by washing away these islands, but the ocean is as salt as it was a thousand years ago and the islands are of about the same size that they ever were, so far as anybody can see. When they were put there, however, and for nobody knows how long afterward, there was not a boy or girl to have been found upon either of them, while nowadays there are swarms and swarms, from every nation this side of Asia, and they are of all sorts and sizes.

Some of the ways and doings of those boys and girls cannot be rightly told without first asking those who are to hear the story to take a look at a map of New York City and of the land and water around it. The map shows everything pretty clearly excepting the people and the houses they live in.

One of the boys belonging to this story might have required a sharp search to find him, on a particular morning, early in the spring. Not that he seemed to be hiding, or that he was alone. On the contrary, he stood nearly in the middle of a long line of boys. There were over four hundred of them, dressed all alike, in jackets and trousers of dark, thick gray cloth. Their caps and shoes were of the same pattern, all along the line.

Stationed at intervals, here and there, were boys no larger than the rest, in uniforms of dark, but bright blue cloth, with red stripes on their arms, and these were officers and this was a battalion, and it was marching briskly forward to the spirited music of half a dozen drums and several shrill fifes.

It was a kind of charge, across the level, gravelly parade-ground, and the boys were marching well, but right before them stood a high and frowning stone wall and it was of no use to charge against it. It could neither be broken through nor climbed and this one boy, in the middle of the line, was staring at it as if he hated it, while he marched. His feet kept time with the music and perfect pace with the feet of the other boys, but there was an angry look in his black eyes and a hot flush on his face, as if the wall had spoken to him, saying something to rouse his temper and make him answer back.