BIG BLUE BOOK NO. =B–24=
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
An Eye for an Eye
Clarence Darrow
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1905, by
Clarence Darrow
Printed in the United States of America
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
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 to keep 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 stuck by 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 and have 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 always such 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 remember about 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.”
II
You know I was born in Chicago and never was out of it but once until
the night it happened. I don’t know anything about my father and mother
except what my aunt told me. You know she raised me, and I can’t make
any complaint about the way she done it. I was real small when I went to
live with her. She stayed all alone down on the canal. I guess you knew
me when I was livin’ with her. She worked hard, but, of course, ladies
of that kind don’t get much. She used to go over to the south side to do
washin’ and to clean houses, and things like that, and sometimes when I
was small she took me along. They were awful nice houses where we went.
That’s how I got to know so much about the way rich people live. When I
got bigger, she used to send me to school. I was pretty steady in school
and got clear up to the sixth grade. I know it must have been awful hard
for her to send me the way she earnt her money, but she seemed to think
as much of me as if I’d been her own boy. She could have got along
better, but every time she got five or ten dollars laid up it seemed as
if there was a funeral of some of the neighbors and she had to club in
and hire a carriage, and that took her money almost as fast as she could
earn it.
“You remember how we used to play around the canal in them days. It
smelled pretty bad but we didn’t seem to mind it much. We used to sail
boats and go in swimmin’ and catch frogs and do ‘most everything. There
was quite a gang of us boys that lived there. It don’t seem as if any of
‘em ever amounted to very much. Most of ‘em are in the stock yards or
switchin’ or doin’ somethin’ like that. The only ones that I can think
of that growed up down there and amounted to anything is the alderman
and Bull Carmody, who went to the legislature. They call both of ‘em
Honor’ble, you know. I guess anybody is honor’ble who ever had an office
or tried to get one. Us boys used to get arrested quite a good deal. Of
course we was pretty tough, you know that. We was always in some
devilment. All of us rushed the can and chewed tobacco; then we fought a
good deal and used to play ‘round the cars. Some of the boys would break
into ‘em; but I never stole anything in my life unless you count coal
off’n the cars, and I don’t know how we could have got along in the
winter without that. Anyhow I guess nobody thinks anything of stealin’
coal off’n cars.
“But I don’t s’pose there’s any use goin’ over my whole history. I don’t
know as it has anything to do with it anyway, only it kind of seems to
me that I never had a very good chance and as if mebbe things would’ve
been different if I had.
“Well, you remember when my aunt died I had got to be about fourteen.
Then I found a job out to the stock yards. I never liked that work; I
used to see so much killin’. At first I felt sorry for the cattle and
the hogs, and especially for the sheep and calves—they all seemed so
helpless and innocent—but after I’d been there awhile I got used to
seein’ their throats cut and seein’ blood around everywhere, all over
the buildings and in the gutters, and I didn’t think any more about it.
You know I stayed there quite a while. Then I went to work for the
railroad company. First I was in the freight house unloadin’ cars. This
was pretty rough, heavy work, but I didn’t mind it much; you know I was
always kind of stout. Then I thought I’d like to work in the yards; it
would give me more air and not be quite so confinin’. So I got a job as
switchman, same as you. Well, you know all about that work. It ain’t the
nicest thing in the world to be a switchman. Of course if they’d make
the couplers all alike then there wouldn’t be so much danger; but you
know when one of them safety couplers comes against one of the old kind
that the boys call ‘man killers’ it’s pretty dangerous business. Then,
of course, when a car is run down a switch and you have to couple it
onto another car just as it bumps in, it’s kind of dangerous too. Of
course, the rules say you must use a stick to put the link into the
drawhead, but nobody ever uses a stick; you know all the boys would
laugh at a feller that used a stick. There ain’t nothin’ to do but to go
in between the cars and take hold of the link and put it in. If anything
happens to be wrong with the bumpers and they slip past, of course you
get squeezed to death; or, if you miss the link, or it gets caught or
anything, your head or arm is liable to be smashed off. Then you’ve got
to watch all the time, for if you stub your toe or forget for a second,
you’re gone. I kind of think that the switch-yards make a feller
reckless and desperate, and I don’t believe that a man that works in the
switch-yards or stock yards looks at things quite the same as other
people. Still you know them fellers ain’t bad. You’ve seen ‘em cry when
they went home to tell a lady how her man had been run over, or tell
some old woman about how her boy had got hurt, and you know we always
helped the boys out and we didn’t have much money either.
