Harold likes it, don't you, Hally ?' Harold did like it very much; and so the mush was made, and Jerry forced herself to swallow it in great gulps, and made up her mind that she could not stand that any way.

She preferred bread and water.

So, for supper she took bread and water and nothing else, and went up to bed us unhappy and nervous as a healthy, growing child well could be.
She had tried the mush, and the bread and water, and now she meant to try the shorn head, which was the hardest of all, for she had a pride in her hair, which so many had told her was beautiful.
Standing before her little glass, with the lamp beside her, she looked at it admiringly for a while, turning her head from side to side to see the bright ringlets glisten; then, with an unsteady hand the severed, one by one, the shining tresses, on which her tears fell like rain as she gathered them in a paper and put them away, wondering if the prison shears would cut closer or shorter, and wondering if it would make any difference that she was only a substitute, or at most an accessory.
It was a strange idea which had taken possession of her, and a senseless one, but it was terribly real to her, and that little shorn head represented as noble and complete a sacrifice as was ever made by older and wiser people.

There was no hard board to sleep upon, and so she took the floor, with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her, wondering the while if this were not a more luxurious couch than convicts, who had stolen diamonds, were accustomed to have.
'Why, Jerry, what have you done ?' and 'Oh, Jerry, how you look!' were the ejaculatory remarks which greeted her next morning, when she went down to her breakfast of bread and water, for she would take nothing else.
'Why did you do it ?' Mrs.Crawford asked a little angry and a good deal astonished; but Jerry only answered at first with her tears, as Harold jeered at her forlorn appearance and called her a picked chicken.
'Maude's hair is short, and all the girls', and mine was always in my eyes and snarled awfully,' she said at last, and this was all the excuse she would give for what she had done; while for her persisting in a bread and water diet she would give no reason for three or four days.
Then she said to Harold, suddenly: 'You told me that the one who stole the diamonds would have to eat bread and water and have his head shaved, and I am trying to see how it would seem--am playing that I am the man, and in prison; but I find it very hard, I don't believe I can stand it.

Oh, Harold, do you think they will ever find the diamonds?
I am so tired and hungry, and the blackberry pie we had for dinner did look so good!' 'Jerry,' Harold exclaimed, in amazement, and but dimly comprehending her real meaning, 'you are crazy, to be playing you are a convict! And is that what you have been doing ?' 'Ye-es,' Jerry sobbed; 'but I can't bear it, and I hope they will not find him,' 'Him! Who ?' Harold asked.
'The one who took the diamonds,' she replied.
'And I hope they will.