VII
“Well, I hadn’t any more’n started to run till I heard a splash I knew she’d got to the water all right and there wa’n’t nothin’ for me to do but hurry home.
“I went right back to the wagon and climbed upon the seat and turned ‘round. The old horse was pretty tired but he seemed some encouraged, bein’ as he’d turned home. Horses always does, no matter how poor a place they has to stay. I urged him ‘long just as fast as I could; didn’t stop for nothin’ except to give him some water at a trough down on Halstead Street, and went right home. Then I put him in the stable and took care of him, and throwed some hay in the manger. So long as I hadn’t any oats I emptied about a bushel of potatoes in with the hay. I thought they wouldn’t be any use to me any more, and they’d keep him quiet a while and mebbe do him some good.
“Then I went in the house, and struck a match and lit the lamp. I didn’t ‘low to stay long for I’d got my plans all thought out comin’ home, but I just wanted to look into the room and see the kid. I glanced ‘round and ever’thing seemed all right, except I thought I’d better take the coal pail out in the kitchen. Then I looked at the floor and the rug and I couldn’t see no blood; and the water had pretty near dried up. Then I opened the bedroom door and looked at the kid. He was sleepin’ all right, just as if he hadn’t been awake once all night. He was layin’ on one side with his face lookin’ out toward me, and was kind of smilin’ pleasant-like and his hair was all sweaty and curly. You’ve seen the kid. You know he’s got white curly hair just as fine as silk. That’s one thing he got from her.
“Well, I couldn’t hardly bear to go away and leave him, but there wa’n’t nothin’ else to do. I guess I would have kissed him if I hadn’t been ‘fraid he’d wake up, but I never was much for kissin’; kissin’ depen’s a good deal on how you’re raised. I guess rich people kiss a good deal more’n poor people, as a general rule, but I don’t know as they think any more of their children. Well, I just looked at him a minute and shut the door and went out. Then I noticed the whiskey bottle on the table that I brought out to try to wake her; I hadn’t thought of it before; and I picked it up and drank what was left, and turned and blew out the lamp and went away. That’s the last I ever seen of the kid, or the house.
“I went right over to the yards to see about trains. There wa’n’t nothin’ standin’ ‘round there and I didn’t like to ask any questions, so I went down to the other end and see ‘em switchin’ some cars as if they was makin’ up a train, and I walked out in the shadow of a fence until they’d got it all made up and I felt pretty sure ‘twas goin’ south. I knew them cars and engines pretty well. Then I jumped in a box car that was about in the middle of the train. There was a great big machine of some kind in the car, so there was plenty ofroom left for me, and I snuggled down in one corner and dozed off. I don’t think I’d been sleepin’ long till a brakeman come past with a lantern and asked me who I was and where I was goin’. I told him I was goin’ south to get a job, and wanted to get down as far as Georgia if I could, for my lungs wa’n’t strong and the doctors had advised a change of climate. I had read about the doctors advisin’ rich people to have a change of climate, but of course I hadn’t ever heard of their tellin’ the poor to do any such thing. I s’pose because it wouldn’t do no good and they couldn’t afford to leave their jobs and go. But I didn’t see why that wasn’t a good excuse. He asked me if I had any whiskey or tobacco, and I said no, and he told me that I oughtn’t to get on a train without whiskey or tobacco, and I promised not to again, and then he let me go.
“It was just gettin’ streaks of light in the east, and I thought I might as well go ahead and prob’ly I’d better ride till noon anyhow, as nothin’ much could happen before that time. Then I went off to sleep again. The sun was pretty high before I woke up. I looked at my watch to see what time it was but found I’d forgot to wind it the night before and it had run down. Well, I concluded it was just as safe to stay on the car so long as it was goin’ south and so I didn’t get off all day, except to run over to a grocery when the train stopped once and get some crackers and a few cigars. I thought I’d have ‘em when the brakeman come ‘round, and then I fixed myself for the night. I was pretty well beat out and didn’t have much trouble goin’ to sleep, though of course I couldn’t get it out of my head any of the time, and would wake up once in a while and wonder if it wa’n’t all a dream till I found myself again and knew it was all true.
“I’d found out that the car I was in was goin’ to Mississippi and made out that it was for some saw mill down there. It was switched ‘round once or twice in the day, and I think once in the night, and was put on other trains, and the new brakeman had come ‘round at different times. After I got the cigars I gave ‘em one whenever they come ‘round and this kep’ ‘em pretty good natured. And so long as the car had switched off and I made up my mind they wouldn’t find her the first day, I thought mebbe I’d better stay right in it and go to Mississippi. I didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout Mississippi, except that it was south and a long ways off and settled with niggers, and that they made lumber down there. I used to see a good many cars from Mississippi when I was switchin’ in the yards. The car was switched off quite a bit, and didn’t go very fast, and it was four days before they landed it in Mississippi.
