I
When Hank Clery left the switch-yards in the outskirts of Chicago he took the street car and went down town. He was going to the county jail on the north side of the river. Hank had never been inside the jail though he had been arrested a number of times and taken to the police court, escaping luckily with a small fine which his mother had contrived to pay. She was one of the best washerwomen of the whole neighborhood, and never without work. All the officers knew that whenever Hank got into trouble his mother would pay the fine and costs. Hank had often been arrested, but he was by no means a bad fellow. He lived with his old Irish mother and was very fond of her and often brought his wages home if none of the boys happened to be near when the pay-car came around. Hank was a switchman in one of the big railroad yards in Chicago. Of course, he and his companions drank quite a little, and then their sports and pastimes were not of the gentlest sort; for that matter neither was their work—climbing up and down running cars and turning switches just ahead of a great locomotive and watching to make sure which track was safe where the moving cars and engines were all around—did not tend to a quiet life. Of course, most people think that no man will work in a switch-yard unless he drinks. Perhaps no man would drink unless he worked in a switch-yard or some such place.
Well, on this day Hank was going to the jail, not on account of any of his own misdeeds, but on an errand of mercy. The night before, the priest had come to Hank’s home and told him that his old friend, Jim Jackson, had begged for him to visit the jail. Hank at first refused, but the priest told him that Jim had no friends and was anxious to have a few minutes’ talk with him before he died; Jim had some message that he wanted to give Hank that he could not leave with anyone else. Hank knew that Jim was to be hanged on Friday, and he had thought about it a good deal in the last few days and wished that it was over. He had known Jim for a long time; they had often been out together and sometimes got drunk together. Jim once worked in the yards, but one night one of the other boys was struck by the Limited as it pulled out on the main track, and Jim and Hank gathered him up when the last Pullman coach had rolled over him; and after that Jim could never go back to the yards; so he managed to get an old horse and wagon and began peddling potatoes on the street.
One evening Hank took up the paper, and there he saw a headline covering the whole page and a little fine print below telling how Jim had killed his wife with a poker. Hank did not understand how this could be true, but as the evidence seemed plain he made up his mind that Jim had really always been a demon, but that he had managed tokeep it hidden from his friends. Hank really did not want to go to the jail to see Jim; somehow it seemed as if it was not the same fellow that he used to know so well, and then he was afraid and nervous about talking with a man who was going to be hanged next day. But the priest said so much that finally Hank’s mother told him she thought he ought to go. So he made up his mind that he would stand it, although he was a great deal more afraid and nervous than when he was turning switches in the yard. After the priest left the house Hank went down to the alderman and got a pass to go inside the jail. He always went to the alderman for everything; all the people thought that this was what an alderman was for and they cared nothing about anything else he did.
When Hank got down town he went straight across the Dearborn Street bridge to the county jail. It was just getting dusk as he came up to the great building. The jail did not look a bit like a jail. It was a tall grand building, made of white stone, and the long rows of windows that cover the whole Dearborn Street side looked bright and cheerful with the electric lights that were turned on as Hank came up to the door. If it had not been for the iron-bars across the windows he might have thought that he was looking at a bank or a great wholesale warehouse. Hank stepped into the large vestibule just inside the shelter of the big front door. Along each side was a row of people sitting on benches placed against the wall. He did not wait to look closely at this crowd; in fact, he could not have done so had he tried, for Hank was no artist or philosopher and was neither subtle nor deep. He saw them just as he would have seen a freight car stealing down the track to catch him unawares. He did notice that most of these watchers were women, that many of them were little children, and that all looked poor and woe-begone. They were the same people that Hank saw every day out by the yards, living in the rumble of the moving trains and under the black clouds of smoke and stench that floated over their mean homes from the great chimneys and vats of the packing houses. Most of the women and children had baskets or bundles in their arms, and sat meek and still waiting for the big key to turn in the great iron lock of the second door.
When Hank went up to this door someone inside pushed back a little slide, showed his face at the peep-hole, and asked him who he was and what he wanted. Hank shoved the alderman’s letter through the little window and the door opened without delay. This was not the first time that the gloomy gate had turned on its hinges under the magic of that name, both for coming in and going out.
