Bedtick

March 25, 1894, Alexander Berkman, "letter to Fedy", republished in 1912 in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist Sleepless, I toss on the withered mattress. The ravages of time and the weight of many inmates have demoralized it out of all semblance of a bedtick. But the Block Captain persistently ignores my request for new straw, directing me to "shake it up a bit."