presently. An indefinite dread held him bound to his place during the
examination of the witnesses who followed, during the days of argument,
and the judge’s inconclusive charge. He lay awake on the night following
the jury’s retirement, picturing over and over in his own mind the scene
of their return--just what degree of astonishment his face should show
in listening to their verdict, with just what proud reticence and
conscious wrong he should make his way out from the crowd. He had never
said that Whiting was guilty--he reminded himself of that. All he had
ever said was that on one certain day, in one certain place-- He rolled
over on his face and, hands across his eyes, tried vainly to sleep.
Half of Sutro was loafing about the court-house lawn next morning,
pushing its way into the corridors at every rumor, drifting back to the
freer outer air. When at last the rumor proved a true one, Robbins found
himself far in the back of the room, the wall behind him, on three sides
a packed, jostling crowd. There was a blur of unintentional noise in the
place--heavy breathing, the creaking of a door. Through the noise
pierced at intervals the accustomed voice of the judge, and set between
the intervals the mumble of the foreman’s reply.
'--Agreed, all of you?'
'Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?'
The mumble dropped lower still. A stir swept over the front of the room,
a wave of voiceless interest passing from front to back.
'What--what--' Robbins stammered, straining higher on tiptoe.
'Guilty. Manslaughter,' said the man beside him. He brought his hand
down heavily on the boy’s shoulder. 'Suits you all right. Everybody
knew--'
The gavel sounded and he broke off, bending forward to listen.
But Robbins did not listen. It was as though the foundations of his
world crumbled round him. That truth should fail, that innocent men
should suffer-- He fumbled at the sleeve of the man on the other side.
'I--didn’t hear. They said--'
'Sh-h!' the man warned him, and then, behind his sheltering hand,
'Guilty.'
The judge’s voice dropped, and the speaker began moving with others
toward the door. Robbins moved, too--as one dazed, uncertain what he
did. Some one stopped him in the outer passage. He was conscious of
congratulatory sentences. He heard his own voice speaking words which,
seemingly, were not without meaning. And all the while his mind waited,
awed, for the impending catastrophe.
Mercifully, the house was empty when he reached home. He tiptoed into
his own room, and there, the door closed behind him, stood for a moment,
listening. Then, with an exclamation, he dropped to his knees beside the
bed and buried his face against it.
For an hour he knelt there, bodily quiet, his mind beating, circling,
thrusting desperately against its surrounding cage of falsehood. At
first it was all fear--how the exposure would come, how best he might
sustain himself against it. Then, imperceptibly, a deeper terror crept
into his thinking. Suppose it should not come? Suppose-- But that was
unthinkable. For a lie to blast a man’s whole life, for a lie to brand
him. Stealthily, as if his very stirring might incense the devil-god of
such a world, he slid down, sitting beside the bed, his distended,
horror-fascinated eyes hard on the wall. In these minutes his young
faith in God and justice fought to the death with the injustice before
him--fought and won.
'He’ll be sentenced Friday,' he found himself thinking, drawing on some
half-heard scrap of conversation. 'That’s four days. There’s time
enough--'
He dragged himself up and lay down at full length. Something hot smarted
upon his face; he put up his hand to find his cheeks wet with tears.
They flowed quietly for a long time--soothingly. He fell asleep at last,
his lashes still heavy with them.
He was very early at the court-house Friday morning. Cartwright, coming
in at nine to his office, crossed the corridor to speak to
him--cheerily.
'Well, we got our man, Robbins. You made a good witness--I meant to tell
you so before; no confusing you. Look here, my boy, you’re not fretting
over this? If it hadn’t been you, it would have been some one else.
There’s no covering a crime like that.'
'Not--ever?' said Robbins thickly.
His secret was at his tongue’s end. A glance of interrogation would have
brought it spilling out. But there was no interrogation in his
companion’s eyes--only an abstracted kindness. He looked away from the
lad toward the stragglers along the corridor.
'You came up to hear the sentence? Come in through my office and we’ll
find you a seat. The place will be packed.'
'There’s nothing new?' Robbins asked unwillingly. 'No--new evidence?'
'Why, no! The case will be closed in another half-hour. And then I hope
it will be a long time before you have any thing to do with a criminal
charge again. Now if you want to come in--'
Robbins followed, silent. It did not trouble him to find himself placed
conspicuously in the front row. His whole attention was set upon holding
fast to the one strand of hope extended to him. In half an hour it
would be over. In half an hour the hideous thing would be folded into
the past. But it would _not!_ The case against Whiting would be ended,
the arraignment of God would be but just begun! To go on living in a
world so guardianed--
The judge entered and took his place; the lawyers on either side filed
in to their stations about the long table; the prisoner was brought in,
in the custody of a deputy sheriff. There was a little bustle of
curiosity to herald his coming. Then the packed room settled to
attention.
