Part 17

With the testimony of an officer that a button photograph of Maria had been found pinned inside the coat of Montaro, the prosecution closed its case. The assistant district attorney sat down. The jury shifted their positions. The distinguished Flynn rose to make motions that the case be taken from the jury. It was plain, he argued in sonorous and reverberating tones, that the prosecution had impeached its principal witness by the testimony of the defendant's wife, Maria Delsarto. It had raised a reasonable doubt on its own evidence. There was nothing upon which the jury could predicate a verdict. He asked that they be directed to acquit. Was his motion denied? With an expression of well-simulated surprise, he made the other stereotyped motions. The court denied them all.

Candido saw and trembled. That shaking of the head could mean only one thing! Well, they would let him see the priest first--before they did it.

"Take the chair!" came Flynn's harsh voice from above.

"The chair!" _La sedia!_ Madonna! He knew that word. So soon then? He stiffened with horror. A chilly perspiration broke out all over his body. The room swam and darkness surged across his bewildered vision.

"Take the chair!" repeated the voice.

"_La sedia!_" bellowed the interpreter. "_La sedia!_"

Candido shivered as with ague. His teeth chattered. _Dio!_ Now?

The attendant placed a hand upon his shoulder. Candido uttered a terrible cry, and fell senseless to the floor.

* * * * *

A long adjournment, a talk with the priest, an explanation from the interpreter, and Candido "took the chair," telling his own story in a fluent but listless monotone. He spoke of his father and mother, of his home in Calabria, of Maria whom he had known from childhood. His speech was soft and dejected. Then he told of Beppe--Beppe, the great, coarse, bullying brute who had tormented and abused him! Yet he had never retaliated until the other had sought to ruin his home. Then he had refused him access. Montaro had publicly sworn to be revenged, declaring that he would kill him and marry his widow.

Candido gritted his teeth and shook his curved fingers, uttering various _staccato_ adjectives. Then he recovered himself, and in a different tone began to speak slowly and with great care, pausing after each sentence. From time to time he looked to observe the effect of his testimony upon the distinguished Flynn. That night in the wine shop Montaro had called him aside and in the most insulting manner warned him of his approaching fate. He would be dead within a week, and Maria would belong to another. Then in mockery Montaro had bent over his hand as if to administer a caress and had _bitten_ it--the deadliest of affronts. Candido had hurried out of the shop toward his home, closely followed by Montaro. At the door of the tenement his enemy had rushed upon him with a drawn knife from behind, and to save his own life Candido had fired at him.

"He was a bad man--_un perfido_. He would have killed me and taken my wife from me had I not killed him," continued the defendant. As for this Pietro, he had not been there at all. He was an enemy, a Sicilian.

In response to a question of the assistant, he explained that the pistol was an old one. He had not bought it to kill Montaro. He had had it for four or five years. Had procured it for safety when working on the railroad.

By degrees Candido recovered from his listlessness. He no longer seemed careless as to the result of the case. A new strong thirst for life had taken possession of him. There was an air of frankness about the weather-beaten little countenance, and a trustful look in the brown eyes that served far better than "character witnesses" to convince the jury of his ingenuousness. There was no doubt as to his having made an impression.

The distinguished Flynn patted him on the back as he took his seat and felt greatly encouraged. These Italians were great actors--and no mistake!

But the prosecution had reserved a bombshell for the last, intended to annihilate the testimony of the defendant and neutralize the effect of his personality upon the jury. The assistant called in rebuttal a salesman from a large retail fire-arm store, who testified positively that the pistol in evidence had been purchased the day before the homicide. Flynn turned to the attendant, whom he knew well and cursed. These Guineas! Bought the day before! He had all the air of one who has been grossly and inexcusably deceived. He scowled at Candido, who quailed before him.

"How long do you want to sum up, gentlemen?" inquired the court. "Will twenty minutes each be sufficient?"

