Part 5

“Well, I finished my supper without sayin’ a word to her, and she didn’t say a word to me, and then I got up and went back into the settin’ room and picked up the paper and commenced readin’ again. In a minute she come along through with the kid and took him into the bedroom to put him to bed. After she’d been in there a while she came out and shut the door, and stood up for a minute lookin’ over toward me. I thought she was waitin’ for me to speak, so I just kept my eyes on the paper like as if I was readin’, but I wa’n’t. I hadn’t cooled off a great deal since she poured the water on the steak, and could see that she hadn’t neither, so I thought mebbe it was as well to have it out, but I was goin’ to wait for her to begin. Of course, I hadn’t no idea then of doin’ anything like what I did. I was just mad and reckless and didn’t care much, and would keep thinkin’ of the steak, and you know all the time I was thinkin’ I could feel a kind of prickin’ up in my head, as if a lot of needles was runnin’ up toward my hair. I s’pose it was the blood runnin’ up there. That feller that I told you about that was talkin’ to us over here kind of made out that a man was a good deal like a machine, or an engine of some kind, and when the steam was turned on he had to go. He said that if the blood was pumped up in the head it made us do things; it made some people write poetry, and some make speeches, and some sing, and some fight, and some kill folks, and they couldn’t really help it if they was made that way and the blood got pumped up in the head. I believe there’s a good deal in it. You know when the blood don’t circulate down in your feet they get cold and kind of dead, and then if you put ‘em into a pail of hot water or even cold water, and then rub ‘em hard with a towel, they get prickly and red, and you can feel the blood comin’ back to ‘em and feel ‘em wake up again.

“Well, I set perfectly still while she stood by the mantel-piece. First she picked up one thing and then another and kind of dusted ‘em and put ‘em back. She done this till she had dusted ever’thing on the mantel-piece, and all the time she would be lookin’ over toward me, but I kept my eyes down on the paper and pretended to be readin’. I knew that she didn’t dust the things because she wanted to dust, for she always dusted in the mornin’ just after she swept. I knew she did it because she was nervous and mad, and was waitin’ for me to begin. Of course, sometimes when you are mad the longer you wait the more you get over it, and then sometimes the longer you wait the madder you get. It’s like a boiler not usin’ any of its steam while the fire is goin’; if it waits long enough somethin’s got to happen.

“Finally, after she got everything dusted she looked over straight at me and says, ‘Are you goin’ to read that paper all night?’ I told her I was if I wanted to, that it was none of her business how long I read it; there was a part of it that I’d like to give her to read if she wanted to; it was the cookery department, and had a recipe for frying steak. Of course, there wa’n’t no such thing in the paper, and I just made it up and said it to be sassy, and I knew I shouldn’t have been throwin’ it up to her, but I was so mad I really didn’t think how ‘twould sound. Then she said she didn’t want any advice from me or the paper either, about cookin’, and she wanted me to understand that the cookin’ was none of my business and she’d tend to that herself in her own way, and if ever I interfered again she’d leave me and take the kid with her. She said she learned cookin’ long before she ever knew me. Then I said I thought she could make money by startin’ a cookin’ school; all them rich folks on Prairie Avenue would come over to get her to learn them how to fry steak. She said she guessed she knew more ‘bout fryin’ steak than I did, and when I boarded at the restaurant I was mighty glad to get steak fried that way, and I only grumbled about it now because I was so mean and didn’t know how to treat a woman, and a man like me never had no right to have a decent wife. Then I said I wished I hadn’t; I’d be a mighty sight better off by myself than livin’ with her and havin’ her spoil everything that came in the house, and I wished I was back boardin’ in the restaurant where she found me. She said I didn’t wish it half so much as she did, that she got along a good deal better when she was waitin’ on the table than she had since she married me; then she had a chance to get out once in a while and see someone and have a good time, but now she stayed to home from one year’s end to another lookin’ after me and my brat. I told her I guessed the brat was just as much hers as it was mine, and I didn’t think that was any way to speak about the boy. Of course I really knew that she didn’t say it because she had anything against him, but just because she was mad at me. She always liked him, and I can’t make any complaint of the way she treated him, and I want him to know it when we’re both dead, and I don’t want him to get any idea that she wa’n’t perfectly square. I kind of want you to fix it, if you can, so ‘twon’t look to him as if either of us was to blame, but I guess that won’t be an easy thing to do.

