Part 11
“Sure thing,” the guard answered back. “We’ve got some Scotch whiskey over there that’s all right. I’ll bring you some of that. All the boys takes that. I don’t think you’ll be troubled much after a good drink of that Scotch. I guess you’d better hurry up a little bit with what you want to say. I don’t like to hurry you any, but I’m afraid they’ll be along with the breakfast after while, and they don’t allow any visitors after that.”
The guard turned to leave, but before he had gone far, Jim called out, “You’d better telephone over to the telegraph office, hadn’t you? Somethin’ might have come maybe.”
“All right, I’ll do that,” the guard answered back, “and Jim, I guess you might as well put on them new clothes before breakfast; they’ll look better’n the old ones—to eat in.”
X
Jim drank the remnant of whiskey in the bottle he was holding, draining it to the last drop. As he sat in his chair he leaned against the side of the cell.
“My—how many bottles of this stuff I’ve drunk tonight. It’s a wonder I ain’t dead already. I don’t believe I could keep up only I’ve got to finish my story. But this cell begins to swim ‘round pretty lively; I guess it ain’t goin’ to take much to finish me. Think a little of that Scotch will just about do the job. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m goin’ to get just as drunk as I can. I sha’n’t live to see what they say in the newspapers and it won’t make any difference when I’m dead. I don’t know as I ought to eat anything; it might kind of keep it from actin’, but still I might as well. I guess the Scotch’ll do it all right anyway.
“Well, there ain’t very much more to tell, and I guess you’re glad. It’s been a tough night on you, poor feller. I hope no one’ll ever have to do it for you. But, say—you’ve done me lots of good! I don’t know how I’d put in the night, if you hadn’t come!
“Well—the last mornin’ they took me over to court, the room was jammed more’n ever before, and a big crowd was waitin’ outside. I heard the other lawyer say that the judge’s platform looked like a reception; anyhow it was full of ladies with perfectly grand clothes, and most of ‘em would hold their glasses up to look at me. The other lawyer didn’t say much in his first speech, only to tell how it was all done, and how they had proved that everything happened in Cook County, and what a high office the jury had.
“Then my lawyer talked for me. I didn’t really see how he could have done any better and the papers all said he done fine. Of course there wa’n’t much to say. I done it, and what more was there to it? And yet I s’pose a lawyer is educated so he can talk all right on either side. Well, my lawyer went on to make out that no one had seen it done, that the evidence was all circumstantial, and no one ever ought to be hung on circumstantial evidence. He went on to show how many mistakes had been made on circumstantial evidence, and he told about a lot of cases. He told the jury about one that I think happened in Vermont where two farmers was seen goin’ out in the field. They hadn’t been very good friends for a long time. Someone heard loud voices and knew they was fightin’. Finally one of ‘em never come back and afterwards some bones or somethin’ was found, that the doctors said was a farmer’s bones. Well, they tried that farmer and found him guilty, and hung him. And then years afterwards the other man come back. And he’d just wandered off in a crazy fit. And after a while another doctor found out that them bones was only sheep bones, and they’d hung an innocent man. He told a lot of stories of that kind, and some of the jury seemed to cry when he told ‘em, but I guess they was cryin’ for the Vermont man and not for me.
“After my lawyer got through the other lawyer had one more chance, and he was awful hard on me. He made out that I was the worst man that ever lived. He claimed that I had made up my mind to kill her long ago, just to get rid of her, and that I went ‘round to all the saloons that day and drank just to get up my nerve. Then he claimed that I took a bottle of whiskey home and drank it up and left the empty bottle on the table, and I took that just to nerve me up. He made more out of the brown paper than he did of anything else, and told how I burned all the rest of the evidence but had forgot to burn this, and how I’d gone into the kitchen and got the poker out of the stove and come back into the settin’-room and killed her, and then took it back; and how cold-blooded I was to take her, after I’d killed her, and go and dump her into that hole away out on the prairie, and how I’d run away, and how that proved I’d killed her, and then he compared me with all the murderers who ever lived since Cain, ‘most, and showed how all of ‘em was better’n I was, and told the jury that nobody in Chicago would be safe unless I was hung; and if they done their duty and hung me there wouldn’t be any more killin’ in Chicago after this. I can’t begin to tell you what all he said; but it was awful! Once in a while when it was too bad, my lawyer would interrupt, but the judge always decided against me and then the other lawyer went on worse’n before. The papers next day told how fast I changed color while he was talkin’, and what a great speech he made, and they all said he ought to be a judge because he was so fearless.
