By A.L.G.
Tommy Taft, or T.T. as he was wont to call himself, had always regretted
two misfortunes,--first, the indisputable fact of his birth, and second,
the imprisonment of his father, not long afterwards.
The earlier misfortune, Tommy Taft, not being at the time aware of it,
was of course quite unable to prevent. The later misfortune it was alike
beyond his power to forestall. It came to pass that young Tommy Taft
grew up to be as crude a specimen of body and soul as had ever
flourished in Boston-town.
I have not set myself the task of following the drift of his life from
the dawn of babyhood to the twentieth anniversary of the same. But one
event ought to be here recalled, which was, that on a certain day Tommy
Taft was at work in a garden and in just that part of the garden, it
ought to be said, where the wall was so low that a person could easily
look over it into the long, narrow road.
Tommy Taft was not particularly fond of work; in other words, he was not
a great worker. On this occasion, however, the promise of an extra
shilling being uppermost in his mind, he plied his energies with more
than wonted skill. He was disposed to be meditative as well, and so
deeply that he chanced not to perceive an aged personage who, for
perhaps five and twenty minutes, had been cautiously scrutinizing him
from across the wall.
It was a most extraordinary fit of sneezing--nothing more nor less--that
first attracted the attention of Tommy Taft, and prompted him to look
up. And what did he see? Only a weather-beaten face, shaded by a ragged
straw hat out of which peeped locks of grizzled gray hair. The owner
leaned somewhat heavily against the wall.
Tommy Taft was not amazed; but if he had not already become accustomed
to affronts and ill-shapen visages, he might have been awed into
silence. He merely paused, with his right foot on the shoulder of the
spade share, and peered at the stranger. To the best of his knowledge,
he had never seen him before. On a former time, however, he had chanced
to see his own face in a mirror and, odd as it may seem, he now remarked
to himself a striking resemblance between the two faces,--his own and
that of the new comer. But his thoughts were quickly turned.
"I say, young man!"
"What say?" replied Tommy Taft.
"You don't happen to know a young man by the name o' Tom Taft, do you?"
"I reckon I do." The youth plunged the spade share into the earth, and
folded his arms.
"Have a shake, then," continued the stranger.
"But that ain't a tellin' me who you be," said Tommy Taft, approaching
and holding out his hand.
"I'm Jim Taft; and if so be your father was a shoemaker in this town and
got locked up--I say, I'm he!"
There was pathos in the utterance of these words, and, somehow or other,
Tommy Taft's heart fluttered just a little and before he was aware of it
a tear was trickling down his cheek.
"Are you happy, young man," queried the elder. He drew himself up on the
wall.
"Well, I s'pose I am, though I ain't got nuthin'. But folks as haint got
nuthin' and enjoy it is a plagued sight richer than sich as has got
everything and don't enjoy it. Yes--I s'pose I'm happy."
"And where's the old woman?"
"Dead, I s'pose."
"Dead!"
"Or in the work-house where she might'nt have been, if you'd a stayed
round."
Jim Taft, for it was he, began to think, and the longer he thought, the
more troubled he looked.
"You won't say as you saw me loafin' around here, will you?" he asked at
length; "that is, if you won't give me a lift, me--your father?"
"How a lift?" inquired his interlocutor.
"A few shillings perhaps; or, perhaps you ain't got a pair o' boots as
has in 'em more leather 'n holes, or a pair of breeches as is good for
suthin'."
"Wait a bit!" said Tommy Taft. He disappeared; but he soon came back,
with an old pair of boots in one hand and a pair of pantaloons in the
other.
"There's suthin' in the nigh pocket," he remarked, as he handed the
pantaloons to his parent. "I've often s'posed you'd come back, and would
need the money what I saved for you."
The parent, however, had not the courtesy to return thanks. He was more
anxious to know something about Tom's employer and his whereabouts.
"He's a good one, he is," said Tommy Taft; "and no, he ain't to home.
He's in ----; and I've got to meet him to-night in the tavern there--."
"In Hog's Lane?"
"Yes."