Robbins leaned forward in his seat. He heard vaguely the opening
interchanges of speech. He saw the prisoner rise. The man was
clay-colored; his teeth scraped back and forth continually on his dry
lower lip. There was no resource in him, no help. And suddenly the
watcher knew that help was nowhere. The voice of the judge reached him,
low-pitched and solemn, as befitted the occasion.
'--Having been found guilty--decree that you be confined--'
'_No!_' said Robbins suddenly almost in a scream.
All at once the thing was clear to him. It was not Whiting who was being
sentenced: it was God who was on trial, it was truth, good faith, the
right to hope.
The impulse of his cry had wrenched him from his chair. He stood flung
forward against the rail.
'You can’t! I never saw him! They were tormenting me and I said I did.
He wasn’t there--'
Behind him the court-room rang with excitement. He was aware of startled
exclamations. He was aware of Cartwright, tragic-eyed, beside him,
half-sheltering him, calling to him.
'Robbins! What’s wrong? He’s not speaking under oath. He’s been
brooding--'
'It’s _so!_' said the boy.
For a moment he held himself erect among them, high-headed, joyous,
splendid with the exaltation of the martyr. Then, suddenly, his eyes met
the eyes of the prisoner. He dropped back into his seat, his shaking
hands before his face.
It had lasted a second, less than a second, that frank, involuntary
revelation; but in that second, his guard beaten down by sheer
amazement, the prisoner’s guilt stood plain in his face. In that second,
reading the craven record of it, Robbins saw the glory of martyrdom
snatched from him forever--knew himself, now and now only, irrevocably
perjured.
WHAT MR. GREY SAID
BY MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE
HE was the smallest blind child at Lomax, the State school for deaf and
blind children. Even Jimmie Little, who looked like a small gray mouse,
and who had always been regarded by the teachers as not much bigger than
a minute, appeared large beside Stanislaus. He was so small, in fact,
that Mr. Lincoln, the Superintendent, had declined at first to admit
him.
'We don’t take children under six,' he had said to Stanislaus’s father
when the latter had brought him to Lomax, 'and your little boy doesn’t
look five yet.'
'He’ll be five the twenty-second of March,' the father said.
'I’ll be five ve twenty-second of March,' Stanislaus echoed.
He was sitting holding his cap politely between his knees, swinging his
fat legs with a gay serenity, while his blind eyes stared away into the
dark. He had not been paying much attention to the conversation, being
occupied with the working out of a little silent bit of rhythm by an
elaborate system of leg-swings: twice out with the right foot; twice
with the left; then twice together. He had found that swinging his legs
helped to pass the time when grown-ups were talking. The mention of his
birthday, however, brought him at once to the surface. That was because
Mr. Grey had told him of a wonderful thing which would happen the day he
was five. Thereafter his legs swung to the accompaniment of a happy
unheard chant:--
'I’ll be five years old' (right leg out),
'I’ll be five years old' (left leg out),
'I’ll be five years old on my _birf_-day!'
(Both legs in ecstatic conjunction.)
Stanislaus’s father, a sad-eyed man, who, though he spoke with no
accent, was evidently of emigrant extraction, looked troubled.
'My wife’s dead,' he said, 'an’ I’m workin' in the coalmines, an’ you
know that ain’t no place for a little blind child. Every one told me
sure you’d take him here.'
Mr. Lincoln hesitated. 'Well,' he said at length, 'I’ll send for Miss
Lyman,--she’s the matron for the blind boys,--and if she consents to
take him, I’ll make no objection.'
Miss Lyman appeared presently, and Mr. Lincoln explained the situation.
'But he is such a little chap,' he concluded, 'it seems hardly possible
for us to take him.'
Here, however, Stanislaus gave over his leg-swinging and took it upon
himself to remonstrate.
'I _ain’t_ little,' he said firmly. Slipping off his chair, he drew
himself up very straight, and began patting himself all over. 'Feel me,'
he urged, 'dest feel me, I’m weally big. Feel my arms,' he held these
chubby members out to Miss Lyman. 'An’ my _legs_,--' he patted
them,--'why ve’re _aw_-ful big!' His serious little mouth rounded itself
to amazement at the bigness of his legs.
