But after this the long days in prison for Clyde. Except for a weekly
visit from his mother, who, once she was entered upon her work, found
it difficult to see him more often than that--traveling as she did
in the next two months between Albany and Buffalo and even New York
City--but without the success she had at first hoped for. For in the
matter of her appeal to the churches and the public--as most wearily
(and in secret if not to Clyde)--and after three weeks of more or less
regional and purely sectarian trying, she was compelled to report
the Christians at least were very indifferent--not as Christian as
they should be. For as all, but more particularly the ministers of
the region, since they most guardedly and reservedly represented
their congregations in every instance, unanimously saw it, here was a
notorious and, of course, most unsavory trial which had resulted in a
conviction with which the more conservative element of the country--if
one could judge by the papers at least, were in agreement.
Besides who was this woman--as well as her son? An exhorter--a secret
preacher--one, who in defiance of all the tenets and processes of
organized and historic, as well as hieratic, religious powers and forms
(theological seminaries, organized churches and their affiliations
and product--all carefully and advisedly and legitimately because
historically and dogmatically interpreting the word of God) choosing
to walk forth and without ordination after any fashion conduct an
unauthorized and hence nondescript mission. Besides if she had remained
at home, as a good mother should, and devoted herself to her son,
as well as to her other children--their care and education--would
this--have happened?
And not only that--but according to Clyde's own testimony in this
trial, had he not been guilty of adultery with this girl--whether he
had slain her or not? A sin almost equal to murder in many minds. Had
he not confessed it? And was an appeal for a convicted adulterer--if
not murderer (who could tell as to that?) to be made in a church?
No,--no Christian church was the place to debate, and for a charge,
the merits of this case, however much each Christian of each and every
church might sympathize with Mrs. Griffiths personally--or resent any
legal injustice that might have been done her son. No, no. It was not
morally advisable. It might even tend to implant in the minds of the
young some of the details of the crime.
Besides, because of what the newspapers had said of her coming east to
aid her son and the picture that she herself presented in her homely
garb, it was assumed by most ministers that she was one of those
erratic persons, not a constituent of any definite sect, or schooled
theology, who tended by her very appearance to cast contempt on true
and pure religion.
And in consequence, each in turn--not hardening his heart exactly--but
thinking twice--and deciding no--there must be some better way--less
troublesome to Christians,--a public hall, perhaps, to which
Christians, if properly appealed to through the press, might well
repair. And so Mrs. Griffiths, in all but one instance, rejected
in that fashion and told to go elsewhere--while in regard to the
Catholics--instinctively--because of prejudice--as well as a certain
dull wisdom not inconsistent with the facts--she failed even to so much
as think of them. The mercies of Christ as interpreted by the holder
of the sacred keys of St. Peter, as she knew, were not for those who
failed to acknowledge the authority of the Vicar of Christ.
And therefore after many days spent in futile knockings here and there
she was at last compelled--and in no little depression, to appeal to
a Jew who controlled the principal moving picture theater of Utica--a
sinful theater. And from him, this she secured free for a morning
address on the merits of her son's case--"A mother's appeal for her
son," it was entitled--which netted her, at twenty-five cents per
person--the amazing sum of two hundred dollars. At first this sum,
small as it was, so heartened her that she was now convinced that
soon--whatever the attitude of the orthodox Christians--she would earn
enough for Clyde's appeal. It might take time--but she would.
Nevertheless, as she soon discovered, there were other factors to be
considered--carfare, her own personal expenses in Utica and elsewhere,
to say nothing of certain very necessary sums to be sent to Denver to
her husband, who had little or nothing to go on at present, and who,
because of this very great tragedy in the family, had been made ill--so
ill indeed that the letters from Frank and Julia were becoming very
disturbing. It was possible that he might not get well at all. Some
help was necessary there.
And in consequence, in addition to paying her own expenses here,
Mrs. Griffiths was literally compelled to deduct other reducing
sums from this, her present and only source of income. It was
terrible--considering Clyde's predicament--but nevertheless must she
not sustain herself in every way in order to win to victory? She could
not reasonably abandon her husband in order to aid Clyde alone.
Yet in the face of this--as time went on, the audiences growing
smaller and smaller until at last they constituted little more than a
handful--and barely paying her expenses--although through this process
none-the-less she finally managed to put aside--over and above all her
expenses--eleven hundred dollars.
Yet, also, just at this time, and in a moment of extreme anxiety, Frank
and Julia wiring her that if she desired to see Asa again she had
better come home at once. He was exceedingly low and not expected to
live. Whereupon, played upon by these several difficulties and there
being no single thing other than to visit him once or twice a week--as
her engagements permitted--which she could do for Clyde, she now
hastily conferred with Belknap and Jephson, setting forth her extreme
difficulties.
