and the table, and said, ‘Damn you, if you move another step I’ll knock
your damned brains out!’ Them’s the very words I said. I didn’t really
think what I’d do, but of course I was mad and didn’t mean to give up to
her, and wanted to show her who was boss, and that’s all I thought
about. Then she come right up to me and sort of throwed her arms back
behind her, and throwed her head back, and her hair hung down all kind
of loose, and her eyes glared like electric lights, and she looked right
at me and just yelled so I thought the people could hear her all over
the ward. And she said, ‘Kill me! you miserable drunken contemptible
wife-beater; kill me, I just dare you to kill me! Kill me if you want to
and then go in there and kill the boy, too; you’d better make a good job
of it while you’re at it! Kill me, you coward, why don’t you kill me?’
“Just then I happened to look down by the stove and seen the coal pail,
and there was the poker in the pail. The poker was long and heavy. Of
course I hadn’t ever thought anything about the poker, but I looked down
there and seen it, and she kept yellin’ right at me, ‘Kill me! Kill me!’
I said: ‘Shut up your mouth, damn you, or I will kill you!’ But she just
yelled back, ‘Why don’t you do it! Kill me! Kill me! You miserable dirty
coward! Kill me!’ Then I looked down at the poker and I just reached and
grabbed it, and swung back as hard as ever I could.
“Her face was kind of turned up toward me. I can see it now just as
plain—I s’pose I’ll see it when I’m standin’ up there with the black cap
over my eyes. She just leaned back and looked up as I swung my arm and
she said: ‘Kill me! Kill me!’ And I brought it down just as hard as ever
I could right over her forehead,—and she fell down on the floor.”
V
“You might go and talk to the guard a little bit, I’ll be all right in a
few minutes. You know this is the first time I’ve ever told it, and I
guss I’m a bit worked up.”
Hank got up, without looking at Jim’s face. His own was white as a
corpse. He moved over to the little iron door and spoke to the guard.
“Could you give me a drink of water—or could you make it whiskey? I’m
sure that would be better for Jim.”
The guard passed him a flask, and told him to just keep it. Hank took a
drink himself and handed it to Jim.
“Well, I guess ‘twould do me good. I believe if I was out of here I
wouldn’t never take any more, but I don’t see any use stoppin’ now;
anyhow I’ll need a lot of it in the mornin’. Just ask the guard if any
word has come for me. I s’pose he’d told me, though, if it had.” Jim
held the bottle to his mouth long enough to drink nearly half of what
was left.
Hank looked out at the silent corridors. Over in the court he could
still hear the hammer and the voices of the workmen; from the upper
tiers, the wild shriek of an insane man called on someone to save him
from an imaginary foe. A solitary carriage rolled along the pavement and
the voices of two or three men singing came up from the street below. A
faint breath from the lake just stirred the heavy prison smell that
seemed dense enough to be felt. The guard asked him how he was managing
to pass the night. Hank answered that it was going much faster than he
had thought.
“Poor fellow,” said the guard, “I’ll be kind of lonesome when he’s gone.
He’s been a good prisoner.” This was the highest character that a guard
could give.
“Well, Hank, if you are ready now, I’ll go on with my story. That
whiskey kind of braced me up, and I s’pose you needed it too, after
listenin’ so long. I must hurry, for I ain’t near through with what I
wanted to say. I’ve thought lots about how I hit her, and I s’pose I
ought to think it was awful, and it looks so to me now, and still it
didn’t seem so then. I can’t help thinkin’ of what that feller said to
us in his speech. He claimed that punishin’ people didn’t do no good;
that other people was just as likely to kill someone if you hung
anybody, as they would be if you let ‘em go, and he went on to say that
they used to hang people for stealin’ sheep and still just as many sheep
got stole and probably more’n there was after they done away with it. I
don’t s’pose I ever should have thought anything about it if I hadn’t
killed her, but, of course, that made me think a lot. I’m sure that I
wouldn’t do such a thing again; I wouldn’t be near so likely to do it as
I was before, because now I know how them things commence, and I’m
awful, awful sorry for her too. There wa’n’t no reason why she should
die, and why I should have killed her, and if there was anything I could
do to change it, of course I would.