It was beyond human nature, or at least beyond Miss Lyman’s nature, to
resist the appeal of his eager voice and patting baby hands. Obediently
she ran an inquiring touch over his soft body, which was still plump
babyhood, not having as yet thinned to boyhood.
'Why,' she said, turning gravely to Mr. Lincoln, 'he does _look_ rather
small, but when you _feel_ him, you find he is really quite big.'
'Does he feel big enough for us to take?' Mr. Lincoln demanded.
'Oh, I think so!' she answered quickly, one arm slipping about the
little boy’s shoulders.
'An’ I’ll be five ve twenty-second of March,' Stanislaus threw in to
overbalance the argument in his favor.
He snuggled himself confidingly against Miss Lyman, and fell to playing
with the many jingling attachments of her chatelaine.
'I heard vese tinkly fings when you was comin’ ’w-a-y a-w-a-y outside,
'fore you o-pened ve door,' he murmured softly.
'His mother’s dead,' the man explained.
'Little sister’s dead, too,' Stanislaus supplemented him. 'S’e token a
awful bad cold so s’e couldn’t b’eave. I take awful bad colds, but I
don’t die, do I?' he demanded.
'Yes,' said the man, 'my baby’s dead, too. I had a woman lookin' after
both kids, but she let the baby git the pneumonia.'
'I fink I like you better van vat other lady,' Stanislaus confided to
Miss Lyman.
'Of course we can take him,' Miss Lyman said hastily to Mr. Lincoln.
And thus it was that Stanislaus came to Lomax.
As has been said, he was the youngest child at school. This in itself
was sufficient to set him apart from the thirty or so other blind boys;
but there were other things that served to distinguish him as well. His
thoughts, for instance, were so different--so unexpected and whimsical;
so entirely off the beaten track.
Witness Mr. Grey, for instance. At his best Mr. Grey was a delightful
person; but as he was of a retiring disposition, he never flowered into
being, save in a sympathetic atmosphere. Miss Julia, for example, never
met Mr. Grey. She was one of the older teachers, whose boast it was
that she never stood for any foolishness. In her not doing so, however,
she was apt to walk with a heavy foot over other folks' most cherished
feelings. For which reason, sensitive people were inclined in her
presence to retreat within themselves, sailing, as it were, with their
lights blanketed. This was the reason, no doubt, why she and Mr. Grey
never met.
Indeed, Mr. Grey was of such an extremely shy nature that he had to be
observed with the greatest delicacy. Looked at too closely, he was apt
to go out like a blown candle. He lived apparently in an empty closet in
the blind boys' clothes room. It is probable that he had taken up his
abode there for the sake of being near Stanislaus, for as the latter was
too small to be in school all the morning, he spent the rest of his time
with Miss Lyman in the clothes room, where she sat and sewed on buttons,
mended rips, and put on patches, in a desperate endeavor to keep her
army of blind boys mended up. When the other children were about, as
they usually were on Saturdays, Mr. Grey kept discreetly to himself, and
his presence in the closet would not have been suspected. On the long
school mornings, however, when Miss Lyman sat quietly sewing, with
Stanislaus playing about, no one could be more unbending than Mr. Grey.
Stanislaus would go over to the closet and open it a crack, and then he
and Mr. Grey would fall into pleasant conversation. Miss Lyman, of
course, could hear only Stanislaus’s side of it, but he constantly
repeated his friend’s remarks for her benefit.
From hints which Stanislaus let fall, Miss Lyman gathered that there had
once been a real Mr. Grey in the past, from which beginning, the
interesting personality of the closet had developed.
Mr. Grey’s comments upon things and people, as repeated by Stanislaus,
showed a unique turn of mind. He seemed to have a poor opinion of
mankind in general, coupled with an excellent one of himself in
particular; for, retiring as he was before strangers, in the presence of
friends he blossomed into an incorrigible braggart. If any one failed to
do anything, Mr. Grey could always have done it, and never hesitated to
say so. There was, for instance, the time when Mr. Beverly, one of the
supervisors, was thrown from his horse and rather severely bruised. When
informed of the incident by Stanislaus, who always gave his friend the
news of the day, Mr. Grey was very scornful.
'Gwey says,' Stanislaus, over by the half-open closet door, turned to
announce to Miss Lyman, ''at _he_ never had no horse to frow _him_
yet--an’ he’s wid all kinds of horses. Horses wif four legs, an’ horses
wif five legs,--' Stanislaus had been learning to count lately,--'an’
horses wif _six_ legs.'