The distinguished Flynn burst into a deluge of oratory in which Self-Defense and The Unwritten Law played opposite one another, neither yielding precedence. His client was a hero! The instinct of every true American, of every husband, of every father, must stamp his deed as one blameless in the eyes of the Almighty, and worthy not of censure but of the approval of all honest men and lovers of virtue. At the risk of his own life he had preserved the integrity of his home and the honor of his wife. At the same time he had rid the community of a villain. Never, while the Stars and Stripes floated above their heads would an American jury on this sacred soil, consecrated by the blood of those who sacrificed their lives to liberty, etc.-- He subsided, panting and mopping his forehead.

The assistant rose to reply. This explanation of the defendant that he had killed in self-defense was the last despairing effort of a guilty man to escape the consequences of his horrible crime. Of course the prisoner's own evidence was valueless. Jealousy! Calm, calculating jealousy! That was the key to this awful act. The tell-tale picture on Montaro's coat, the crimson admissions of the defendant's wife, the purchase of the pistol--all spoke for themselves. The prosecutor paused.

"Sympathy is not for the assassin," he concluded. "Think rather of his innocent victim! On the sunny shores of Calabria sits a woman, old and gray, to whom this Beppe is her joy, her pride, who thinks of him by day working in the great America across the seas, and whose heart, as the time for the harvest draws near and the exiles are coming back to work in the fields, will beat with expectation. The others will come. Father will meet daughter, and mother will meet son, and they will tell of their life in the great country of Freedom; but for her there will be no gladness--her Beppe will return no more."

The assistant sank into his seat. Candido was staring at him with wide eyes. He knew the _avvocato_ had been talking about Calabria. Madonna! Would he ever see it again?

"Gentlemen of the jury," began his honor. "I shall first define the various degrees of murder and manslaughter."

The sun fell lower and lower over the Tombs as the judge continued his charge. The jury twisted uneasily in their chairs. Candido grew tired. This interminable flow of talk! Why did not the judge say what should be done to him at once? Millions of motes swam in the sun, and with his head resting on his forearms he watched them idly. He had always loved the sun. A warm lassitude stole over him. On Sundays he had spent whole mornings curled up on a bench in Seward Park with Maria and the _bambino_ beside him. How funnily the motes danced about! He smiled drowsily at them. Some were so tiny as to be almost invisible, and some were really large--if you half closed your eyes and one got near it seemed almost as big as a cat--fluffy like a cat. Those little, tiny motes would float out of nowhere into the band of sunshine and sink and dart across it, vanishing into nothingness. Candido amused himself by blowing millions of them into eternity. He himself was just like that. Out of the black, into the warm sun for a little while, and then--pouf!

There was a tremendous scuffling of feet beside him, and the jury rose and filed out. The noise brought him back out of his dream to the realities again. They were going away! Judgment had been pronounced! The judge bowed solemnly to the retreating foreman. Again the fierce chill of overwhelming animal fear seized him. An officer approached. Madonna! He could not pass into the black like the motes, he could not! And he was as yet unshriven! With his frail little body vibrating like a framework of slender steel, he turned and faced the officer, panting with fear, his eyes darting fire.

"Aw, come along!" growled the attendant, raising his hand to seize him by the arm.

"I cannot die unshriven!" shrieked Candido, and flung himself furiously upon the officer, biting, kicking, scratching, until, nearly fainting from his paroxysm of terror and in a coma of exhaustion, he allowed himself to be carried away by three burly Irishmen.

* * * * *

"Bring up the defendant!" directed the court. The jury were already in and waiting for the prisoner. The Italians had all been hustled out into the corridor. His honor had no mind for any sort of demonstration. The light still poured through the great windows, and the sky was a deep sunny blue over the Tombs. Resisting, clutching at sills and railing, hanging by his arms, Candido was carried in and held bodily at the bar.

"Jurors, look upon the defendant. Defendant, look upon the jurors. How say you, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" asked the clerk grandiloquently.

"Not guilty," answered the foreman distinctly, and with a shade of defiance in his voice.

"Listen to your verdict as it stands recorded," continued the clerk, unaffected. "You find the defendant not guilty, and so say you all."