“They stopped right in the middle of the woods, and I made up my mind that this was about as good a place to stay as anywhere, if I could get a job, and I thought it wouldn’t be a bad plan to try where they was sendin’ the machine. It had been so easy for me to get down to Mississippi that I began to think that mebbe my luck had changed, and that the Lord had punished me all he was goin’ to. So I went up to the mill and asked for a job. The foreman told me he’d give me one if I didn’t mind workin’ with niggers. I told him I didn’t care anything ‘bout that, I guessed they was as good as I was.So I started in. My whiskers was beginnin’ to grow out some. You know I always kep’ ‘em shaved off, and now they was comin’ out all over my face, and I made up my mind to let ‘em grow. I went to work loadin’ saw logs onto a little car that took ‘em down into the mill. A great big stout nigger worked with me, and we took long poles and rolled the logs over onto the cars, and then it was rolled down into the mill and another one come up in its place. I found the only chance to board was in the big buildin’ where all the hands lived. I thought this wa’n’t a bad place. Most of the people boardin’ there was niggers, but there was a few white fellers, and I naturally got acquainted with ‘em.
“I’d been there a week or two when someone brought a Chicago paper into the house. It was covered with great big headlines and had my picture on the front page. It told all ‘bout some boys findin’ her and about the neighbors hearin’ me call her a damned bitch, and about the kid wakin’ up in the mornin’ and goin’ out in the street to hunt its ma. Then it offered a thousand dollars reward in great big letters.
“My whiskers had grown out a good deal and I didn’t look so very much like the picture. Anyhow I don’t think newspaper pictures look much like anybody. Still, of course, I was awful scart at that. My best chum read the piece all over out loud to me after we got through work, and he said it beat all what a place Chicago was; that such things as that was always happenin’ in Chicago; and that Jackson must have been an awful bad man—wouldn’t I hate to meet him out in the woods some place! A man like that would rather kill anybody than eat. I didn’t say much about it, but of course I didn’t contradict him. But I simply couldn’t talk very much myself. He said he wished he could get the one thousand dollars, but no such luck would ever come to him.
“When I’d come there I said my name was Jones, because ‘twas the easiest one I could think of; there was a butcher right near us that was named Jones, and it popped into my head at the time. Some of ‘em asked me where I was from, and I told ‘em Cincinnati. I didn’t know much about Cincinnati, except that we used to get cars from there, and so I knew something ‘bout the roads that went to it. I managed to get hold of the paper and burn it up without anyone seein’ me. But after it came I didn’t feel so easy as I did before. I stayed there about a month workin’ at the mill and pickin’ up what I could about the country, and then I began to think my chum was gettin’ suspicious of me. He kep’ askin’ me a good many questions about what I’d worked at and where’bouts I had worked, and how I got there from Cincinnati and a lot of questions about the town, and I thought he was altogether too inquisitive, and of course I would have told him so if I had dared. Finally I thought the other fellers was gettin’ suspicious, too, and I thought they kind of watched me and asked a good many questions. So one time right after I got my pay I made up my mind to leave. I didn’t wait to say nothin’ to anyone, but jumped onto a freight train, and went on about fifty miles or so south to a railroad crossin’ and then I jumped off, andtook another train east. Along next day I saw a little town where there was another saw mill, so I stopped off and asked for a job. I didn’t have no trouble goin’ to work, so long as I was willin’ to work with the niggers, and I stayed there two or three weeks, same as the other place, and then I thought the boss began to notice me. He asked me a lot of questions about where I come from, and ‘most everything else he could think of. I told him I come from St. Louis, but I didn’t know much more ‘bout that place than I did ‘bout Cincinnati, and I guess he didn’t neither. But as soon as pay-day come I made up my mind I’d better start, so I took the few duds I’d got together and jumped on another train goin’ further yet, and went away. Finally I stopped at a little town that looked rather nice and started out to get a job.