“You remember we was workin’ together in the yards when the strike come
on. I was in debt, just as I always have been. Somehow I never could
keep out of debt; could you? The rich people say it’s because we drink
so much, but I’d like to see them try to live on what we get. Why, you
know we hardly ever go to the theater, and if we do we go up in the
gallery. I never had a job of work done on my teeth in my life except
once when I paid a quarter to get one pulled. Do you s’pose any of us
would ever think we could get a gold fillin’ in our teeth? Now that suit
of clothes over on the bed is the first whole suit of new clothes I ever
had. The guard brought ‘em in a little while ago, and I’m to put ‘em on
in the mornin’. But I guess they won’t do me much good. I’d rather they
had taken the money and give it to the kid for a rockin’ horse or candy.
“But I was tellin’ about the strike. My, the way I go on! I guess it’s
because this is the first time I’ve had a chance to say anything to
anyone since it happened, and of course it’ll be my last. As soon as I
got back my lawyer told me not to talk to anyone, but I don’t see what
difference it would have made—them detectives seemed to know everything
and a good deal more, they knew more about me than I ever knew about
myself.
“You remember all of us went out on the strike. I guess most of the boys
was in debt, but they all struck just the same. The papers abused us and
said we hadn’t any right to strike; that we hadn’t any grievance, and it
was worse for us to strike on that account. Now it seemed to me that it
was better to strike for the Pullman people than for ourselves—it didn’t
seem so selfish; but the papers and the judges didn’t look at it that
way. Of course the strike was pretty hard on all of us. I got into the
lock-up before it was over, though I never meant to do nothin’. I guess
I did hit a scab over the head, but he was comin’ to take our job. It’s
queer how everybody looks at things a different way. Now I never thought
it was so awful bad to hit a scab who was takin’ another man’s job. Of
course I know some of ‘em are poor and have families, but so have the
strikers got families and we was strikin’ to help all the poor people.
If you read the newspapers and hear what the judges say you would think
hittin’ scabs was worse’n murder. I don’t s’pose it’s just right, but I
don’t hardly see what else is to be done. You remember that scab, don’t
you, that worked with us on the road, and you remember when he got his
leg cut off, and how all the boys helped him, and the railroad fought
his case and beat him, and yet they always seemed to think more of him
than any of the rest of us. Now it seems to me there’s lots of things
worse’n hittin’ scabs. If I was one of them packers I know I’d give a
lot of meat to poor people instead of fixin’ every way I could to make
‘em pay so much, but the rich people don’t seem to think there’s
anything wrong about that, but it’s awful to hit a scab or to strike.
“Well, you know after the strike was over none of us could get a job
anywhere, but finally I changed my name and managed to get in again. I
believe the yard master knew who I was and felt kind of sorry for me.
Anyhow I got the job. Then you know the time Jimmy Carroll got run over
by that limited train. I sort of lost my nerve. I wouldn’t have thought
about it if all the cars hadn’t run over him; but when we had to pick up
his head and his legs and his arms and his body all in different places,
I somehow got scared and couldn’t switch any more. So I quit the yards.
But I’ve been runnin’ along so over things that really don’t have
anything to do with the case that I’ve almost forgot the things I wanted
to tell you about. But just wait a minute; I hear someone comin’ down
the corridor and I want to see who it is. No, it’s only one of the
guards. I didn’t know but possibly my lawyer might have sent—but I guess
it’s no use.