"Any other charges against the prisoner?" inquired his honor.

"Not yet," replied the assistant with sarcasm.

Suddenly Candido began again. "Madonna! Save me! I confess that I killed Beppe, my countryman----"

The bifurcated interpreter jabbered furiously at him. An expression of dumb amazement overspread the dusty little face.

"You are free, acquitted, discharged; you may return to your home!" announced the beard dramatically, waving a hand in the direction of the door. The officers lowered Candido slowly to his feet. He picked up his hat. Abject wonder was painted upon his countenance. He gazed from the judge to the jury, and back again to the prosecutor.

"Madonna! I am pardoned for killing Beppe? _O giudici_, I kiss your hands." He seized that of the interpreter and devoured it with kisses. Then with a smile he added: "Ah, you see I could not but kill him! He had ruined my home! He had deprived me of honor!"

The attendants faced him toward the door, and he started slowly away; but before he had taken half a dozen steps he caught sight of the waiting Maria. His face changed. Once more he turned to the interpreter and muttered something hoarsely beneath his breath.

"He says," translated the interpreter, turning to the court, "that he would like to have his pistol."

THE LITTLE FELLER

Five feet high, in a suit of clothes three sizes too large for him, he stood in the doorway of my office impassively examining a card which he held in his hand and looking doubtfully about the room.

"I want to see the assistant district attorney," he said.

"Well, this is the right place," I answered in as encouraging a tone as I could assume.

"I want to see you--to speak with you. That lawyer company----"

"Oh, the Legal Aid? What do you want to see me about?"

"The little feller," he replied, taking a step forward and grasping his flat Derby hat firmly before him with both hands.

"What's the trouble?"

"It's the little feller--Isaac--they have arrested him for larceny." He spoke the words in a matter-of-fact--rather hopeful--altogether engaging manner.

"Larceny, eh! How old is he?"

"Eight. But he didn't do nothin'. He was out with some bad boys, but he didn't do nothin' and the cop arrested him with the others. That's all. I came down to get him off, if I could." He smiled frankly.

"What's your name?" I inquired, for ingenuousness of that sort is uncommon among the Jews.

"Abraham Aselovitch--my father is Isidore and my mother she is Rachael Aselovitch."

"And this little fellow--is he your brother?"

"Sure."

"When does his case come up?"

"Next Monday in the Children's Court." He shifted his position.

"Well, even if he is found guilty they will probably only send him to the Juvenile Asylum."

"That's it--Juvenile Asylum. It's a bad place. I don't want him to go there," replied the boy with determination.

"Why not, Abraham?" I inquired.

"It is a bad place. He will meet bad boys there--like the ones that got him into trouble," he responded with an eager look.

"It's not such a bad place," I ventured.

"I know what it is!" he retorted fiercely. "They make criminals there. Good boys are put in with the bad. It makes no difference. One makes the other bad. Isaac is a _good_ boy."

"How about the evidence?"

"I think they will convict him," remarked Abraham conclusively. "Those cops will swear to anything."

"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," I answered with a smile. "Still, I'm afraid I can't get him off, particularly if the evidence would warrant his conviction. After all, perhaps the Juvenile is the best place for him, or maybe" (the thought struck me) "they will parole him in the custody of his mother."

"No, they won't!" he cried with harsh vindictiveness. "She _wants_ him to go there. The little feller, he makes too much trouble for her. She don't want that she should have to clean up after him. She don't want to have to cook for him." His eyes filled. "My mother, she has no use for the little feller--but he's all I've got."

"Do you work?"

"Sure, every morning I go with my father at six o'clock, and I work all day until seven. Then I come home, and the little feller is lying in my bed and I put my arms around him and go to sleep."

"Six until seven!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, that is the time my father works, and I work for him--on the pants."

"My God! A sweatshop!" I murmured. "Don't you ever have any fun?"

"Sure I do. Saturdays we don't do no work an' I take the little feller down to Coney, an' sit on the sand all day with him. Do we have fun? Well, say, I guess!"

"What does your father give you a week?"