“It took the crowd some time to quiet down after he got through and then the judge asked the jury to stand up, and they stood up, and he read a lot of stuff to ‘em, tellin’ ‘em about the case. ‘Most all that he read was ‘gainst me. Sometimes I thought he was readin’ one on my side, and he told ‘em how sure they must be before they could convict, and then he’d wind up by sayin’ they must be sure it was done in Cook County. Of course there never was any doubt but what it all happened in Cook County. When the judge got through ‘twas most night, and he told the bailiff to take charge of the jury, so he took ‘em and the clothes and the brown paper with the blood out in the jury room, and they han’-cuffed me and took me back to my cell.
“I don’t believe I ever put in any night that was quite so hard on me— exceptin’ mebbe the night I done it—as that one when the jury was out. I guess ever’one thought they wouldn’t stay long. I couldn’t see that any of ‘em ever looked at me once as if they cared whether I lived or died. I don’t believe that they really thought I was a man like them; anyhow ever’-one thought they would sentence me to hang in just a few minutes. I s’posed myself that they’d be in before supper. My lawyer come over to the jail with me, because he knew how I felt. And anyhow he was ‘most as nervous as I was. After a while they brought me in my supper, and the lawyer went out to get his. Then the guard told me the jury had gone to supper, and he guessed there was some hitch about it, though ever’one thought the jury wouldn’t be out long. After a while the lawyer came back, and he stayed and talked to me until nine or ten o’clock, and the jury didn’t come in, so he went to see what was the matter, and come back and said he couldn’t find out anything, only that they hadn’t agreed.
“Well, he stayed till twelve o’clock, and then the judge went home, and we knew they wa’n’t goin’ to come in till mornin’. I couldn’t sleep that night, but walked back and forth in the cell a good bit of the time. You see it wa’n’t this cell. The one I had then was a little bigger. I’d lay down once in a while, and sometimes I’d smoke a cigar that the guard gave me. Anyhow I couldn’t really sleep, and was mighty glad when daylight come. In the mornin’, kind of early, I heard that jury had agreed and I knew that ‘twas bad for me. The best that could happen would be a disagreement. I hadn’t allowed myself to have much hope any of the time, but I knew that now it was all off.
“Still I waited and didn’t quite give up till they took me back to the courtroom. Then when ever’one had got their places the jury come in, lookin’ awful solemn, and the judge looked sober and fierce-like, and he said, ‘Gentlemen of the Jury, have you agreed on your verdict?’ And the foreman got up and said, ‘We have.’ Then the judge told the foreman to give the verdict to the clerk. He walked over to the row of chairs and the man at the end of the bottom row reached out his hand and gave the paper to him. The people in the room was still as death. Then the clerk read, ‘We, the jury, find the defendant guilty, and sentence him to death.’ I set with my head down, lookin’ at the paper; I expected it, and made up my mind not to move. Ever’one in the courtroom sort of give a sigh. I never looked up, and I don’t believe I moved. The papers next day said I was brazen and had no feelin’, even when the jury sentenced me to death.
“The judge was the first one to speak. He turned to the jury and thanked ‘em for their patriotism and devotion, and the great courage they’d shown by their verdict. He said they’d done their duty well and could now go back to their homes contented and happy. And he says: ‘Mr. Sheriff, remove the prisoner from the room.’ Of course, I hadn’t expected nothin’, and still I wa’n’t quite sure—the same as now, when I think mebbe the governor’ll change his mind. But when the verdict was read and they said it was death, somehow I felt kind of dazed. I don’t really remember their puttin’ the han’-cuffs on me, and takin’ me back to jail. I don’t remember the crowd in the courtroom, or much of anything until I was locked up again, and then my lawyer come and said he would make a motion for a new trial, and not to give up hope. My lawyer told me that the reason they was out so long was one man stuck out for sendin’ me to the penitentiary for life instead of hangin’ me. We found out that he used to be a switchman. I s’pose he knew what a hard life I had and wanted to make some allowances. The State’s Attorney said he’d been bribed, and the newspapers had lots to say about investigatin’ the case, but there wa’n’t nothin’ done about it. But I s’pose mebbe it had some effect on the next case.