And these, seeing that eleven hundred dollars of all she had thus far
collected was to be turned over to them, now, in a burst of humanity,
advised her to return to her husband. Decidedly Clyde would do well
enough for the present seeing that there was an entire year--or at
least ten months before it was necessary to file the record and the
briefs in the case. In addition another year assuredly must elapse
before a decision could be reached. And no doubt before that time the
additional part of the appeal fee could be raised. Or, if not--well,
then--anyhow (seeing how worn and distrait she was at this time) she
need not worry. Messrs. Belknap and Jephson would see to it that her
son's interests were properly protected. They would file an appeal and
make an argument--and do whatever else was necessary to insure her son
a fair hearing at the proper time.
And with that great burden off her mind--and two last visits to Clyde
in which she assured him of her determination to return as speedily as
possible--once Asa was restored to strength again and she could see her
way to financing such a return--she now departed only to find that,
once she was in Denver once more, it was not so easy to restore him by
any means.
And in the meantime Clyde was left to cogitate on and make the best of
a world that at its best was a kind of inferno of mental ills--above
which--as above Dante's might have been written--"abandon hope--ye who
enter here."
The somberness of it. Its slow and yet searing psychic force! The
obvious terror and depression--constant and unshakeable of those who,
in spite of all their courage or their fears, their bravado or their
real indifference (there were even those) were still compelled to think
and wait. For, now, in connection with this coldest and bitterest form
of prison life he was in constant psychic, if not physical contact,
with twenty other convicted characters of varying temperaments and
nationalities, each one of whom, like himself, had responded to some
heat or lust or misery of his nature or his circumstances. And with
murder, a mental as well as physical explosion, as the final outcome or
concluding episode which, being detected, and after what horrors and
wearinesses of mental as well as legal contest and failure, such as
fairly paralleled his own, now found themselves islanded--immured--in
one or another of these twenty-two iron cages and awaiting--awaiting
what?
How well they knew. And how well he knew. And here with what loud
public rages and despairs or prayers--at times. At others--what
curses--foul or coarse jests--or tales addressed to all--or ribald
laughter--or sighings and groanings in these later hours when the
straining spirit having struggled to silence, there was supposedly rest
for the body and the spirit.
In an exercise court, beyond the farthermost end of the long corridor,
twice daily, for a few minutes each time, between the hours of ten and
five--the various inmates in groups of five or six were led forth--to
breathe, to walk, to practice calisthenics--or run and leap as they
chose. But always under the watchful eyes of sufficient guards to
master them in case they attempted rebellion in any form. And to this
it was, beginning with the second day, that Clyde himself was led, now
with one set of men and now with another. But with the feeling at first
strong in him that he could not share in any of these public activities
which, nevertheless, these others--and in spite of their impending
doom--seemed willing enough to indulge in.
The two dark-eyed sinister-looking Italians, one of whom had slain
a girl because she would not marry him; the other who had robbed
and then slain and attempted to burn the body of his father-in-law
in order to get money for himself and his wife! And big Larry
Donahue--square-headed, square-shouldered--big of feet and hands, an
overseas soldier, who, being ejected from a job as night watchman
in a Brooklyn factory, had lain for the foreman who had discharged
him--and then killed him on an open common somewhere at night, but
without the skill to keep from losing a service medal which had
eventually served to betray and identify him. Clyde had learned all
this from the strangely indifferent and non-committal, yet seemingly
friendly guards, who were over these cells by night and by day--two
and two, turn about--who relieved each other every eight hours. And
police officer Riordan of Rochester, who had killed his wife because
she was determined to leave him--and now, himself, was to die. And
Thomas Mowrer, the young "farmer" or farm hand, as he really was, whom
Clyde on his first night had heard moaning--a man who had killed his
employer with a pitchfork--and was soon to die now--as Clyde heard, and
who walked and walked, keeping close to the wall--his head down, his
hands behind his back--a rude, strong, loutish man of about thirty,
who looked more beaten and betrayed than as though he had been able to
torture or destroy another. Clyde wondered about him--his real guilt.
Again Miller Nicholson, a lawyer of Buffalo of perhaps forty years of
age who was tall and slim and decidedly superior looking--a refined,
intellectual type, one you would have said was no murderer--any more
than Clyde--to look at, who, none-the-less was convicted of poisoning
an old man of great wealth and afterwards attempting to convert his
fortune to his own use. Yet decidedly with nothing in his look or
manner, as Clyde felt, at least, which marked him as one so evil--a
polite and courteous man, who, noting Clyde on the very first morning
of his arrival here, approached and said: "Scared?" But in the most
gentle and solicitous tone, as Clyde could hear and feel, even though
he stood blank and icy--afraid almost to move--or think. Yet in this
mood--and because he felt so truly done for, replying: "Yes, I guess
I am." But once it was out, wondering why he had said it (so weak a
confession) and afterwards something in the man heartening him, wishing
that he had not.
