THE TAUT STRING SNAPS
Frank Vaniman's mother was allowed to visit him once a month at the
prison. She was not present at his trial. She had respected his earnest
wishes in that matter.
When she came to him she smiled--she did not weep. When she smiled he
wanted to weep. He realized how much that display of calm courage was
costing Martha Vaniman. He remembered how bravely and steadfastly she
had brought that same heroine's quality to the support of his father
when she had taken Frank with her to the prison; they used to walk in
through the gloomy portal hand in hand, and, though her face was serene,
her throbbing fingers told him what her heart was saying to her.
Her husband had thankfully accepted that little fiction of her
fortitude; her son, under like circumstances, did the same. Between
mother and son, as between husband and wife, was the bond of an implicit
faith in the innocence of the accused. Love was not shamed, no matter
how the outside world might view the matter.
The prison warden was a fat man, full of sympathy. He gave the
mother and son the privileges of his office, and to those reassuring
surroundings the mother brought Frank's sister on one of the regular
visits.
After Mr. Wagg's guile gave Vaniman his outdoor job, the mother brought
Anna each month, for the school vacation season was on. The sun was
bright out there in the yard. One could look up into the fleecy clouds,
over the walls, and forget the bars and the armed guards.
In fact, one day, Anna's ingenuous forgetfulness of the true situation
provoked real merriment for the little party--Guard Wagg included.
Anna surveyed apprehensively several particularly villainous-looking
barrowmen who passed and expressed the devout hope that Frank always saw
to it carefully that he locked his bedroom door nights.
Before all the zest of that joke had evaporated, Mrs. Vaniman departed;
it was a part of her helpful tact in alleviating the grievous situation
in which Frank was placed. She always came with the best little piece of
news she could provide for the meeting; for the parting she reserved a
bit of a joke.
Mr. Wagg chuckled for a long time after the visitors went away.
Gradually his face became serious. “Of course, I have to sit here and
listen to what's said, because that's my duty. But, as I have told
you before, all family matters simply pass into one ear and out of the
other.”
“I'm mighty grateful for the way you have treated us,” said Vaniman.
“The fact that we haven't done business as yet hasn't changed me--never
will change me. That mother of yours is so fine a woman that she
deserves every favor that I can grant her, for her own sake. And, she
being so fine a woman, I was sorry to hear what you wormed out of her
this day--that she has gone back to work in the store again.”
“It was the one big happiness in my life in Egypt, Mr. Wagg, to feel
that at last my mother was having the little rest and comfort that she
deserved. I used to look ahead to the time when I could give her what I
was able to give her while I was at work. I had a dreadful struggle with
her, getting her to leave her work. The only way I ever did get around
her was to complain that she was spoiling my prettiest dream by staying
in the store. And now it's all to do over again. I haven't even the
realization of the dream to help me here.”
“It's tough--realizing what you could do if you had the chance, and not
being able to do it,” averred Mr. Wagg. He lighted his pipe and slid off
his stool. “A woman earning her living these days has to do a terrible
lot of hard work in seven years.”
And having, after his usual custom, lighted a fire under the kettle, Mr.
Wagg went to a distance and allowed the contents to boil.
The contents did boil that day, when Vaniman had an opportunity to do
some concentrated thinking.
That morning he had received his weekly letter from Vona. She confessed
to him that for some weeks she had refrained from telling him that
Tasper Britt was a member of the household. She explained under what
circumstances Britt was there and what her attitude was and would
continue to be. She had not written anything about the matter, she said,
on account of her anxiety to keep petty troubles and worries away from
one who was suffering from such cruel injustice. But now that her father
had gone away for an indefinite stay, leaving Britt as general guardian,
she wrote to Vaniman to anticipate any rumors which might reach the
young man from another quarter.
She did not state that this intrusion by Britt into her home was
perpetual persecution where she was concerned; Vaniman felt that she
did not need to say so. His imagination pictured the situation. He had
become morbid. He admitted it, but he could not help himself. He had
done his best to keep his judgments sane and his hopes untarnished. But
he was judging Britt by what Britt had already done, and he was in a
mood to believe that Britt would be able to go ahead and accomplish a
lot more in the way of hideous deviltry. The thought of Britt in that
house--a girl there with no other protection than the presence of a
silly mother--made for agony of apprehension that was excruciating.
One of his most precious dreams had just melted into drab reality--his
mother was compelled to go back to her toil.
His other dream--the one that was consoling him through the dreary wait
of seven years behind bars--was threatened by the malevolence of a man
who was showing himself to be a veritable fiend in his machinations.
Vaniman put some questions to himself. Who on God's green earth had a
more imperious call to be out--to be free to fight for himself and the
innocent? Would not a lie be holy if it should open prison doors and
allow a guiltless man to go forth and battle with the guilty? Did not
the end justify all the means? The state had declared that his liberty
must be forfeited. Had the state the right to take away his reason?