“There wa’n’t nothin’ more done for two or three days. I just stayed in my cell and didn’t feel much like talkin’ with anyone. Then my lawyer come over and said the motion for a new trial would be heard next day. In the mornin’ they han’cuffed me and took me back as usual. There was a lot of people in the courtroom, though not so many as before. My lawyer had a lot of books, and he talked a long while about the case, and told the judge he ought to give me a new trial on account of all the mistakes that was made before. And after he got done the judge said he’d thought of this case a great deal both by day and by night, and he’d tried to find a way not to sentence me to death, but he couldn’t do it, and the motion would be overruled. Then he said, ‘Jackson, stand up.’ Of course I got up, because he told me to. Then he looked at me awful savage and solemn and said, ‘Have you got anything to say why sentence should not be passed on you?’ and I said ‘No!’ Then he talked for a long time about how awful bad I was, and what a warnin’ I ought to be to ever’body else; and then he sentenced me to be removed to the county-jail and on Friday, the thirteenth day of this month—that’s today—to be hanged by the neck till dead, and then he said, ‘May God have mercy on your soul!’ After that he said, ‘Mr. Sheriff, remove the prisoner. Mr. Clerk, call the next case.’ And they han’-cuffed me and brought me back.
“I don’t know why the judge said, ‘May God have mercy on your soul!’ I guess it was only a kind of form that they have to go through, and I don’t think he meant it, or even thought anything about it. If he had, I don’t see how he really could ask God to have mercy on me unless he could have mercy himself. The judge didn’t have to hang me unless he wanted to.
“Well, the lawyer come in and told me he ought to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, but it would cost one hundred dollars for a record, and he didn’t know where to get the money. I told him I didn’t know either. Of course I hadn’t any and told him he might just as well let it go; that I didn’t s’pose it would do any good anyhow. But he said he’d see if he could find the money somehow and the next day he come in and said he was goin’ to give half out of his own pocket, and he’d seen another feller that didn’t want his name mentioned and that thought a man oughtn’t to be hung without a chance; he was goin’ to give the other half. Of course I felt better then, but still I thought there wa’n’t much chance, for ever’body was against me, but my lawyer told me there was a lot of mistakes and errors in the trial and I ought to win.
“Well, he worked on the record and finally got it finished, a great big kind of book that told all about the case. It was only finished a week ago, and I s’posed anyone could take his case to the Supreme Court if he had the money; but my lawyer said no, he couldn’t, or rather he said yes, anyone could take his case to the Supreme Court, but in a case like mine, where I was to be hung I’d be dead before the Supreme Court ever decided it, or even before it was tried. Then he said the only way would be if some of the judges looked at the record and made an order that I shouldn’t be hung until after they’d tried the case, but he told me it didn’t make any difference how many mistakes the judge had made, or how many errors there was, they wouldn’t make any order unless they believed I hadn’t done it. He said that if it had been a dispute about a horse or a cow, or a hundred dollars, I’d have a right to go to the Supreme Court, and if the judges found any mistakes in the trial I’d have another chance. But it wa’n’t so when I was tried for my life.
“Well, when he’d explained this I felt sure ‘twas all off, and I told him so, but he said he was goin’ to make the best fight he could and not give up till the end. He said he had a lot at stake himself, though not so much as I had. So he took the record and went to the judges of the Supreme Court and they looked it over, and said mebbe the judge that tried me did make some mistakes, and mebbe I didn’t have a fair trial, but it looked as if I was guilty and they wouldn’t make any order. So my case never got into the Supreme Court after all and the hundred dollars was wasted.