Inside the little office was the same motley, helpless crowd of people, the same sad-faced women and weary children standing dazed and dejected with their poor baskets and bundles in their arms. Some were waiting to be taken through this barred door, while others had just returned and were stopping until the turnkey should open the outside gate and let them go.
In a few minutes a guard came to Hank and asked if he was the man who brought the alderman’s note. On receiving the reply, the guard told him that the alderman was all right and it was worth while to be his friend. That was the way he got his job and he always stuckby his friends. Then the guard unlocked another door and took Hank to the elevator where he was carried to the fourth story. Here he was let off on an iron floor directly in front of a great door made of iron bars. The turnkey quickly unlocked and opened this door and let Hank and the guard into what seemed a long hall with iron floor, ceiling and walls. Nothing but iron all around. Along one side of the hall were more iron bars, and a wire netting ran from the ceiling to the floor. Along the whole length of this wire netting was a row of the same kind of people Hank had seen below. They were packed close to the grating, and crowding and pushing to get up to the screening. Most of these were women, here and there one of them holding a little child by the hand and one with a baby in her arms. On the other side Hank saw a row of men pressing just as closely to the netting, most of these looking pale and ill. The evening was hot and not a breath of fresh air was anywhere about. The peculiar odor of the prison, more sickening that the stock yards stench which Hank always, breathed, was so strong that he could not tell whether he smelled it or tasted it.
The guards were rushing noisily around among the visitors and inmates, passing bundles and baskets out and in, calling the names of the prisoners to be taken from their cells inside and brought down to the wire netting to get a glimpse of some relative or friend. Hank was bewildered by it all and for a few minutes stood almost dazed, wondering what it meant and what good purpose it all served.
Next to him stood a woman, perhaps forty years of age; in one hand she held a basket, and by the other the hand of a little girl about nine years old. The woman was dressed in a loose, ill-fitting gown and on her head was a black sailor hat. Behind the wire screen was a man of about her own age. He wore only black trousers, suspenders, a grayish woolen shirt and old shoes. The man and woman stood with their fingers touching through the netting. Hank heard the man say that he did not know what to do, that the good lawyers charged so much that he couldn’t have them, and the ones who came to the jail did more harm than good. It was funny that you couldn’t do anything without a lawyer. One of the prisoners, who was a smart man and had been there a good many times, had told him that the best way was to plead guilty and ask the mercy of the court; that he thought the judge might let him off with a two hundred dollar fine—“you know the State’s Attorney gets the money.” Hank heard the woman answer that maybe to pay the fine was the best way after all; as soon as he was arrested she took Gussy out of the high school, and Gussy was now working in the department store and thought Aggie could get in as a cash girl; of course Aggie was too young, but still she was pretty large for her age and might get through, as Gussy knew the floorwalker very well—he stopped at the house to visit one evening that week and was real nice.
“I’ve been scrubbing in the Masonic Temple nights, but it’s pretty hard work and I am getting so large I am afraid I can’t keep it up much longer. You know I’ll be sick next month. There are a few things in the house yet and I might get a little money on them, and then there are the Maloneys next door; you know we were always fighting, but after you went away they seemed kind of sorry andhave been awfully good to us, and I think they might help us a little, although they haven’t got much themselves——”
Hank couldn’t stop to hear all they said, and besides he felt as if he had no right to stand and listen, so he let his eye wander on down the line. Just beyond he saw an old bent, gray-haired woman with a long black veil and spotless black gown. She was crying and talking to a young man inside the grating. He heard her ask, “How could you have done it?” and heard him answer, “Mother, I don’t know, but somehow I didn’t seem to think about it at the time.” Just beyond were a man and a woman and it was so hard for them to get close to the screen that the man held a little baby up in his arms to look over the people in front. The child looked in wonder and then held out its hands and shouted with delight, “Mamma, there’s papa. Papa, have you been here all the time? Why don’t you come back home?” Young girls, too, pressed closely up to the screen, each with that look at the youth inside that neither the wise nor the foolish have ever failed to understand. The prison bars and the laws that placed their lovers outside the pale had no power to change their feeling, only to deepen and intensify their love.