“But I can’t really see how hangin’ me is goin’ to do any good. If it
was I might feel different, but it ain’t. Now, all my life I always read
about all the murders in the newspapers and I read about all the trials
and hangin’s, and I always kind of wished I could go and see one. But I
never thought I’d go this way. Why, I was readin’ about a murder and how
a feller was found guilty and sentenced to be hung just before I killed
her. And do you s’pose I thought anything about it? If there’d been
forty scaffolds right before my eyes I’d have brought down that poker
just the same. I don’t believe anyone thinks of gettin’ hung when they
do it; even if they did think of it they’d plan some way to get ‘round
it when they made up their mind to do the killin’. But they don’t think
much about it. I believe sometimes that the hangin’ makes more killin’.
Now look at them car-barn fellers; they just went out and killed people
regardless, same as some men go out to shoot game. I don’t believe
they’d ‘ve done it if it hadn’t been so dangerous. And then you know
when they hung the whole three of ‘em at once, and one feller cut his
own throat so as to cheat ‘em, and they took him right up and hung him,
too, though he was so weak they had to carry him onto the scaffold, and
the doctors done ever’thing they could do to keep him from dyin’ just
so’s they could hang him. Well, you know they hadn’t any more’n finished
them until another gang of young fellers commenced doin’ just the same
kind of thing, and they are in jail now for murder, and you know one of
‘em came in here one day and looked at the other ones before he done the
killin’. I half believe that all the fuss they made ‘bout them fellers
and hangin’ ‘em and printin’ it all in the newspapers did more to make
the other ones do it than anything else. But I s’pose there ain’t no use
hangin’ ‘em unless you put it all in the newspapers, for it won’t scare
anyone from doin’ it unless people know they are hung.
“But, of course what I think about it don’t make any difference, so I’d
better hurry on. Well, after she fell over I stood still for a few
minutes waitin’ for her to get up. Of course I thought she’d get right
up again, and mebbe come back at me. But she didn’t move. Then I thought
she was scarin’ me, and I just sat down for a few minutes to show her
that I wa’n’t goin’ to be fooled in no such way. Still she didn’t stir.
Then I commenced to be half scart and half mad. I didn’t think it was
right to try to make me believe I had done anything like that. So I
said, ‘When you’ve laid there long enough you’d better get up.’ Then I
said, ‘What’s the use of playin’ theater, you can’t fool me. I’m goin’
to bed and when you get ready you can come along.’ But I didn’t go to
bed; I just sat still a little longer, and then I stepped over by her
head and looked down at it, and I thought it didn’t look right, and then
I was scart in earnest. Just then I heard the kid cry, and I didn’t want
him to come out, so I locked the outside door and took a good look to
see that all the curtains was clear down, and went in to see the kid. I
lit a candle in the bedroom and talked with him a little; told him
ever’thing was all right and to go to sleep, and I’d come in again in a
minute or two. Then I went back to the settin’ room to see her.
“Before I looked at her face I looked down to her feet to see if maybe
they hadn’t moved, for I didn’t want to look at her face if I could help
it. And I thought mebbe this would be the best way. But the feet was
just where they was before; then I looked at her hands and they hadn’t
moved, so I knew I just had to look at her face. I hadn’t examined her
very close before, I was so scart, and I never could look at blood or
dead folks, but of course this was different; so I got down on the floor
close up to her face, and I seen the great welt along her forehead and
top of her head and across the temple, and ‘twas all covered with blood
and a lot of it had got on the floor. Her eyes was wide open. I knew
they didn’t see anything. They looked just as if they’d been turned to
glass, before she’d had time to shut ‘em. I felt of her wrist to see if
her pulse was goin’. At first I thought it wa’n’t, and then I thought I
felt it go a little, and I never felt so good in all my life. I pushed
my finger down harder, but I couldn’t get it again. Then I felt of her
heart and it was just the same way. I leaned over to her ear, and asked
her to please wake up, that I was awful sorry, and I didn’t know what I
was doin’, and if she’d just speak I’d be good to her all my life and do
ever’thing I could for her, and then I asked her to do it on account of
the boy, but still she didn’t move. Of course I was almost scart to
death by this time; first I thought I’d call the neighbors and send for
a doctor and then I thought that was no use. If she wa’n’t dead I didn’t
need him, and if she was I must try to do somethin’ so no one would find
it out. Then I began to think what could be done to bring her to. I
never had much experience with people that got hurt, except the ones I’d
seen at the railroad, and I wa’n’t just sure what to do with anyone in
this fix. But I’d read somethin’ about it somewhere, and so I went into
the back room and drew some water into a pail and took an old cloth and
got down on the floor and commenced washin’ her head. But I couldn’t see
the first sign of life. Then I looked around for some whiskey and found
a little in a bottle in the closet and poured some in her mouth, but it
all run right out, and she didn’t move.