“Then I said she was mighty glad to give up the job she had at the restaurant to marry me. She said I asked her to get married, that she didn’t ask me. Then I told her that, of course, she didn’t ask me, but she gave me a mighty good chance, and that I believed she just got that red waist and fixed up her hair the way she did to ketch me, and when I spoke to her about marryin’ it didn’t take her very long to throw up her job, and take me so she could get supported without doin’ anything. Then she said that if she spent any money to get that red waist to ketch me she was throwin’ it away, and that if I thought she ever worked for anyone else as hard as she did for me and my brat that I was mistaken, and it didn’t make any difference what she done, I never gave her any thanks or did anything for her. If I ever had any time I spent it with them drunken loafers and politicians and never went anywhere with her; that she wa’n’t no better’n a slave, and what was she doin’ it all for; pretty soon she’d be old long before her time. Her looks was all gone now, and she hadn’t even had a new dress for over a year. I told her that I didn’t know what she wanted of looks, she never was a prize beauty and ‘twa’n’t very like anybody’d ever be fool enough to marry her again, if anything happened to me. And she said if she ever got rid of me there wouldn’t be much danger of her marryin’ anyone else, she had men enough to last as long as she lived; that all they ever thought of was what they could get to eat and drink, that I’d made more fuss over that miser’ble beefsteak than anyone would over their soul, and she didn’t see why she ever stood it from me, and she was just as good as I ever was and knew just as much, and worked a good deal harder, and didn’t run ‘round nights and get drunk and spend all the money with a lot of loafers, and be in debt all the time and have the collector runnin’ after me. I told her I had just about enough of that kind of talk, and wouldn’t stand no more of it from her; it was bad enough for her to burn up the beefsteak and spoil it without blackguardin’ me and callin’ me names; she was mighty glad to get the clothes and the grub I bought her and to live in my house and have me work hard every day in the cold to get money while she just stayed to home and played with the kid, and if she said another word to me I’d smash her face. Then she said, ‘Yes, you miserable wife-beater, you kicked me once, didn’t you, but you needn’ think you can kick me or lay hands on me again. I ain’t afraid of you nor any of your low-lived drunken crew!’ Then she kind of reached back to the mantel and took hold of a plaster Paris lady I’d bought of a peddler, just as if she was goin’ to throw it at me, same as she throwed that dish once before. I seen what she was doin’ and I grabbed her arm and said, ‘You damned bitch, don’t try that on me’; and I gave her a kind of shove over toward a chair and she missed the chair and fell on the floor.

“Of course, you know I didn’t really mean anything when I called her a damned bitch; that is, I didn’t mean any such thing as anyone might think from them words. You know us fellers down to the yards don’t think very much about usin’ that word, and we never really mean anything by it. But I don’t think ‘twas a very nice word to use and have always been sorry I said it, even if I did kill her.

“Well, she jumped up off’n the floor and made towards the table, like she’d grab a knife, and by this time I had a prickly feelin’ runnin’ all through my head and up into my hair, and I didn’t really think of anything but just about her and what she was doin’. I don’t believe I even thought about the kid in there on the bed. Mebbe if I had I wouldn’t have done it.

“Well, when she made for the table that way, I just run over between her and the table, and said, ‘Damn you, if you move another step I’ll knock your damned brains out!’ Them’s the very words I said. I didn’t really think what I’d do, but of course I was mad and didn’t mean to give up to her, and wanted to show her who was boss, and that’s all I thought about. Then she come right up to me and sort of throwed her arms back behind her, and throwed her head back, and her hair hung down all kind of loose, and her eyes glared like electric lights, and she looked right at me and just yelled so I thought the people could hear her all over the ward. And she said, ‘Kill me! you miserable drunken contemptible wife-beater; kill me, I just dare you to kill me! Kill me if you want to and then go in there and kill the boy, too; you’d better make a good job of it while you’re at it! Kill me, you coward, why don’t you kill me?’

“Just then I happened to look down by the stove and seen the coal pail, and there was the poker in the pail. The poker was long and heavy. Of course I hadn’t ever thought anything about the poker, but I looked down there and seen it, and she kept yellin’ right at me, ‘Kill me! Kill me!’ I said: ‘Shut up your mouth, damn you, or I will kill you!’ But she just yelled back, ‘Why don’t you do it! Kill me! Kill me! You miserable dirty coward! Kill me!’ Then I looked down at the poker and I just reached and grabbed it, and swung back as hard as ever I could.

“Her face was kind of turned up toward me. I can see it now just as plain—I s’pose I’ll see it when I’m standin’ up there with the black cap over my eyes. She just leaned back and looked up as I swung my arm and she said: ‘Kill me! Kill me!’ And I brought it down just as hard as ever I could right over her forehead,—and she fell down on the floor.”

V

“You might go and talk to the guard a little bit, I’ll be all right in a few minutes. You know this is the first time I’ve ever told it, and I guss I’m a bit worked up.”