“Let me see; I was goin’ to tell you about gettin’ married. You knew
her, Hank. You remember when we got a job again after the strike and you
know the little restaurant where we used to board? Well, you remember
she was waitin’ on the table. All the boys knew her and they all liked
her too; she was always real friendly and jolly with all of us, but she
was all right. Of course she couldn’t have got much wages there for it
was only a cheap place where the railroad boys et, but somehow she
always seemed to keep herself fixed up pretty well. I never thought much
about her, only to kind of jolly her like the rest of the boys, until
the time she got that red waist and done her hair up with them red
ribbons. I don’t know anything about how it was, but them seemed to
ketch my eye and I commenced goin’ with her, and used to get off as
early as I could from the yards, and when she got through washin’ the
supper things we used to go out and take street-car rides, and go for
walks in the parks, and stay out late almost every night.
“Finally I made up my mind that I wanted to settle down and have a home.
Of course I knew ‘twould be more confinin’, but then I thought ‘twould
be better. So one night when we was out walkin’ I kind of brought it
‘round some way and asked her to marry me. I was surprised when she said
she would, because she was so much nicer than me or any of the rest of
the boys; but she said she would right straight off, and then I asked
when it had better be and she said she didn’t see any use waitin’, so
long as it was goin’ to be done. Of course, I hadn’t thought of its
comin’ right away, and I wa’n’t really prepared because I was
considerable in debt and would like to’ve paid up first. I told her how
I was fixed and she said that didn’t make any difference, that she’d
always heard that two could live as cheap as one, and she was savin’ and
a good manager and it wouldn’t cost us much to start, for she’d noticed
the signs in the street cars about four rooms furnished for ninety-five
dollars with only five dollars down, and we wouldn’t need but three
rooms anyway. Then, after I’d asked her to marry me and had made up my
mind to do it there wa’n’t no excuse for waitin’, so the next Sunday we
went over to St. Joe and got married. She asked me if I didn’t think
that was just as good as any way.
“When we come back we rented three rooms down near the yards for ten
dollars a month, and went down to the store to buy the furniture, but
the clerk made us think that so long as we was just startin’ and I had a
good job we ought to get better things than the ninety-five dollars, so
we spent one hundred and fifty dollars and agreed to pay ten dollars a
month, and the furniture was to be theirs until it was paid for.
“Well, we started in to keep house and got along pretty well at first.
She was a good housekeeper and savin’ and I kind of liked bein’ married.
Of course, it cost us a little more’n I expected, and when I came to buy
clothes and shoes and pay grocery bills I found that two couldn’t live
as cheap as one, but I hadn’t any doubt but that she thought they could.
I guess all women does. Then I got hurt and was laid off for two months
and couldn’t pay the installments, and got behind on my rent, and got in
debt at the store, and this made it pretty hard. When I went to work I
paid all I had, but somehow I never could catch up.
“Well, about that time the kid was born, and then we had to have the
doctor and I had to get a hired girl for a week, for I wanted to do
everything I could for her, and that all kept me back. Then they
commenced threatenin’ to take the furniture away, and every week the
collector came ‘round and I did all I could, but somehow I couldn’t make
it come out even.
“I s’pose you don’t see what all this has got to do with my killin’ her,
and I don’t think I quite see myself, but still I want to tell it all.
Sometimes I think if I hadn’t been so poor and in debt I never would
have done it, and I don’t believe I would. I was so much in debt that I
felt sorry when I knew we was goin’ to have the child. I didn’t see how
we could bring it up and make anything out of it, and how it could ever
have any better chance than I had. And then she’d been doin’ a little
work to help out on the furniture, and I knew that she couldn’t do any
more after that. But still as soon as the child was born I was always
glad of it, and used to think more about him than anyone else, and I
would have done anything I could for him. She liked him, too, and was
always good to him, and no matter what I say about her I can’t say that
she didn’t treat the boy all right.