"Sometimes a dollar. Sometimes a dollar and a half. Sometimes nothin'."

"What does your father say about putting Isaac in the asylum?"

"My father!" answered Abraham, his eyes flashing. "_He_ don't want him. Isaac won't work. He's an _American_ boy. He's only eight. He just hangs around the house and musses things up and won't do nothin' they tell him. My father would be glad to get rid of him."

"Well, if he makes all this trouble, why do you want to keep him?" I asked.

"Because I love him!" responded Abraham with a sob. "He's all I've got--that little feller. I want him to grow up a good boy. If they don't want to take care of him, _I will_. I'll earn the money. I'll send him to school, maybe, by and by, and make a _lawyer_ of him." Abraham spoke eagerly. "The old folks, my father and mother, they ain't like me and you, they ain't real Americans, they don't understand these things. All they think about is work and the synagogue. I'm up against it, I know. I've got to work. But the little feller--I want that little feller to come out on top and have a chance."

"McCarthy," said I to the county detective assigned to the office, "kindly step into the next room. I want to speak to this boy alone.

"Abraham, you are up against it, I guess. Don't you think you can go without the little feller for a year? I'll do what I can, but even if he goes up they won't keep him longer than that at the asylum, and probably when he comes out he'll be more of a help to your father and mother."

The big tears stood in his eyes and he twisted his hands together as he answered:

"I guess--maybe--maybe, I could give up going down to Coney for a year, if it was going to do him any good. Don't you think the asylum's so bad?"

"No, indeed," said I. "It's fine. He can learn to play in the band. He'll have a good time. Let him go."

For an instant I thought my words had made an impression. Then the two tears welled over.

"You don't know--" the voice was low and passionate--"you don't know what it is to have nothin' but a little feller like that. And way off there--he would wake up in the night maybe--all alone--a little feller----"

"Abraham!" I exclaimed, "the Juvenile be hanged! I'll see the judge and do my best to have the little fellow remanded in the custody of his brother. And Abraham----"

"Yes, sir."

"Where is the little feller? Out on bail?"

"Yessir."

I fumbled in my pocket for a dollar bill.

"Will you be paid for to-day?" I asked.

"No, there's nothin' doin' to-day," he answered.

"Had any work this week?"

"Nothin' much this week. There ain't much doin' at the shop. I won't get paid this week."

"Well," I continued, "the little feller is free till Monday, anyhow. Take him down to Coney to-morrow. And see here, Abraham, just _spend_ that dollar. Be a good sport." He grinned. "Take the little feller along and sit on the sand, and if there is anything you want to see, no matter if it costs five cents or ten cents, you go in and see it. Have a real good time. Something for the little fellow to remember."

He smiled out of his eyes a heaven-born smile.

"Thank you."

"Never mind that, just do as I say. And Monday you go to court with him. I'll see what I can do."

"You bet I will. I'll take the little feller down there to-morrow. You ought to see him, Mister. Some time I'll bring him in here."

He shook hands and turned to open the door. As it closed behind him, there echoed faintly through the transom:

"Just wait till you see that little feller!"

RANDOLPH, '64

"For the good and the great, in their beautiful prime, Through thy precincts have musingly trod--"

The roll of the national anthem died away and the veterans stood with bowed heads while the chaplain pronounced the benediction. Then the color bearer elevated the regimental flags, the drums tapped, and the gray-haired soldier boys, in straggling twos, marched slowly out of Saunders's Theater, through the flower-bedecked transept, and into the broad sunshine of Memorial Day. Ralph and I lingered in our seats until the crowd had thinned. In the flag-draped balcony above the platform the members of the band were hurriedly departing with their impedimenta; here and there little old ladies dressed in gray, were making their way with tardy steps toward the side exit; while all around the theater the open windows poured in a battery of mote-filled sunshine upon the deserted benches. The air was heavy with the soft fragrance of the elms outside, the faint odor of starched linen, of pine dust, and of flowers.