Hank got up, without looking at Jim’s face. His own was white as a corpse. He moved over to the little iron door and spoke to the guard.

“Could you give me a drink of water—or could you make it whiskey? I’m sure that would be better for Jim.”

The guard passed him a flask, and told him to just keep it. Hank took a drink himself and handed it to Jim.

“Well, I guess ‘twould do me good. I believe if I was out of here I wouldn’t never take any more, but I don’t see any use stoppin’ now; anyhow I’ll need a lot of it in the mornin’. Just ask the guard if any word has come for me. I s’pose he’d told me, though, if it had.” Jim held the bottle to his mouth long enough to drink nearly half of what was left.

Hank looked out at the silent corridors. Over in the court he could still hear the hammer and the voices of the workmen; from the upper tiers, the wild shriek of an insane man called on someone to save him from an imaginary foe. A solitary carriage rolled along the pavement and the voices of two or three men singing came up from the street below. A faint breath from the lake just stirred the heavy prison smell that seemed dense enough to be felt. The guard asked him how he was managing to pass the night. Hank answered that it was going much faster than he had thought.

“Poor fellow,” said the guard, “I’ll be kind of lonesome when he’s gone. He’s been a good prisoner.” This was the highest character that a guard could give.

“Well, Hank, if you are ready now, I’ll go on with my story. That whiskey kind of braced me up, and I s’pose you needed it too, after listenin’ so long. I must hurry, for I ain’t near through with what I wanted to say. I’ve thought lots about how I hit her, and I s’pose I ought to think it was awful, and it looks so to me now, and still it didn’t seem so then. I can’t help thinkin’ of what that feller said to us in his speech. He claimed that punishin’ people didn’t do no good; that other people was just as likely to kill someone if you hung anybody, as they would be if you let ‘em go, and he went on to say that they used to hang people for stealin’ sheep and still just as many sheep got stole and probably more’n there was after they done away with it. I don’t s’pose I ever should have thought anything about it if I hadn’t killed her, but, of course, that made me think a lot. I’m sure that I wouldn’t do such a thing again; I wouldn’t be near so likely to do it as I was before, because now I know how them things commence, and I’m awful, awful sorry for her too. There wa’n’t no reason why she should die, and why I should have killed her, and if there was anything I could do to change it, of course I would.

“But I can’t really see how hangin’ me is goin’ to do any good. If it was I might feel different, but it ain’t. Now, all my life I always read about all the murders in the newspapers and I read about all the trials and hangin’s, and I always kind of wished I could go and see one. But I never thought I’d go this way. Why, I was readin’ about a murder and how a feller was found guilty and sentenced to be hung just before I killed her. And do you s’pose I thought anything about it? If there’d been forty scaffolds right before my eyes I’d have brought down that poker just the same. I don’t believe anyone thinks of gettin’ hung when they do it; even if they did think of it they’d plan some way to get ‘round it when they made up their mind to do the killin’. But they don’t think much about it. I believe sometimes that the hangin’ makes more killin’. Now look at them car-barn fellers; they just went out and killed people regardless, same as some men go out to shoot game. I don’t believe they’d ‘ve done it if it hadn’t been so dangerous. And then you know when they hung the whole three of ‘em at once, and one feller cut his own throat so as to cheat ‘em, and they took him right up and hung him, too, though he was so weak they had to carry him onto the scaffold, and the doctors done ever’thing they could do to keep him from dyin’ just so’s they could hang him. Well, you know they hadn’t any more’n finished them until another gang of young fellers commenced doin’ just the same kind of thing, and they are in jail now for murder, and you know one of ‘em came in here one day and looked at the other ones before he done the killin’. I half believe that all the fuss they made ‘bout them fellers and hangin’ ‘em and printin’ it all in the newspapers did more to make the other ones do it than anything else. But I s’pose there ain’t no use hangin’ ‘em unless you put it all in the newspapers, for it won’t scare anyone from doin’ it unless people know they are hung.

“But, of course what I think about it don’t make any difference, so I’d better hurry on. Well, after she fell over I stood still for a few minutes waitin’ for her to get up. Of course I thought she’d get right up again, and mebbe come back at me. But she didn’t move. Then I thought she was scarin’ me, and I just sat down for a few minutes to show her that I wa’n’t goin’ to be fooled in no such way. Still she didn’t stir. Then I commenced to be half scart and half mad. I didn’t think it was right to try to make me believe I had done anything like that. So I said, ‘When you’ve laid there long enough you’d better get up.’ Then I said, ‘What’s the use of playin’ theater, you can’t fool me. I’m goin’ to bed and when you get ready you can come along.’ But I didn’t go to bed; I just sat still a little longer, and then I stepped over by her head and looked down at it, and I thought it didn’t look right, and then I was scart in earnest. Just then I heard the kid cry, and I didn’t want him to come out, so I locked the outside door and took a good look to see that all the curtains was clear down, and went in to see the kid. I lit a candle in the bedroom and talked with him a little; told him ever’thing was all right and to go to sleep, and I’d come in again in a minute or two. Then I went back to the settin’ room to see her.