“Ever since I got off the first train I always looked pretty sharp at everyone to make out whether they was watchin’ me or not. Then I always got hold of all the newspapers I could find to see if there was anything more about me. I found another Chicago paper in the depot, and it still had my picture and the offer of a thousand dollars reward, and said I must have took one of the freight trains that left the yards, and would most likely be in the south or in the west. I didn’t like to stay there any longer after seein’ that paper, but I managed to fold it up the best I could, and just as quick as I got a chance I tore it to pieces and threw it away. Then I thought mebbe I’d better get back away from the railroad. So I seen an old darkey that looked kind of friendly and I asked him about the country. He told me a good deal about it and I started out to walk to where he said there was some charcoal pits. I found the place and managed to get a chance to work burnin’ wood and tendin’ fires. It was awful black sooty work, but I didn’t care nothin’ about that. The main thing with me was bein’ safe. I had a pardner who worked with me keepin’ up the fires and lookin’ after the pits at night, and it looked kind of nice with the red fires of the pits lightin’ up the woods and ever’thing all ‘round lookin’ just like a picture. When we got through in the mornin’ you couldn’t tell us from darkies, we was so covered with smoke and burnt wood. We boarded in a little shanty with an old nigger lady that fed us on hominy and fried chicken, and we didn’t have much of any place to sleep that was very good.
“After I’d been there two or three days I got pretty well acquainted with my pardner. One day he asked me where I was from. I never said nothin’ to anybody ‘bout where I came from, or where I was goin’, or asked them any questions about themselves. I just worked steady at my job, and all I thought of was keepin’ still in hopes it would wear off in time, and I could start over new. I used to dream a good deal about her and the boy, and sometimes I’d think we was back there in Chicago all livin’ together and ever’thing goin’ all right. Then I would dream that I was out with the boys to a caucus, or goin’ ‘round the saloons campaignin’ with the alderman. Then I’d dream about fightin’ her and hittin’ her on the head with the poker, and it seemed as if I throwed herin Lake Michigan. Then I’d dream about the boy and my learnin’ him his letters, and his bein’ with me in the wagon when we was peddlin’ potatoes, and about the horse, the old one that died, and the last one I got at the renderin’-place. Then I’d kind of get down to the peddlin’, and go over the whole route in my sleep, hollerin’ out ‘po-ta-toes!’ all along the streets on the west side where I used to go, and the old Italian women and the Bohemian ladies and all the rest would be out tryin’ to get ‘em cheaper and tellin’ me how I’d charged too much. Then I seen the old lady that I give the half peck to, and could hear her ask all the saints to bless me. Then I stopped into the butcher-shop and got the steak, and ever’thing I ever done kep’ comin’ back to me, only not quite the same as it is in real life. You know how ‘tis in a dream; you want to go somewhere and somethin’ kind of holds your leg and you can’t go. Or you want to do somethin’ and no matter how hard you try somethin’ is always gettin’ in front of you and hinderin’ you and keepin’ you back. Well, that’s the way ‘twas with all my dreams; nothin’ turned out right and I always come back to where I killed her and throwed her in the lake, till I was almost ‘fraid to go to sleep, and then I was ‘fraid I’d holler or talk in my sleep. And my chum slep’ in the same room with me and I was ‘fraid mebbe he’d find it out, so I never dared to go to sleep until after he did, and then I was always ‘fraid I’d holler and say somethin’ and wake him up and that he’d find out ‘bout me and what I’d done.