“Well, when my lawyer told me, of course I felt blue. I’d built some on this, and it begun to look pretty bad. It seemed as if things was comin’ along mighty fast, and it looked as if the bobbin was ‘most wound up. When you know you’re going to die in a week the time don’t seem long. Of course if a feller’s real sick, and gets run down and discouraged, and hasn’t got much grip on things, he may not feel so very bad about dyin’, for he’s ‘most dead anyway, but when a feller’s strong, and in good health, and he knows he’s got to die in a week, it’s a different thing.
“Then my lawyer said there was only one thing left, and that was to go to the gov’nor. He said he knew the gov’nor pretty well and he was goin’ to try. He thought mebbe he’d change the sentence to imprisonment for life. When I first come to jail I said I’d rather be hung than to be sent up for life, and I stuck to it even when the jury brought in their verdict, but when it was only a week away I begun to feel different, and I didn’t want to die, leastwise I didn’t want to get hung. So I told him all the people I knew, though I didn’t think they’d help me, for the world seemed to be against me, and the papers kept tellin’ what a good thing it was to hang me, and how the State’s Attorney and the jury and the judge had been awful brave to do it so quick. But I couldn’t see where there was any bravery in it. I didn’t have no friends. It might have been right, but I can’t see where the brave part come in.
“But every day the lawyer said he thought the gov’nor would do somethin’, and finally he got all the names he could to the petition, and I guess it wa’n’t very many, only the people that sign all the petitions because they don’t believe in hangin’; and day before yesterday, he went down to Springfield to see the gov’nor.
“Well, I waited all day yesterday. I didn’t go out of the cell for exercise because I couldn’t do anything and I didn’t want ‘em to see how nervous I was. But I tell you it’s ticklish business waitin’ all day when you’re goin’ to be hung in the mornin’ unless somethin’ happens. I kep’ askin’ the guard what time ‘twas, and when I heard anyone comin’ up this way I looked to see if it wa’n’t a despatch, and I couldn’t set down or lay down, or do anything ‘cept drink whiskey. I hain’t really been sober and clear-headed since yesterday noon, in fact, I guess if I had been, I wouldn’t kep’ you here all night like this. I didn’t hardly eat a thing, either, all day, and I asked the guard about it a good many times, and he felt kind of sorry for me but didn’t give me much encouragement. You see they’ve had a guard right here in front of the door all the time, day and night, for two weeks. That’s called the death watch, and they set here to see that I don’t kill myself, though I can’t see why that would make any great difference so long as I’ve got to die anyhow.
“Well, ‘long toward night the guard came and brought me that new suit of clothes over on the bed, and I guess I’ve got to put ‘em on pretty quick. Of course, the guard’s been as nice as he could be. He didn’t tell me what they’s for, but I knew all the same. I know they don’t hang nobody in their old clothes. I s’pose there’ll be a good many people there, judges and doctors and ministers and lawyers, and the newspapers, and the friends of the sheriff, and politicians, and all, and of course it wouldn’t look right to have me hung up there before ‘em all in my old clothes,—it would be about like wearin’ old duds to a party or to church—so I’ve got to put on them new ones. They’re pretty good, and they look as if they’re all wool, don’t you think?
“Well, a little while after they brought me the clothes, I seen the guard come up with a telegram in his hand. I could see in his face it wa’n’t no use, so of course I wa’n’t quite so nervous when I read it. But I opened it to make sure. The lawyer said that the gov’nor wouldn’t do nothin’. Then, of course, ‘twas all off. Still he said he’d go back about midnight. I don’t know whether he meant it, or said it to brace me up a little and kind of let me down easier.
“Of course, the gov’nor could wake up in the night and do it, if he wanted to, and I s’pose such things has been done. I’ve read ‘bout ‘em stoppin’ it after a man got up on the scaffold. You remember about the gov’nor of Ohio, don’t you? He come here to Chicago to some convention, and a man was to be hung in Columbus that day, and the gov’nor forgot it till just about the time, and then he tried for almost an hour to get the penitentiary on the long distance telephone, and he finally got ‘em just as the man was goin’ up on the scaffold. Such things has happened, but of course, I don’t s’pose they’ll happen to me. I never had much luck in anything, and I guess I’ll be hung all right.