“Of course I never went to school very much but no matter how good an
education I had I don’t s’pose I could tell you how I felt so you’d know
it yourself. I never s’posed I’d do anything to get into any trouble,
and I always thought I was different from criminals. But here I was in
the house with her dead, and I’d killed her, and what would happen to
me? I just pictured the headlines in the newspapers and the boys callin’
‘all about the Jackson murder,’ and me tried for murder and hung, and
the kid goin’ ‘round the rest of his life knowin’ that his father had
killed his mother and then got hung.
“At first I just set paralyzed and sort of held my head in my hands and
moaned, and wondered if mebbe it wa’n’t a dream and if I couldn’t wake
up, and then I thought I’d go and give myself up to the police and be
done with it, and then I thought I might just as well kill myself, so I
went and got an old razor, that I used to shave with sometimes, and
tried to get up my nerve to cut my throat. But somehow I couldn’t put
the edge over my wind-pipe. I wish though now that I had. Did you ever
try to kill yourself? Them people that say it’s only cowards that kill
themselves don’t know what they’re talkin’ about. I’d like to see them
try it once. I’d have killed myself only I didn’t have the nerve. It
wa’n’t because I cared anything about livin’; but I just couldn’t cut my
own throat. Then I thought mebbe she wa’n’t dead, and I’d look again. So
I done just the way I had before,—commenced at her feet to see if they’d
moved, then when I got up to her hands I thought one of ‘em had moved,
and my heart just gave a great big jump. Then I remembered that I’d
picked it up, when I’d felt for her pulse and had put it down in a
different place. Then I looked up to her face and it was just the same.
It was white as a sheet, all except the long red and black welt and the
blood, and her eyes wide open, and lookin’ right straight up to the
ceilin’ starin’ just like a ghost. Then I felt of her hands and feet,
and they was cold as ice and she was stiff, and I knew it was all off
and she was dead.
“If you don’t mind I’ll just take a little more of that whiskey before I
go on; the whole thing’s been a little wearin’ on me and I think it’ll
brace me up a bit. You’d better have some, too. That guard is a good
feller, considerin’ the place he’s in. I believe if you hadn’t come I’d
told my story to him. I didn’t feel as if I could go without tellin’
someone how it really was. You see no one ever made the least bit of
allowance for me in the trial, and I got tired of talkin’ to my lawyer
all the time. He always said that what I told him didn’t amount to
anything, and he was so well educated that he couldn’t understand me
anyhow.
“When I was sure that she was dead, I just throwed myself over on the
floor, and laid my face flat down on my arm and give up. I’m sure I
cried and I thought they could hear me next door, but I guess they
didn’t. Anyhow I cried without payin’ any attention to ‘em. I must have
laid this way for ten or fifteen minutes without once lookin’ up, and
she was right close to me, and I could just reach out my hand and touch
her. And I hadn’t begun to think what I’d do. Then after I’d laid a
while, I just thought mebbe I’d ought to pray. It had been a long while
since I’d prayed. Of course, I hadn’t paid much attention to such things
when I was all right; I guess there ain’t many people that does, except
women and children, but I always really believed in it, just the same as
I do now. I kind of thought that God knew that I wasn’t wicked enough to
kill her, and have all this trouble, and bring all that misery on the
kid; so I thought I’d try him. I didn’t know much about prayers except
only the ones I’d learnt long ago, and they didn’t any of ‘em seem to
fit this case. But I didn’t need to know any prayers; I just got down on
my knees and prayed myself. I begged God to have her come back; I told
him how good she was, and how the boy needed her and what a hard time
I’d always had, same as I told you, only not near so long, and I
apologized the best I could for not goin’ to church more reg’lar and not
ever prayin’ to him, and I asked him to forgive me for the time I kicked
her, and the other things I’d done, and I promised if he only would let
her come back I’d always be good and take care of her and the boy, and
never do anything wrong and always go to church and confessional, and
love God and Jesus and the Virgin and all the saints, and quit politics
and drinkin’, and do right. I prayed and prayed, and I meant it all,
too. And I don’t believe it was all for myself, ‘though I s’pose most of
it was, but I really felt awful sorry for her, as I have ever since, and
I felt awful sorry for the boy, who never had anything at all to do
about it all.