While Hank stood in the corridor a number of men called from the inside: “Pardner, have you got any tobacco?” Hank hastily gave away all he had, and thought that if he should ever come back he would buy as much as he could before his visit. But his musing was soon interrupted by the guard tapping him on the shoulder and telling him he was ready. Then another turnkey opened a barred door and let him inside the wicket. Here he stood in a narrow hallway with still another big locked door in front. Soon this was swung open, and at last Hank stood inside the bars and the nettings with a great throng of coatless, hatless men all talking, laughing, chewing and smoking, and walking by twos and threes, up and down the room. Hank had always supposed that these men were different from the ones he knew and had fancied that he would be afraid to be with such a crowd, but when he got inside, somehow he did not think of them as burglars and pickpockets; they seemed just like other men, except that they were a little paler and thinner and more bent. Some of these men spoke to Hank, asking him for tobacco or for money. He saw one man whom he knew very well, one of his neighbors that he supposed was out of town; and he quickly noticed that this man tried to keep out of his sight. Hank had never thought that he was bad, and could not but wonder how he happened to be here.
Hank looked around for Jim, but was told that he was upstairs locked in his cell. The guard explained that the death-watch had been set on him and that for some time no one had left him day or night. He was to be hanged in the morning before sunrise. He himself had gone around that day and handed written invitations to the judges to be present. Some of them had asked him whether they could get in a few friends who wanted to go and see the hanging. The guard said they had over a thousand applications for tickets; that it was one of the most popular hangings they’d ever had in the jail. He supposed this was because Jackson had killed his wife and the newspapers had said so much about it.
He could not help feeling sorry for Jackson. Of course, he supposed he was awfully wicked or he wouldn’t have killed his wife, but since he had come to know Jackson he had found him a perfect gentleman and very kind and obliging, and he acted like a good fellow. It really seemed kind of tough to hang a man. He had seen a good many men hung and was getting kind of tired of it. He believed he would go out in the country fishing somewhere tomorrow instead of staying to see it done. They never needed so many guards on that day because all the prisoners were kept locked up in their cells.
As Hank went along, the guard chatted to him in the most friendly way. He pointed over to the courtyard where there were some long black beams and boards, and said that was where they were going to hang Jackson, that the carpenters would put up the scaffold in the night. The murderers’ row where Jim was kept was around on the side where he couldn’t see the carpenters put up the scaffold. It used to be right in front but it had been changed. The guard said he didn’t see much difference, because the men could hear it and they knew just what it was, and anyhow they never could sleep the last night unless they took something. He told Hank that after they got through he would take him down to the office and show him a piece of the rope that they used to hang the Anarchists, and the one they used on Pendergast, who killed Carter Harrison, and the one they had for the car-barn murderers. It was the very best rope they could get; some people wouldn’t know it from clothes-line but it was a good deal finer and more expensive.
The guard said it was strange how these men acted before they were hanged.
“You wouldn’t hardly know them from the prisoners who were in jail working out a fine,” he explained. “They don’t seem to mind it very much or talk about it a great deal. Of course, at first they generally kind of think that the Supreme Court is going to give them a new trial; their lawyers tell them so. But half the time this is so that their friends will get more money to pay for carrying the cases up; though I must say that some of the lawyers are good fellows and do all they can to help them. Sometimes some of the lawyers that have the worst reputations are really better than the others. Then after the Supreme Court decides against them, they have a chance to go to the governor and the Board of Pardons. Of course this isn’t much use, but somehow they always think it will be, and the case is never really decided until the last day and that kind of helps to keep them up. Now, there’s Jackson; I took him the telegram about an hour ago and he read it and it didn’t seem to make much difference. He just said, ‘Well, I s’pose that’s all.’ And then he picked it up and read it again and said, ‘Well, the lawyer says he’s going back to the governor at midnight. Something might happen then; will the office be open if any telegram comes?’ I told him that it would and he says, ‘Well, I presume that it’s no use; but where there’s life there’s hope.’ I s’pose the lawyer just said that to kind of brace him up and that he took the night train back to Chicago, but I didn’t tell Jim so. Well, anyhow, I’m going to see that he has a good breakfast. We always give ‘em anything they want, either tea or coffee, ham and eggs, bacon, steak,beans, potatoes, wheat cakes and molasses, almost anything you can think of. Of course most of ‘em can’t eat much, but some of ‘em take a pretty big breakfast. It really don’t do any good, only the taste of it goin’ down; they are always dead before it has a chance to digest. A good many of ‘em feel rather squeamish in the morning and drink a good deal before they start out. We always give ‘em all they want to drink; most of ‘em are really drunk when they are hung. But I think that’s all right, don’t you? There were some temperance people once that made a row about it, but I think that’s carrying temperance entirely too far myself.