“Well, after the kid was about a year old we began to have trouble. She
was always complainin’ that I didn’t bring home enough money. She said I
went ‘round too much nights and that I drank too much beer and chewed
too much tobacco and smoked too much, and she complained ‘most all the
time, and then I got mad and we had a row. I don’t mean to blame her,
‘specially after what happened, and since I’ve been here so long doin’
nothin’ but countin’ the days and waitin’ for my lawyer to come, I’ve
had time to think of ever’thing a good deal more than I ever did before.
And I don’t say she was to blame. I s’pose it was hard for her, too. Of
course, the rooms was small and they was awful hot in the summer and
cold in the winter, and then the collectors was always comin’ ‘round,
and I used to be tired when I got home, and I was so blue that I said
things without really knowin’ that I said ‘em. Ain’t you done that when
somebody was talkin’ to you and your mind was on somethin’ else, kind of
answered ‘em back without knowin’ what they said or what you said? I
presume I was cross a good many times and mebbe it was as hard for her
as ‘twas for me. Of course, I used to wish I’d never got married and
that I was boardin’ back there to the restaurant when I didn’t have all
the debts; and I s’pose she’d been better off back there too, waitin’ on
the table; anyhow she always looked better in them days than she did
after we was married, so I guess she must have got more money at the
restaurant than I gave her. But after the boy was born I never really
wished we wa’n’t married, for I always thought of him and knew he never
would have been born if we hadn’t got married; but of course, that
didn’t keep us from fightin’. I don’t mean that we fought all the time.
Sometimes when I got home she was as nice as she could be, and had
supper all ready, and we’d read the newspaper and talk and have a real
good time; but then, again somethin’ would happen to put us out and we’d
fight. I can’t say that she always begun it. I guess I begun it a good
many times. I found fault because the bills was too big and the way
things was cooked, and the way she looked, and, of course, if I said
anything she got mad and answered back. I’ve thought a lot about our
fights and that awful one we had last, and I don’t believe one of ‘em
would have happened if it hadn’t been for the money. Of course, I s’pose
other people would make some other excuses for their fights and that no
one would be to blame if you would let ‘em tell it themselves, but I’m
‘most sure that if I’d only been gettin’ money enough to keep a hired
girl and live in a good place, and get good clothes and dress her and
the boy the way they ought to have been, and not get in debt, we
wouldn’t have fought.
“The debts kep’ gettin’ bigger all the time and I begun to get scared
for fear the furniture would be took away—we hadn’t paid more’n half up
and then there was a good deal of interest. I went one day to see a
lawyer, but he didn’t tell me anything that done me any good and I had
to pay him ten dollars out of my next month’s wages, so that made me all
the worse off. Lawyers get their money awful easy, don’t they? I always
wished I could be a lawyer and if I had my life to live over again I
would be one if I could.
“It seemed as if things kep’ gettin’ worse at home and I stayed out a
good many nights because I didn’t want a row for I knew there’d be one
as soon as I got home. So far most of our fightin’ had been only jawin’
back an’ forth. Once she threw a dish at me and I slapped her in the
face, but didn’t hurt her, and I guess she didn’t try hard to hit me
with the dish; anyhow if she had wanted to she was near enough so she
could.
“One night though, I come home pretty late. I’d been out with the boys
to a caucus and we had drunk quite a bit. The alderman was running again
and had got us a keg of beer. I didn’t really know what I was doin’ when
I came in. I was hopin’ she’d be in bed but she was waitin’ for me when
I come in and said: ‘There comes my drunkard again. This is a pretty
time of night to get home! You’d better go back to your drunken cronies
and stay the rest of the night,’—and a lot of more things like that. I
told her to shut up and go to bed, but that made her madder and then she
called me a lot of names. I told her to stop or I’d choke her, but she
kep’ right on talkin’, callin’ me a drunkard and all kinds of names, and
tellin’ me how I’d treated her and the boy; I couldn’t make her keep
still; the more I threatened her the more she talked. Finally she said,
‘You cowardly brute, I dare you to touch me!’ and she kind of come right
up to where I was. Of course I didn’t really half think what I was
doin’, but I drawed off and hit her in the face with my fist. I guess I
hit her pretty hard; anyhow she fell on the floor, and I ran up to her
to pick her up, but she said, ‘Leave me alone, you coward,’ and then I
was madder’n ever and I kicked her. The next day she went to the police
court and had me arrested. The judge was awful hard on me, told me if he
had his way ‘bout it he’d have a law made to have wife-beaters whipped
with a cat-o’-nine tails in the public square, and he fined me one
hundred dollars.