“Then after I quit prayin’ I got up slow, thinkin’ that it might have
done some good, and that mebbe she’d be all right, so I started in, just
as I had before, with her feet to see if they’d moved. I s’pose the
reason I done this way was that if I saw her head first and knew she was
dead ‘twould be all off the first thing; and when I commenced with her
feet I always had some hope till I got clear up to her head. Well, her
feet hadn’t moved a bit. Then I went to her hands, and they was just in
the same place, and I began to feel it wa’n’t any use to look at her
head; but I did. And there it was just as white as that plaster-Paris
lady, and her eyes lookin’ straight up.
“Then I felt sure ‘twas all off. I’d done everything I could think of,
and I’d prayed just as hard as I knew how, and I was sure no one ever
meant it more’n I did or wanted it any more, and I knew, of course, God
had seen the whole thing and could do it if he wanted to and that he
didn’t want to, and that she was clear dead. I kind of half set and half
laid down on the floor a little while longer, tryin’ to think about it
and what I was goin’ to do. But I couldn’t make any plans; I kep’
thinkin’ about how it had all happened, and it begun to seem as if it
wa’n’t really me that hit her with the poker, but as if both of us was
somebody else and I was sort of dreamin’ about it all. Ain’t you ever
had them kind of feelin’s when somethin’ awful has happened? But, of
course, nothin’ like that ever happened to you. I thought most about
that beefsteak, and how I stopped and bought it, and didn’t go in and
get a drink, and all the time it seemed to me just as if that was where
I made my big mistake. And then I thought how awful near I come to goin’
into the saloon instead of the butcher-shop, and then some of the time
I’d kind of feel as if mebbe I was goin’ into the saloon after all, and
it wa’n’t goin’ to happen. Don’t you know how it is when anybody’s died
or anything happened? You think about everything that’s done, so as to
see if mebbe you can’t make it come out some other way after all? Well,
that’s the way I done about every little thing, and every word we both
spoke till I hit her with the poker. Another thing where I almost missed
killin’ her was that poker; that coal pail didn’t belong in the settin’
room at all, but ought to have been in the kitchen, and I don’t know how
it ever got in there. Mebbe the boy lugged it in for a drum. You know he
didn’t have many playthings, or mebbe she started a little fire in the
settin’ room, for ‘twas the first cold day. I don’t see how it could
have been that either, for she was washin’ that day and wouldn’t have
any time to set in there. But I don’t know as it makes any difference;
the coal pail was in the settin’ room and the poker was in the pail, and
they was right before my eyes at the time. If they hadn’t been I never
would’ve used the poker. When she stood up and told me to kill her, I’d
most likely struck her with my fists and that would only knocked her
down. But anyhow it didn’t do any good to go over it, for I couldn’t go
into the saloon instead of the butcher-shop, and I couldn’t get that
coal pail out of the settin’ room, and it had all been done—and she was
dead! And I’d killed her! After I’d went over this a long time I made
myself stop so I could do somethin’ that would be some use, for I knew
there was lots to be done before mornin’, and I hadn’t a minute to lose.
I knew I must get up off’n the floor and try to act like a man, and not
give up, no matter how bad it was. But before I got up I thought I’d
just take one more look to make sure that there wa’n’t no use. So I went
over her again, just as I’d done before, and it came out the same way
anyhow. I didn’t much think it was any use then and would’ve just about
as soon begun at the head and got through with it right away.