Again, when Miss Lyman sighed over a particularly disreputable pair of
Edward Stone’s trousers, remarking that she really did not think she
could patch those, she was met by the assertion, 'Gwey says _he_ could
patch 'em. He says he ain’t erfwaid to patch nobody’s pants. He could
patch Eddy Stone’s, a-a-n' he could patch Jimmie Nickle’s, a-a-a-n' Sam
Black’s, an’--an’'--this last all in a hurry, and as a supreme evidence
of proficiency in the art of patching--'he dest b’ieves he could patch
Mr. _Lincoln’s_ pants!'
But this was more than Miss Lyman could stand. 'No, he couldn’t either,
for Mrs. Lincoln wouldn’t let him,' she declared, stung to retort by
such unbridled claims on the part of Mr. Grey.
It is sad to relate also that Mr. Grey was a skeptic as well as a
braggart, and had had, apparently, a doubtful past. This was revealed
the morning after the Sunday on which Stanislaus had first encountered
the Flood, the Ark, and Noah. After giving Mr. Grey on Monday morning a
graphic account of the affair,--'An’ Noah him went into ve ark, an’
token all ve animals wif him, an’ ven all ve wicked people was
dwown-ed,'--Stanislaus appeared to listen a moment, after which he
turned to Miss Lyman.
'Gwey says,' he reported, ''at he doesn’t b’ieve all ve wicked people
was dwown-ed, 'cause he was a-livin' ven, an’ he was a very wicked man,
an’ he didn’t go into ve Ark, an’ _he_ wasn’t dwown-ed.'
Miss Lyman might have forgiven Mr. Grey’s skepticism, but he showed a
tendency to incite Stanislaus to a recklessness which could not be
overlooked.
None of the children were allowed to leave the school grounds without
permission, but time and again Stanislaus slipped out of the gate, and
was caught marching straight down the middle of the road leading to the
village. This was a particularly alarming proceeding, because at this
point in the road automobiles were apt to put on their last crazy burst
of speed, before having to slow down to the sober ten miles an hour of
the village limits. Indeed, one day, he was returned to the school by a
white and irate automobilist.
'What do you suppose this little scoundrel did?' the man stormed. 'Why,
he ran out from the side of the road and barked at my car!'
'I was dest pertendin' I was a little puppy dog,' Stanislaus murmured
softly.
'Pretending you were a _puppy_ dog!' roared the man. 'Well, if I hadn’t
ditched my machine--! A _puppy dog_, indeed!'
Stanislaus was turned over to Miss Lyman for very severe chastisement.
He shed bitter tears, and in the midst of them his instigator’s name
came out.
'G-gwey said he al’us barked at aut’mobiles--dest barked an’ barked at
'em--dest whenever he got weady,' he sobbed.
'If you ever do such a dreadful thing again, I shall give you the very
worst whipping you ever had,' Miss Lyman scolded. 'Little blind boys
have got to learn to be careful where they walk.'
To which Stanislaus made the astonishing reply:--
'Gwey says he dest walked anywhere he got weady when he was
little--'fore he got _his_ eyes open.'
That was the first hint that Miss Lyman got of it. Afterwards she and
Miss Cynthia--Stanislaus’s teacher--caught constant glimpses of a
curious idea that dodged in and out of the little boy’s flow of talk. A
queer, elusive, will-o'-the-wisp idea, caught one minute, gone the next,
yet informing all the child’s dreams and happy castles of the future.
At first they compared notes on the subject.
'What do you suppose Stanny has got into his head?' Miss Lyman demanded
of Miss Cynthia. 'When I told him that Kent Woodward had a little
sister, he said, "Has s’e got her eyes open yet?"
'Yes,' agreed Miss Cynthia; 'and when I happened to say that Jimmie
Nickle was the biggest blind boy in school, he said he must be awful
stupid not to have got his eyes open yet.'
But afterwards they both by common consent avoided the subject. This was
because each dreaded that the other might confirm a fear that was
shaping itself in their minds.
It is probable that these two loved Stanislaus better than any one else
loved him in all the world. Certainly if his father cared more for him,
he did not take the trouble to show it, having seemingly washed his
hands of the little fellow after turning him over to the school. It was
partly his delightful trick of individualizing people in general, and
his friends in particular, that had so endeared him to these two. 'I
al’us know when it’s you,' he confided to Miss Lyman, as he played with
her chatelaine, ''cause I hear vese tinkly fings coming way and away,
'fore you gits here.' While to Miss Cynthia he said, 'I al’us knows you
by vat sweet smell.' And often he surprised them by such remarks as 'You
don’t like wainy days, do you, Miss Lyman? I heard you tell Miss
Cyn-fee-ia vat wainy days de-de-depwessed you.' He got the big word out
after a struggle. 'I fink,' he added, 'vat wainy days de-depwess me
too.'