“Before I looked at her face I looked down to her feet to see if maybe they hadn’t moved, for I didn’t want to look at her face if I could help it. And I thought mebbe this would be the best way. But the feet was just where they was before; then I looked at her hands and they hadn’t moved, so I knew I just had to look at her face. I hadn’t examined her very close before, I was so scart, and I never could look at blood or dead folks, but of course this was different; so I got down on the floor close up to her face, and I seen the great welt along her forehead and top of her head and across the temple, and ‘twas all covered with blood and a lot of it had got on the floor. Her eyes was wide open. I knew they didn’t see anything. They looked just as if they’d been turned to glass, before she’d had time to shut ‘em. I felt of her wrist to see if her pulse was goin’. At first I thought it wa’n’t, and then I thought I felt it go a little, and I never felt so good in all my life. I pushed my finger down harder, but I couldn’t get it again. Then I felt of her heart and it was just the same way. I leaned over to her ear, and asked her to please wake up, that I was awful sorry, and I didn’t know what I was doin’, and if she’d just speak I’d be good to her all my life and do ever’thing I could for her, and then I asked her to do it on account of the boy, but still she didn’t move. Of course I was almost scart to death by this time; first I thought I’d call the neighbors and send for a doctor and then I thought that was no use. If she wa’n’t dead I didn’t need him, and if she was I must try to do somethin’ so no one would find it out. Then I began to think what could be done to bring her to. I never had much experience with people that got hurt, except the ones I’d seen at the railroad, and I wa’n’t just sure what to do with anyone in this fix. But I’d read somethin’ about it somewhere, and so I went into the back room and drew some water into a pail and took an old cloth and got down on the floor and commenced washin’ her head. But I couldn’t see the first sign of life. Then I looked around for some whiskey and found a little in a bottle in the closet and poured some in her mouth, but it all run right out, and she didn’t move.

“Of course I never went to school very much but no matter how good an education I had I don’t s’pose I could tell you how I felt so you’d know it yourself. I never s’posed I’d do anything to get into any trouble, and I always thought I was different from criminals. But here I was in the house with her dead, and I’d killed her, and what would happen to me? I just pictured the headlines in the newspapers and the boys callin’ ‘all about the Jackson murder,’ and me tried for murder and hung, and the kid goin’ ‘round the rest of his life knowin’ that his father had killed his mother and then got hung.

“At first I just set paralyzed and sort of held my head in my hands and moaned, and wondered if mebbe it wa’n’t a dream and if I couldn’t wake up, and then I thought I’d go and give myself up to the police and be done with it, and then I thought I might just as well kill myself, so I went and got an old razor, that I used to shave with sometimes, and tried to get up my nerve to cut my throat. But somehow I couldn’t put the edge over my wind-pipe. I wish though now that I had. Did you ever try to kill yourself? Them people that say it’s only cowards that kill themselves don’t know what they’re talkin’ about. I’d like to see them try it once. I’d have killed myself only I didn’t have the nerve. It wa’n’t because I cared anything about livin’; but I just couldn’t cut my own throat. Then I thought mebbe she wa’n’t dead, and I’d look again. So I done just the way I had before,—commenced at her feet to see if they’d moved, then when I got up to her hands I thought one of ‘em had moved, and my heart just gave a great big jump. Then I remembered that I’d picked it up, when I’d felt for her pulse and had put it down in a different place. Then I looked up to her face and it was just the same. It was white as a sheet, all except the long red and black welt and the blood, and her eyes wide open, and lookin’ right straight up to the ceilin’ starin’ just like a ghost. Then I felt of her hands and feet, and they was cold as ice and she was stiff, and I knew it was all off and she was dead.

“If you don’t mind I’ll just take a little more of that whiskey before I go on; the whole thing’s been a little wearin’ on me and I think it’ll brace me up a bit. You’d better have some, too. That guard is a good feller, considerin’ the place he’s in. I believe if you hadn’t come I’d told my story to him. I didn’t feel as if I could go without tellin’ someone how it really was. You see no one ever made the least bit of allowance for me in the trial, and I got tired of talkin’ to my lawyer all the time. He always said that what I told him didn’t amount to anything, and he was so well educated that he couldn’t understand me anyhow.