“Well, I didn’t mean to gossip with you so much, but I thought maybe you would like to know something about it and so long as the alderman sent you over I wanted to do all I could for you. Give my respects to the alderman. I guess he’ll be a candidate next spring. He says he won’t, but I think he will. He always knows what he’s doing. All he wants is to throw them reform guys off the track. They might know that they couldn’t beat him. Our people out there don’t care anything about municipal ownership and Civil Service Reform, and things like that. What they want is turkeys on Thanksgiving and to be helped out of the lock-up and pardoned out of the Bridewell and found jobs. That’s what they want, and there ain’t an alderman in town that tends to the business of his ward better than ours, and we don’t care whether the railroads and gas companies give him money or not. We don’t expect him to work for nothin’ and don’t want him to; and what do we care about the streets? None of us has horses and the fellows that wants ‘em ought to pay for ‘em. Well, here’s Jackson, and I’ll tell the guard to let you stay with him all you want to; he’s a good fellow and will do what I want. You can say anything you please to Jackson and he can talk to you all he wants to; the guard won’t listen if he knows you’re all right, but it isn’t any more than fair, anyhow, for this is his last night.”
Hank listened to the guard without being impatient for, in the first place, he felt as if he had made a new friend, and he liked him; he was such a good talker and told him so much that was new and he didn’t seem the least bit stuck up, although he had such a good job. Then all the time he felt nervous and uneasy about meeting Jackson; the Jackson he knew was not a criminal but a good fellow who used to play pool and drink beer and go to primaries, while this man was a murderer who was to be hung next day; then again he didn’t seem a real man, but a sort of ghost, so that Hank had a good deal the feeling he used to know as a child when he went past a graveyard, or that he felt in a morgue, or when he went to look at some dead friend.
When he came up to the cell Jackson was smoking a cigar and talking with the guard. At the first glance the uneasy feeling passed away. It was the same Jim Jackson that he knew, except thinner and paler than when he saw him last. Before the guard had time to speak Jackson reached out his hand, smiled and said “Hello, Hank, I’m awful glad you came. I’ve been looking for you all the afternoon.” Hank took his hand without the least feeling that it was the hand of a murderer. It was only the old friend and comrade he had known.
The guard unlocked the door and told Hank to go in. Then he said:
“Now, you folks talk all you want to. I won’t hear a single word you say. I’ll sit out here and if there is anything I can do, let me know.”
Hank went into the little cell. On one side was an iron shelf and on this a straw tick and some bed clothing. A little wash-stand and slop-pail stood in one corner, a chair was near the stand, and a few pictures taken from colored supplements were on the white walls. The guard handed in another chair and the two friends sat down. At first there was a short, painful silence. It was plain that both had been thinking what to say and neither knew just how to begin. Hank had thought that he would ask Jim how he happened to kill his wife; he thought he ought to talk with him and tell him how terrible it was. He believed that perhaps this was his duty toward a fellow-being standing so near the presence of his Maker. Then, too, he had the feeling that unless he really told Jim what he thought about his crime, it would be almost the same as being an accessory to the act. In fact, when Hank was going to the jail he had a vague idea that his only right to visit Jim was to preach to him in some way. He would almost have thought it a crime to meet him on equal terms.
After they sat down Jim was again the first to speak. “My room here’s pretty crowded but I guess it’ll do for tonight. Make yourself just as comfortable as possible for I’d like to have you stay with me as long as you can. It’s a little lonesome you know. The guard’s a good fellow. He visits with me every night and is as friendly as he can be. He told me that he was in jail himself once for burglary, but you mustn’t say anything about it. His lawyer got him out, but he says he was really guilty. That was a good many years ago. He says he believes if he had gone to the penitentiary he would never have amounted to anything, but as soon as he got out of jail he turned over a new leaf and made up his mind to make something of himself, and just see where he is now. He is an awful kind fellow. I know he feels sorry for me. He gives me all the cigars I want and all the privileges he can. There’s a guard here in the daytime that I don’t like; he was appointed by the Citizens’ Association. He’s strict and awful good. He’s always asking me questions about myself, says he’s getting statistics for the association. He seems to think that it must have been whisky that made me do it, and he gives me tracts; of course that’s all right, but still you’d think that once in a while he’d say something else to a fellow, or at least give him a cigar. Some way he don’t seem to have any feeling. I s’pose he’s a good deal better than the other guard but I don’t like him near so well.