This last remark was simply an extra flourish of politeness on his part.
Nothing ever really depressed him, and when he said, 'Miss Cyn-fee-ia
says s’e likes to laugh; I fink I like to laugh too,' he came much
nearer the truth. He did like to laugh, and he loved life and all it had
to offer him. Each morning was a wonderful gift to him, and his days
went by like a chain of golden beads strung together on a thread of
delight.
It was because of his delight in life, and because they loved him, and
could not bear that Fate should prick any of his rainbow bubbles, that
both Miss Lyman and Miss Cynthia avoided the subject after they had once
discovered what tragic little hope his mind was fostering.
Miss Julia, however, was different. Her sensibilities did not lead her
into by-paths of pathos; therefore, when she chanced upon Stanislaus’s
little secret, she joyfully proclaimed it.
'Well, if that little Stanislaus isn’t the funniest child I ever _did_
see!' she began one evening in the teachers' hall. 'Why, if you’ll
believe me, he thinks that children are like kittens and puppies, and
are all born blind, and after a while they get their eyes open just like
cats and dogs. He thinks he is big enough now to have his eyes open
'most any day. Well, I didn’t tell him any better, but I thought I
should die laughing.'
Here Miss Lyman and Miss Cynthia rose with one accord, and left the
teachers' hall. Upstairs in Miss Lyman’s room they faced each other.
'You knew?' Miss Cynthia half questioned, half asserted.
'How can I help knowing!' Miss Lyman cried passionately. 'He’s always
telling me what he’s going to do when "I’m big an’ can see." It _isn’t_
a foolish idea! It’s a perfectly natural one. Some one has told him
about puppies and kittens, and of _course_ he thought children were the
same way. It isn’t foolish, it’s--'
'You’ve got to tell him the truth,' Miss Cynthia interposed.
'I won’t,' Miss Lyman declared. 'All his dreams and hopes are centred on
that idea.'
'If you don’t tell him, the other boys will find it out soon and laugh
at him, and that will be worse.'
'Well, why have I got to tell him? Why don’t you?'
'He loves you best,' Miss Cynthia evaded.
'I don’t believe any one will have to tell him,' Miss Lyman took her up,
hopefully. 'I believe it will just drop out of his mind as he gets
older. He’ll just cease to believe it without any shock, without ever
really knowing when he found out it wasn’t so.'
But she reckoned without Mr. Grey. He, it appeared, had fixed a date for
the great event.
'Gwey says,' Stanislaus announced, 'vat he got _his_ eyes open ve day he
was five, an’ he dest bets I’ll get mine open ven too.'
Thereafter, all his dreams and plays were inspired by the magic words,
'When I’m five an’ can see.' The sentence served as a mental
spring-board to jump his imagination off into a world of wonder where
he could see, 'dest--dest as good as big folks' or 'dest as good as
Gwey.'
Every day his fifth birthday drew nearer, and Miss Cynthia’s eyes said,
You’ve got to tell; and everyday Miss Lyman avoided them.
At last it was the day before his birthday. He waked with the words,
'To-mowwow is my birfday,' on his tongue, and scrambled out of bed, a
little night-shirted figure of ecstasy. His dressing that morning--the
putting on of his shoes, the scrubbing of his fingers, the rather
uncertain brushing of his hair--all went off to the happy refrain of--
'To-mowwow is my birfday, my birfday, my birfday!'
Some deep wisdom kept him from letting the other boys suspect what Mr.
Grey had foretold for his birthday; but when he came to Miss Lyman that
she might look him over before he went to school, he pulled her down
close to whisper, 'I’m goin' to look at _you_ de very first one of all.'
And to seal the matter he deposited a kiss in the palm of her hand, and
shut her fingers upon it.
'Keep vat till I come back,' he commanded, and went jauntily off to
school, where in all probability he made the same engaging promise to
Miss Cynthia, and sealed it with the same token. But if he did, one may
be certain he hid the token safe away in her hand. He was always shy
about kisses, not being quite sure but that they might be visible. You
could certainly feel the things, so why mightn’t they be seen as well,
sticking right out on one’s cheek, for seeing people to stare at? For
this reason, he refused them on his own account, ''cause vey might
show'; and those that he gave were always bestowed in the palm of the
hand, where the fingers could be closed hastily upon them.