"Hylton has a heap o' money, Tommy."
"If he have or no, I don't reckon its none o' your business, or mine
nuther."
The parent noticed the surly tone in which his son had just spoken, and
concluded to say "good day," and to be off.
Tommy Taft wondered what could be the cause of so sudden a departure;
and then he wondered whether, it really was his father that had so
unexpectedly accosted him. He went back to his spade, and next wondered
whether the man might not be an escaped convict. If so, how came he to
know John Hylton?
In obedience to orders, Tommy Taft set off to meet his employer
at the tavern in Hog's Lane. He supped that evening with the keeper.
Afterwards, he lighted his pipe, drew a chair up to the open fireplace,
and smoked in silence. Still later, he betook himself through a long,
narrow entry, up a narrow flight of stairs, and into a small, square
room. After he had closed the door behind him, he observed another door,
which, he concluded, opened into the next apartment. It was locked.
Tommy Taft was to pass the night in this self-same room, and he had good
reasons for believing that his employer occupied the room adjoining and
was already sound asleep.
The hours sped by. The tavern-keeper looked up to the clock,--it was
after midnight. He locked the big door, and had just diminished the
number of burning lamps from six to two, when he heard the sound of
voices as in dispute, and seemingly issuing from the room just above.
He hurried to the foot of the stairs, and listened. He distinctly caught
the voice of Mr. Hylton, and the words of another voice,--"You'll be
sorry for that!" The tavern-keeper heard nothing more. Presently, he too
went to bed.
Morning came, and the servants were busy in the kitchen. At half-past
six, Tommy Taft ought, as on former occasions, to have carried a pitcher
of hot water up to his employer's bedroom. But he failed to do so, this
morning. At seven, Mr. Hylton ought to have been seated at the breakfast
table; but he did not appear.
The tavern-keeper, when the clock had struck eight, went upstairs. He
rapped on the door of the small square room. No response. He forced open
the door.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Tommy Taft gone! and the bed not slept in,
neither!"
The window was open. It had rained during the night, and on the soft,
gravel mould beneath the window he discovered foot prints. He turned,
and went to the door which communicated between the two apartments. It
was unlocked. He turned the knob,--opened the door gently, and beheld
John Hylton lying in a pool of blood, with his throat gashed, and with
a large clasp-knife clenched in his right hand!
It was indeed a mystery. The discovery of the tragedy was followed by
intense excitement. The coroner's jury suspected Tommy Taft as the
murderer, because the knife which was found in the hand of the victim
bore on its hilt the initials "T.T.", and because the tavern-keeper
testified that he had heard angry words in the night.
Tommy Taft was brought to trial. It was proved that the murdered man's
money-bag was rifled of all coin, but of only one bank note,--and that,
the one which the tavern-keeper had had in his possession the afternoon
before the tragedy and which Tommy Taft got changed on the day after the
murder. These facts, together with the footprints on the gravel soil,
enabled the prosecuting attorney to make out what seemed to both judge
and jury a very strong case. Indeed, there was but one person in the
court room that believed the prisoner innocent,--that was Tommy Taft
himself.
He admitted that he had had a dispute with his employer, but gave no
cause and that the latter had peremptorily dismissed him from further
service; that the bank-note was given to him that very same night, as
the full amount due him; that after the dispute, he could not go to bed;
that he bethought him, without disturbing anybody, to steal quietly down
stairs and to depart, unobserved, by way of the front door. He sturdily
denied that the footprints on the gravel soil were his. He firmly
declared his innocence, and that, while he felt that he could tell the
name of the murderer, he did not wish to do so, for the reason that he
had no proof to support his suspicion.
Tommy Taft died on the gallows. After the execution, people gathered to
discuss the event. They began to think, too, as people sometimes will
when they have condemned without thinking.
"That boy's pluckier than I'd a bin," murmured an old man, as he dragged
his weather-beaten body slowly through the crowd. "He wasn't a guilty,
Tommy Taft wasn't."
Nobody knew the speaker, and nobody cared for what he said.
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