“Well, as I was sayin’, after I’d been there three or four days we was down to the pits one night tendin’ to the fires, and we got to talkin’ and tellin’ stories to pass the time away, and at last he asked me where I was from, and I said St. Louis. He said he was from the north too; I didn’t ask him where he’d come from, but he told me Chicago. I was almost scart to death when he mentioned the place. I didn’t ask no questions nor say a word, but he kep’ on talkin’ so I kind of moved’ round a little and leaned up against a pine tree so’s the light couldn’t shine right in my face, for I didn’t know what he might say. He told me that he come down here every winter for his health; that Chicago was so cold and changeable in the winter; that he worked in the stock-yards when he was there and he always went back just as soon as he dared, that there wa’n’t no place in the world like Chicago, and he was always awful lonesome when he was away, and he wouldn’t ever leave it if he could only stand the climate. He said there was always somethin’ goin’ on in Chicago; a feller could get a run for his money no matter what kind of a game he played; that if he wanted to have a little sport, there was the pool-rooms and plenty of other places; that if he didn’t have much money he could get a little game in the back end of a cigar store, or he could shoot craps; if he wanted a bigger game there was Powers’ & O’Brien’s and O’Leary’s, and if that wa’n’t enough, then there was the Board of Trade. There was always lots of excitement in Chicago, too. There was races and elections and always strikes, and ever’thing goin’ on. Then there was more murders and hangin’s in Chicago than in any other city. Take that car-barn case; it couldn’tnever have happened anywhere except in Chicago. And the Luetgert case, where the feller boiled his wife up in the sausage-vat so that there wa’n’t nothin’ left but one or two toe-nails, but one doctor identified her by them, and swore they was toe-nails and belonged to a woman about her size; one of ‘em had seen her over at a picnic and remembered her, and he was pretty sure that the toe-nails was hers. Then that Jackson case was the latest; that happened just a little while before he left, and the papers was full of that one. Jackson was a peddler and he went ‘round all day and drunk at all the saloons just so he could get up nerve enough to kill her. He thought she had some property and he’d get it if she was out of the way, so he killed her and took her off and put her in a hole where he thought no one could find her; but they did, and now one of the papers had offered a thousand dollars reward for him, and they were lookin’ for him all over the United States. He said as how he took a Chicago paper and kep’ posted on everything and read it every day and wouldn’t be without it for a minute. And then he asked me if I hadn’t never been to Chicago, and why I didn’t go. I told him mebbe I would some time, but I’d always been kind of ‘fraid to go. I didn’t say much but got the subject changed as soon as possible, and managed to put in the rest of the night the best I could, and then went home, and after he’d gone to sleep I packed my valise and paid the nigger lady and told her I had enough of that job and started off afoot without waitin’ for my pay.
“I went straight down the road for two or three miles till I come to where another road crossed, then I turned off to the left. I didn’t have any reason for turnin’, except it seemed as if that would take me more out of the way. I didn’t see anyone along the road except now and then some old nigger. I walked several miles, and there didn’t ‘pear to be no one livin’ on the road except niggers with little shanties same as the one I left in Chicago. I stopped once and asked an old darkey lady for somethin’ to eat and she give me some fried chicken and a piece of corn bread and I sat and et it, and a whole lot of woolly-headed little pickaninnies sat and looked at me every mouthful. One of ‘em was about the size of my kid, and made me think of him a good deal; but he didn’t look nothin’ like him. I guess ‘twas just because he was a boy and about the age of mine. After I et the chicken and the bread I started on and traveled all day without seein’ anyone, except niggers, or stoppin’ anywhere except to get a drink in a little stream. When it begun to be dark I commenced to think what I’d do for the night, and watched out for a place to stay. So after while I saw an old shack ‘side of the road and went in. There was some straw and I was so tired that I laid down and went right to sleep.
“All night I dreamed about bein’ follered. First I thought I was out in a woods and some hounds was chasin’ me, and I heard ‘em bayin’ way back on my trail and knew they’s comin’ for me. I run to a little stream and follered it up same as I used to read in Indian stories, and then started on again, and after a while I didn’t hear ‘em any more. Then first thing I knew they commenced bayin’ again andI could tell that they’d struck my trail, so I run just as fast as ever I could and the bayin’ kep’ gettin’ louder’n’ louder, and I run through bushes and brush and ever’thing, and they kep’ gainin’ on me till they was so close that I got to a little tree where I could almost reach the branches and I got hold of ‘em and pulled myself up and got ahead of the hounds, but they come up and set down around the tree and howled and howled so they’d be heard all through the woods, and I knew it was all up with me; and then I woke up and found that I was in the barn and no one ‘round except a cow or a horse that was eatin’ over in a corner. So I tried to go to sleep again. Then I dreamed that the policemen and detectives was after me, and first it seemed as if I was runnin’ down a street and the police was right behind, and then I turned down an alley and they hollered to me to stop or they’d shoot, but I didn’t stop, and they shot at me and hit me in the leg, and I fell down and they come up and got me, and then it seemed as if I was on the cars and detectives was follerin’ me ever’where, and whenever I stopped them detectives somehow knew where I was, and they’d come to the place, and I got away and went somewhere else, and then they’d turn up there, all ready to arrest me, and I couldn’t go anywhere except they’d follow me. And I kind of saw her face, and she seemed to be follerin’ me too, only she didn’t seem to have any legs or much of anything, except just her face and a kind of long white train and she just come wherever I was, without walkin’ or ridin’, but just come, and she always seemed to know just the right place no matter how careful I hid, and when they got all ready to nab me I woke up. By that time it was daylight and there was a darkey there in the barn feedin’ a mule, and he said, ‘Hello, boss!’ just as friendly, and asked me where I was goin’. I told him I was lookin’ for a job, and he told me he thought that over about four miles to the town I could get a job. So I told him all right, and asked him if he could give me somethin’ to eat. He took me into the house and gave me some chicken and some corn-cakes and told me if I would wait a while he’d hitch up the mule and take me into town, that he was goin’ anyway. I thanked him and told him I was in a hurry to get to work, and guessed I wouldn’t wait. I’d got so I was ‘fraid to talk with anybody. I thought they’d ask me where I was from, and tell me somethin’ ‘bout Chicago, and mebbe show me a newspaper with my picture in it.