“Of course I hadn’t any money so I went to jail, but in a day or two she
went to the judge and cried and told him I was all right when I wasn’t
drunk and she got me out. I never thought that judge done right to
lecture me the way he did. I don’t think that strikin’ your wife is as
bad as strikin’ your child, and still ‘most everybody does that. Most
women can defend themselves but a little child can’t do anything. Still,
of course, I don’t defend strikin’ your wife, only one word kind of
brings on another and it sounds different in the newspaper from what it
really is.
“Well, after I got home from the jail we talked it over together and
made up our minds we’d better part. Things had gone so bad with us that
we thought it wa’n’t worth while to try any more and mebbe we’d both be
better off alone. She was real sensible about it and was goin’ to keep
the boy. I promised to give ‘em half my wages and was to see him
whenever I wanted to.
“When we got our minds made up we went to see about a lawyer. She’d been
goin’ over to the Settlement a good deal for advice and they’d been good
to us but they didn’t like me; they blamed me for ever’thing that
happened, and of course them settlement ladies wa’n’t none of ‘em
married and they couldn’t understand how a feller would drink or fight
with his wife. They didn’t know what allowance a woman has to make for a
man, same as a man does for a woman—only a different kind. When she told
‘em what we were goin’ to do they all said, ‘No, you mustn’t do that.
You must make the best of it and stay together’; they said that even if
I promised to give her half my money I never would do it, but would go
off and she’d never see me again. If they knew anything about what I
thought of the boy they wouldn’t have said it. Then they said it would
be a disgrace and that it would disgrace the child. I wish now we’d done
it anyway. It would have been better for the child than it is now. Then
she went to see the priest. We were both born Catholics, although we
hadn’t paid much attention to it. That was the reason we went to St. Joe
to get married. The priest told her that she mustn’t get a divorce, that
divorces wa’n’t allowed except on scriptural grounds. Of course we
couldn’t get it on them grounds. There never was nothin’ wrong with her—
I’ll always say that—and as for me I don’t think she ever suspected
anything of that kind. Even if I had wanted to I never had any money,
and besides I’ve had to work too hard all my life for anything like
that. Then when I went to the lawyer he said it would cost fifty
dollars, but I hadn’t any fifty dollars. So we made up our minds to try
it again. I don’t see, though, why they charge fifty dollars. If a
divorce is right a man ought not to have it just because he’s got fifty
dollars when a poor man can’t get it at all.
“It was a little better for a while. We both had a scare and then when
we talked of quittin’ I s’pose we thought more of each other. Anyhow
we’d lived together so long that we’d kind of got in the habit of it.
But still it didn’t last long; I don’t believe ‘twas right for us to
stay together after all that had happened and the way we felt and had
lived up to that time. If we’d only separated then—but we didn’t, and
it’s no use talkin’ about it now.
“It was just about this time that Jimmy Carroll was killed and she
didn’t want me to work in the yards after that. She was ‘most as ‘fraid
as I was so we made up our minds that I’d quit. It was then that I went
to peddlin’; but wait a minute before I tell that, let’s go and speak to
the guard.”
The two men got up and went to the iron door and looked out through the
bars at the shining electric lights in the corridors. The guard sat near
the door talking with the prisoner in the next cell. He looked up and
put two cigars through the grates.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Jackson?”
“No, I guess not. Nothin’ more has come from him, has there?”
“No, but it’s early yet.”
“Well, I guess it’s no use.”