“It seems queer, don’t it, how I’m talkin’ to you here, and the guard out there, and ever’body good to me, and in just a little while they’re goin’ to take me out there and hang me! I don’t believe I could do it, even if I was a sheriff and got ten thousand dollars a year for it, but I s’pose it has to be done.
“Well, now I guess I’ve told you all about how ever’thing happened and you und’stand how it was. I s’pose you think I’m bad, and I don’t want to excuse myself too much, or make out I’m any saint. I know I never was, but you see how a feller gets into them things when he ain’t much different from ever’body else. I know I don’t like crime, and I don’t believe the other does. I just got into a sort of a mill and here I am right close up to that noose.
“There ain’t anyone ‘specially that I’ve got to worry about, ‘cept the boy. Of course it’s awful hard for a poor feller to start, anyhow, unless he’s real smart, and I don’t know how ‘twill be with the boy. We always thought he was awful cunnin’; but I s’pose most parents does. But I don’t see how he’d ever be very smart, ‘cause I wa’n’t and neither was his mother. As I was sayin’, ‘twould be awful hard for him anyhow, but now when he’s growed up, and anyone tells him about how his mother was murdered by his father, and how his father got hung for it, and they show him the pictures in the paper and all that, I don’t see how he’ll ever have any show. It seems as if the state had ought to do somethin’ for a child when the state kills its father that way, but it don’t unless they sends him to a poor house, or something like that.
“Now, I haven’t told you a single lie—and you can see how it all was, and that I wa’n’t so awful bad, and that I’m sorry, and would be willin’ to die if it would bring her back. And if you can, I wish you’d just kind of keep your eye on the boy. I guess it’ll be a good deal better to change his name and not let him nor anyone else know anything about either of us. A good many poor people grow up that way. I don’t really know nothin’ ‘bout my folks. They might’ve been hung too, for all I know. But you kind of watch the boy and keep track of him, and if he comes up all right and seems to be a smart feller and looks at things right, and he gets to wonderin’ about me, and you think ‘twill do any good you can tell him just what you feel a mind to, but don’t tell him ‘less’n you think it will do him good. Of course, I can’t never pay you in any way for what you’ve done for me, but mebbe you’ll think it’s worth while for a feller that hain’t a friend in the world, and who’s got to be hung so quick.”
Hank struggled as hard as he could to keep back the tears. He was not much used to crying, but in spite of all his efforts they rolled down his face.
“Well, Jim, old feller,” he said. “I didn’t know how it was—when I come I felt as if you’d been awful bad, and of course I know it wa’n’t right, but somehow I know it might have happened to me, or ‘most anybody, almost, and that you ain’t so bad. I can’t tell you anything about how I feel, but I’m glad I come. It’s done me good. I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same about the fellers that go to jail and get hung. I don’t know’s they could help it any more’n any of us can help the things we do. Anyhow, I sha’n’t never let the boy out of my mind a single minit, and I’ll do as much for him as if he was mine. I’ll look him up the first thing I do. I don’t know about changin’ his name, I’ll see. Anyhow, if he ever gets to hear a bit of it, I’ll see he knows how it was.”
Jim wrung Hank’s hand for a minute in silence, and then said: “And just one word more, Hank; tell him not to be poor; don’t let him get married till he’s got money, and can afford it, and don’t let him go in debt. You know I don’t believe I ever would have done it if I hadn’t been so poor.”
Hank drew back his hand and stepped to the grated door and looked out along the gloomy iron corridors and down toward the courtyard below. Then he looked up at the tiers of cells filled with the hapless outcasts of the world. On the skylight he could see the faint yellowish glow that told him that the day was about to dawn. The guard got up from his stool and passed him another flask of whiskey.
“Here, you’d better get Jim to drink all he can,” he whispered, “for his time is almost up.”
Hank took a little sip himself, and then motioned Jim to drink. Jim took the bottle, raised it to his mouth and gulped it down, scarcely stopping to catch his breath. Then he threw the bottle on the bed and sat down on his chair. With the story off his mind it was plain that the whiskey was fast numbing all his nerves. He was not himself when he looked up again.