“But that wasn’t what I got you here for. I really wanted to talk with you. You see no one that I knew has been to see me since I came. I don’t s’pose I ought to expect they would. I used to know a good many fellers who went to jail but I never went to see ‘em. I always kind of thought they wa’n’t fit for me to associate with, and I s’pose that’s the way most people believe. But since I came here somehow it don’t look quite the same. Maybe that’s on account of what I done. I told the priest I thought you’d come because we was alwayssuch good friends, and he told me he would go and see you. He’s been awful good to me although I never went to church any when I was out. He talks to me as if I was just like other people. Of course he tells me I done wrong, and I know I did, but he don’t tell me as if I was the only one that ever done wrong, and as if he and everyone else was so much different, and as if he couldn’t see how I done it. He talks just as if my soul was worth as much as anybody’s and as if I’d have a better chance afterward than I ever had before. Anyhow he’s done me lots of good and I honestly believe he’s made me a better man, and if I only had a chance to do anything now I’d amount to something; but of course I can’t. But still, I wanted to tell you a few things that I couldn’t even tell him, for you know that, no matter how good he is, he somehow seems different from you; you know I kind of feel as if you was just like me. You’ll excuse me, I know, for saying this, bein’ as the time is so short.
“You remember about my boy. Now of course I always was a rough fellow and never did quite right ever before that, but still I guess you know I always loved that kid. Strange thing, he’ll be four years old tomorrow on the very day—well, poor little fellow, I hope he don’t know nothing about it. You remember the time that kid had the croup and how we thought he couldn’t get well, and you know I went down to the yard to tell you about it and how bad I felt. I almost wish now he’d died, but maybe that’s wicked and God will take care of the kid better’n he did of me. Well, I haven’t heard a word about that boy since I came to the jail, or since I left him at the house that night, except a little bit in court and what that good guard says. He kind of holds out that he’s in some kind of an orphan asylum where he’s gettin’ plenty to eat and where he’ll learn what’s right and wrong, and be a good man, and that’s all right, but I’d like to know where the kid is. He says if I thought so much of him I ought to have showed it before, and I s’pose I ought; but I did think lots of him; just as much as them rich folks think of their boys. I want him to be taken care of and to be educated and grow up to be a good man, and maybe it’s a good deal better if he never knows anything about his father, but somehow I can’t help wantin’ him to know who I was and don’t want him to think of me just like the newspapers and everybody else does. I wouldn’t want him to grow up like that guard, even if he is real good. And you see there wa’n’t any one but you that I could send for and tell them just how it all happened. No one yet has ever known how it was, and everybody says I was to blame and that I’m a demon and a monster, and I thought maybe if I explained the whole thing to you, just as it was, you could see that I wa’n’t so much to blame; anyhow that there was some excuse for what I done, and then some time when the boy’s growed up he’d know that I wa’n’t so bad as everyone says I was.
“Of course I know you can’t, for I know you’re poor like me, but so many times when I thought about the boy I thought that maybe you and your mother might raise him just the way I would have done; and then your mother was always so good to all of us. I remember how she used to raise the little geese down along the canal if anything happened to the old goose; don’t you rememberabout that? My, but them was fine times, wa’n’t they? Of course if you could do it I don’t know but the alderman would help you; anyhow he’d get free books and clothes off’n the county when he went to school. How are politics up in the ward? Is he goin’ to run again? I never hear anything only what I get out of the papers and they’re all against him, but I think he’ll show ‘em yet. Wish I was out so I could help. But I must go on with what I brought you to hear. I’m goin’ to tell you the whole story just exactly as it is, and you know that I wouldn’t tell you a lie tonight with what they are goin’ to do in the mornin’. I can’t make you understand unless I commence clear at the beginnin’, but I know you won’t mind, seein’ it’s my last time.”