Vaniman told himself that he was on the straight road to lunacy.
He leaped up, in the frenzy of his determination forgetting that there
were preliminaries yet to be attended to.
“Sit down there, Convict Two-Seven-Nine, or I'll bore ye!” bawled Guard
Wagg, with a mighty volume of tone. A deputy warden was crossing the
yard. He flourished a commendatory salute to the vigilant warder.
“Good stuff, Bart! Always on your job, eh?”
“Always!” agreed Mr. Wagg.
The warden went on his way and the guard marched to the convict with
a manner which expressed a determination to give No. 279 an earful. He
stood over Vaniman, who had dropped back to the chair, and the two of
them swapped stares.
“I want to get out--I want to get out!” whimpered Vaniman.
Mr. Wagg nodded.
“What must I do?”
“Whack up with me--fifty-fifty. Haven't I told you times enough?”
“But, I mean, what must I do to help?”
“I don't need any of your help. I only want you to say that you'll lead
me to that money.”
Vaniman drew a deep breath. “I will lead you to that money.”
“Some men would make you swear that you know just where the coin is,”
proceeded Wagg. “But I'm playing my own hunch in this thing on that
point. Furthermore, I have talked with a chap named Bixby.” He looked
hard at the ex-cashier. “Bixby tied your little game into knots, didn't
he?”
Vaniman admitted that fact by a rueful sag of his chin.
“Confidence--mutual confidence in each other!” Mr. Wagg walked away.
When he came back past Vaniman, patrolling, he snapped: “No more talk!
No more need of talk. Never can tell when talk may trip us. From now on,
sit tight!”
After that, though days passed, Wagg had not one word for the
amelioration of the convict's impatience. Then, one day, Wagg changed
his job again. Vaniman was kept at the same work, if work it could be
called. He caught glimpses of Wagg. The guard was busy on the opposite
side of the big pit. He had two or three convict helpers. They began to
operate drills in the side of a rocky hillock which towered considerably
above the level of the yard.
News circulates inside prison walls despite the inhibition on
communications between the inmates. Vaniman got information piecemeal
from convicts who stopped near him on the pretense of spitting on their
hands to get a new grip on their barrow handles. He learned that the
plan was to mine the hillock and rig a blast that would tip it into the
pit for filling. The barrow work was proving too slow an operation and
the prison commissioners wanted the outside men put back into the shops
where they could earn money for the state.
It was evident that Guard Wagg was having a great deal of trouble with
his helpers. He was continually bawling them out with a violence whose
volume reached the ears of Vaniman.
One day Wagg perceived the warden inspecting the work from the edge of
the pit near Vaniman; the guard came trotting around.
“Warden, I'm an expert on quarry work, as you know,” he panted. “I'm
doing my best to show you that I haven't forgotten what I learned over
at Stoneport, and to back up what I promised you and the commissioners
after I gave you the tip as to what could be done with that hill. Much
obliged to you for allowing me all the dynamite I need. But, demmit!
I haven't got anybody with brains to help me handle it. It's notional
stuff, sir. It hates a blasted fool.” He pointed a finger at the men
across the pit. Their striped suits suggested the nomenclature he used
“Those potato bugs will do something to blow us to blazes sure'n there's
air in a doughnut hole!”
The warden showed his concern. “Don't you know of some man who is used
to dynamite?”
“That ain't it, sir. A fool gets used to it, till he's too cussed
familiar. I want a man with brains enough to be polite to it.”
The warden, making a general survey of the scene, beheld Vaniman. “A man
who knows enough to be a bank cashier ought to have brains, Wagg. How
about Number Two-Seven-Nine?”
Mr. Wagg contemplated Vaniman and took plenty of time for thought. “I'll
try him,” he said, without enthusiasm. “I hadn't thought of him--but
I'll try him.”
Directed to do so by the warden, Vaniman went to his new work with Wagg.
The latter exhibited no especial symptoms of satisfaction at securing
such a helper. He told the young man that his particular care would be
the dynamite--to handle the boxes, store them in the little shed, unpack
the sticks, and follow the drills, planting the rendrock ready for the
blast that was to topple the hillock into the pit. Mr. Wagg explained to
the warden, after a time, that the dynamite could be planted more safely
and to better advantage when the drillers were off the job. Therefore,
Vaniman was detailed to help during the noon hour while the prisoners
were at dinner.
But, even when they were alone together, day after day, Mr. Wagg
maintained his reticence. Once in a while he did wink at Vaniman. The
winks grew more frequent when Mr. Wagg began to connect up the dynamite
pockets in the hill with wires. One afternoon, near knocking-off time,
he stepped into the shed where Vaniman was covering up his boxes for the
night. “When you leave your cell in the morning,” said the man who
had promised freedom, “hide in your pockets all the letters and little
chickle-fixings you intend to carry away with you. You won't be going
back into that cell again, Number Two-Seven-Nine.”