“Then I went on down the road till I come to a nice town in the middle of big pine trees. It was full of fine white houses and a few brick stores, and two or three great big hotels. I asked a nigger what the place was and he told me it was Thompson, and was a winter resort for Yankees who come there for their lungs; that they spent lots of money and that was what made the place so big.
“I always liked to talk with the niggers; they never asked me any questions, and I never was ‘fraid that they’d been in Chicago, and I didn’t really think they took any of the papers, for they didn’t know how to read. Well, I just took one look at Thompson and then went as far from the hotels as I could, and kep’ away from the stores, for I was sure the place was full of people from Chicago,and that all the newspapers would be there, too. I didn’t stop a minute over where all the nice houses was. I seen lots of people out on the porches and settin’ in hammocks and loafin’ ‘round, and I knew they was from Chicago. Then I went along across a little stream and come to a lot of poor tumbled-down houses and tents, and I knew they was the niggers’ quarters, so I went into a little store kep’ by an old fat nigger lady and bought a bag of crackers and asked her about the roads.
“Before this I made up my mind to go to Cuba. I remembered readin’ all about it at the time of the war, when a lot of them stock-yards boys went to fight, and I thought that I’d be so far away that I might be safe, so I knew that I had to go to the Gulf of Mexico, and I kep’ on that way. I didn’t dare to take the railroads any more, but just thought I’d walk, so I kep’ straight on down the road all day until I got a long ways from Thompson. I didn’t dare to stop for work, for I’d got it into my head that everyone was after me, and if I waited any more I’d get caught. My shoes was gettin’ pretty near wore out and I knew they wouldn’t last much longer, and I hadn’t got more’n four dollars left, and I knew if I didn’t come to the Gulf pretty soon I’d just have to go to work.
“That night I stopped at another old shack, and had about the same kind of dream I did the night before, only I was runnin’, and every time I pretty near got away a cramp would come in my leg and pull me back and give ‘em a chance to ketch me, and they seemed to come just the same without runnin’ or flyin’, or anything, and always she’d come just where I was. Still I got through the night and a nigger lady gave me somethin’ to eat, and I went on.
“I began to look awful ragged and shabby. My coat was torn and awful old and black where I’d been workin’ in the charcoal pit. I’d changed my shirt, and washed the one I had on in a little stream, but the buttons was gettin’ off and I was tyin’ em up with strings. My pants was all wore out ‘long the bottom, and my shoes pretty near all knocked to pieces. As for my stockin’s—you couldn’t call ‘em stockin’s at all, and I’d made up my mind to get a new pair the next store I come to, but I didn’t like to stop in town.
“Along about noon I got to a little place and, of course, I was lookin’ pretty bad. Some o’ the dogs commenced barkin’ at me as soon as ever I got into town. I stopped at a house to get somethin’ to eat, and a white lady come to the door and told me to go ‘way, that I was a tramp, and that she’d set the dog on me, and I ran as fast as I could. I went down the street and a good many boys follered me, and I began to get scart; so I went through the town as fast as I could, but I see some people was follerin’ after me, and one that rode on a horse. So I took to the fields and made for a clump of trees that I saw off to the right. I run just as fast as ever I could and when I looked back I saw some people was follerin’ me through the field. I went straight to the woods and ran through ‘em, and got pretty badly scratched up, and my clothes tore worse’n they was before. Then I run into a swamp just beyond and two or threemen ran ‘round on the other side of the swamp and I knew it was all up, and I might just as well surrender and go back.
“I was so scart I didn’t care much what they done, so when the one in front asked me to surrender or he’d shoot, I come out to where he was, and he put his hand on me kind of rough and said I was under arrest for bein’ a tramp, and to come with him.
“Then he took me back to town with all the men follerin’ and when we got up into the edge of the place ‘most all the boys, black and white, turned in and follered too. They took me to a little buildin’ over on the side of the town, and went down stairs into the cellar and opened an iron door and put me in. There wa’n’t no light except one window which was covered with iron bars, and they locked the door and went away and left me there alone.â€