“After I had looked her over again I got up and set down in a chair to
make up my mind what to do. I hadn’t been there very long when I knew I
couldn’t figure it out; ‘twas too much for me the way I was, and so I
thought I’d just quit tryin’ and do a few things first. And then I
wondered what time ‘twas. I hadn’t thought anything about the time
before, but I s’posed it must be almost mornin’ for just then I heard an
express wagon drive along the street, and anyhow it seemed an awful long
while since I got home. The clock was right up on the mantel-piece and
tickin’ loud, but I hadn’t thought of lookin’ at it before and didn’t
even know it was in the room. I looked up and seen it was goin’ and that
‘twas only a quarter to twelve. I was surprised that it wa’n’t no later,
and wondered how it could be, and just then it struck and I kind of kep’
count because I was sort of thinkin’ of the clock and it stopped
strikin’ at nine. Then I thought somethin’ must be wrong with the clock
too, and I looked back again and seen that I’d made a mistake in the
hands and ‘twas only nine o’clock. I couldn’t believe this was so, but
the clock was goin’ all right. Then I kind braced up a little and
thought what was to be done. First, I looked ‘round the room. I told
you, didn’t I, that we et in the settin’ room? It was a settin’ room and
a dinin’ room both. Sometimes we et in the kitchen, but that was pretty
small. The table stood there with the dirty dishes just as we’d got
through eatin’. There was the plates and knives and forks, and the
teacups and the big platter with some of that steak left, and the gravy
gettin’ kind of hard like lard all ‘round it. The coal pail was there
and standin’ ‘round the table where we’d set to eat, except the rockin’
chair which was over by the stove. I looked at all them things, and then
I looked down at the floor, and there she lay with her head over toward
the closet door and her feet up almost under the table. It was an awful
sight to look at her on the floor, but there wa’n’t nothin’ else to do,
so I looked her all over as careful as I had before, then I got kind of
scart; I hadn’t never been in a room alone with anyone that was dead,
except at the morgue; but, of course, this was worse than anything of
that kind. I’d always heard more or less about ghosts and haunted houses
and things like that, and didn’t believe anything of the kind, but they
seemed to come back now when I looked over where she was layin’. I was
afraid of ever’thing, not of people but of ghosts and things I couldn’t
tell nothin’ about. I knew she was dead and must have gone somewhere,
and most likely she was right ‘round here either in the bedroom lookin’
at the boy or out here seein’ how I felt and what I was goin’ to do with
her. Just then I heard somethin’ move over by the closet and it scart me
almost to death. I knew it must be her and couldn’t bear to see her
unless she could come to life on the floor. Finally I looked around to
where I heard the noise and then I seen it was the curtain; the window
was down a little at the top. I went and put up the window, and then
hated to turn ‘round and look back where she lay. Then I went to the
bedroom door and opened it about half way just so the light wouldn’t
fall on the bed and wake him up, but so I could hear him breathe and it
wouldn’t be quite so lonesome. Ever’thing was awful still and like a
ghost except the clock, after I got to thinkin’ of it. Then it ticked so
loud I was almost ‘fraid they’d hear it in the next house. When I got
the bedroom door open I thought I must do somethin’ about her and the
room before I made up my mind what plan to take about myself.
“First I went and hunted up the cat. I’d always heard about that, so I
went into the kitchen and there she was sleepin’ under the stove. I
couldn’t help wishin’ I was the cat, although I had never thought of any
such thing before. Then I took her in my hand and went to the outside
door and threw her out in the yard and shut the door tight. Then I came
back in the settin’ room and thought about what had to be done. I looked
over again at her and then I saw her eyes still lookin’ right up at the
ceilin’, and round and shinin’ like glass marbles. I thought that wa’n’t
the way they ought to be and that all the dead folks I’d ever seen had
their eyes shut. So I went over and got down by her head and kind of
pushed the lids over her eyes, same as I’d always heard they did, and
put some nickels on ‘em to keep ‘em down. I don’t know how I done it,
but I felt as if it had to be done, and, of course, they wa’n’t no one
else to do it, and nobody knows what they can do until they have to. And
then I saw that there was a good deal of blood on her face, and I wanted
her to look decent though I didn’t know then what would be done with
her, and I went into the kitchen to the sink and got a pan of water and
some soap and an old towel, and washed all the blood off that I could
find, and wiped her face careful to make her look as well as I could.
Once or twice while I was doin’ it I kind of felt down to her heart, but
I knew it wa’n’t no use. Still I thought it couldn’t do any hurt, and
that God might’ve thought I wa’n’t scart enough so he waited; but I
didn’t feel nothin’ there. Then I kind of smoothed back her hair like
I’d seen her do sometimes. ‘Twas all scattered round on the floor and
pretty full of blood. I couldn’t very well get the blood out, but I
fixed the hair all back together the best I could. Then I noticed that
her jaw kind of hung down and I pushed it up and tied a towel around it
to keep it there, and then she looked pretty well, except that great
long gash over her face and head where the poker went.
“Then I thought I’d have to fix up the room and the floor a little bit.
I sort of pushed back the chairs and the table so I could get a little
more room, and then moved her a little way and straightened her out
some. First before I moved her I got that paper I’d been readin’ and
laid it on the floor and then I took up her shoulders and lifted ‘em
over to one side and laid her head on the paper. Then I moved the rest
of her over to match her head and shoulders. There was a lot of blood on
the floor where she’d been, and I knew I had to do somethin’ about that.