"There's a pair for you!" whispered Ralph, as an erect old gentleman accompanied by a white-haired negro came up the aisle. "I wish I knew who they were." He offered to wager large sums, based upon his alleged capacity for divination, that they were an "old grad," a Southerner, probably, and his body servant--"Old Marse" and "Uncle Ned." He instantly saw visions of them as characters in a story he was writing for one of the college papers. He is an imaginative boy.

We followed them out into the transept, and waited in the jog by the entrance while they made the round of the tablets, the white man reading the various inscriptions to his companion, who now and then would nod as if in recollection, and once furtively wiped his eyes with a frayed red-bordered silk handkerchief. The last we saw of them, they were picking their way across the car tracks of Cambridge Street in the direction of the Yard.

All the long spring afternoon, as we lay on the grass with our backs against the tree trunks, pretending to study, but really only watching the little gray denizens of the Yard intent upon their squirrel business, Ralph was making up stories about "Old Marse" and "Uncle Ned." I don't believe the chap read a line of his Stubbs on "Mediæval Architecture," and he was very loath to join me when I dragged him to his feet and said that it was time for supper.

Darkness had fallen when, two hours later, we joined the group of men gathered under the elms around the main entrance of Holworthy, where the Glee Club had assembled for one of its evening concerts. Everywhere the old buildings gleamed with light, for the examinations were on, and each window had its cluster of coatless occupants, who from time to time vociferously participated in mournful, lingering calls for "M-o-r-e." The odor of pipe smoke mingled with the sweet, humid breath of the grass and the subtle perfume of professors' gardens from distant Quincy Street; in the western sky a crescent moon, just peeping from behind the tower of Massachusetts Hall, shyly nestled in the tree tops; while between the great elms we could look, as we lay flat upon our backs, into an infinity of faintly twinkling worlds. Between songs you could hear the creaking of the pump in front of Hollis Hall, and the tinkle of the cup upon its chain as it was tossed heedlessly away by the thirsty wayfarer after he had availed himself of its humble services. Ralph and I, joyously entangled in the anatomy of a dozen classmates, drank in with rapture the never cloying melodies of "Johnnie Harvard," "The Miller's Daughter," "The Independent Cadets," and "A Health to King Charles," none of which old favorites escaped without a second rendition, and it was well on to nine o'clock when with a last

Here's a health to King Charles, _Fill him up_ to the brim!

the assemblage broke up, in spite of savage disapproval from the windows.

Then only did we surrender to our miserable apprehension of the imminent, deadly "exam." in Fine Arts 4, and with the earnestly avowed purpose of really mastering the difference between a gargoyle and a lintel before we retired to rest, reluctantly mounted the stone steps recently vacated by our musical brethren. Our room was Number 10, the first as you go in on the right, and the flickering gaslight in the hall showed that the door, in accordance with inviolable custom, was still ajar.

"Wait a second while I light the lamp," I remarked to Ralph, and, feeling my way across the room to my desk, stood there fumbling for the matches. As I did so I was startled to hear a voice from the darkness in the direction of the fireplace.

"I beg your pardon," it said. "I'm afraid I have usurped your room, but the door was open and its invitation was too attractive to be refused."

The match flared up and I saw before me Ralph's "Old Marse."

"Oh--of course--certainly," I replied. He had arisen from the armchair in which evidently he had been listening to the singing. Then the wick caught, and by the increased light I saw that the man before me looked older than he had in the morning. His hair was almost white, and his face about the eyes finely wrinkled, but its expression was full of kindly humor, and I felt somehow that this stranger quite belonged there, and that it was I who was the intruder.

"You see," he continued with a smile, "I feel that I have a certain right to be here. This used to be my room. Let me introduce myself. Curtis is my name--Curtis, '64."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Curtis," said I. "I'm Jarvis, 190--. Was this really your room? That seems an awfully long time ago."

He smiled again.

"I'm afraid it seems longer ago to you than to me. Would you mind if I should smoke a cigar with you? I'd like to ask you some things about the old building."

"Please do," said I. "And let me introduce my roommate, Ralph Hughes."