"Your name's Griffiths, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, my name's Nicholson. Don't be frightened. You'll get used to
it." He achieved a cheerful, if wan smile. But his eyes--they did not
seem like that--no smile there.
"I don't suppose I'm so scared either," replied Clyde, trying to modify
his first, quick and unintended confession.
"Well, that's good. Be game. We all have to be here--or the whole place
would go crazy. Better breathe a little. Or walk fast. It'll do you
good."
He moved away a few paces and began exercising his arms while Clyde
stood there, saying--almost loudly--so shaken was he still: "We all
have to be or the whole place would go crazy." That was true, as he
could see and feel after that first night. Crazy, indeed. Tortured
to death, maybe, by being compelled to witness these terrible and
completely destroying--and for each--impending tragedies. But how long
would he have to endure this? How long could he?
In the course of a day or two, again he found this death house was not
quite like that either--not all terror--on the surface at least. It was
in reality--and in spite of impending death in every instance, a place
of taunt and jibe and jest--even games, arguments on every conceivable
topic from death and women to athletics, the stage--all forms of human
contest of skill--or the lack of it, as far at least as the general low
intelligence of the group permitted.
For the most part, as soon as breakfast was over--among those who
were not called upon to join the first group for exercise, there were
checkers or cards, two games that were played--not with a single set
of checkers or a deck of cards between groups released from their
cells, but by one of the ever present keepers providing two challenging
prisoners (if it were checkers) with one checker-board but no checkers.
They were not needed. Thereafter the opening move was called by one. "I
move from F 2 to E 1"--each square being numbered--each side lettered.
The moves checked with a pencil.
Thereafter the second party--having recorded this move on his own board
and having studied the effect of it on his own general position, would
call: "I move from E 7 to F 5." If more of those present decided to
join in this--either on one side or the other, additional boards and
pencils were passed to each signifying his desire. Then Shorty Bristol,
desiring to aid "Dutch" Swighort, three cells down, might call: "I
wouldn't do that, Dutch. Wait a minute, there's a better move than
that." And so on with taunts, oaths, laughter, arguments, according to
the varying fortunes and difficulties of the game. And so, too, with
cards. These were played with each man locked in his cell, yet quite as
successfully.
But Clyde did not care for cards--or for these jibing and coarse hours
of conversation. There was for him--and with the exception of the
speech of one--Nicholson--alone, too much ribald and even brutal talk
which he could not appreciate. But he was drawn to Nicholson. He was
beginning to think after a time--a few days--that this lawyer--his
presence and companionship during the exercise hour--whenever they
chanced to be in the same set--could help him to endure this. He was
the most intelligent and respectable man here. The others were all so
different--taciturn at times--and for the most part so sinister, crude
or remote.
But then and that not more than a week after his coming here--and
when, because of his interest in Nicholson, he was beginning to feel
slightly sustained at least--the execution of Pasquale Cutrone, of
Brooklyn, an Italian, convicted of the slaying of his brother for
attempting to seduce his wife. He had one of the cells nearest the
transverse passage, so Clyde learned after arriving, and had in part
lost his mind from worrying. At any rate he was invariably left in his
cell when the others--in groups of six--were taken for exercise. But
the horror of his emaciated face, as Clyde passed and occasionally
looked in--a face divided into three grim panels by two gutters or
prison lines of misery that led from the eyes to the corners of the
mouth.
Beginning with his, Clyde's, arrival, as he learned, Pasquale had begun
to pray night and day. For already, before that, he had been notified
of the approximate date of his death which was to be within the week.
And after that he was given to crawling up and down his cell on his
hands and knees, kissing the floor, licking the feet of a brass Christ
on a cross that had been given him. Also he was repeatedly visited by
an Italian brother and sister fresh from Italy and for whose benefit
at certain hours, he was removed to the old death house. But as all
now whispered, Pasquale was mentally beyond any help that might lie in
brothers or sisters.
All night long and all day long, when they were not present, he did
this crawling to and fro and praying, and those who were awake and
trying to read to pass the time, were compelled to listen to his
mumbled prayers, the click of the beads of a rosary on which he was
numbering numberless Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
And though there were voices which occasionally said: "Oh, for Christ's
sake--if he would only sleep a little"--still on, on. And the tap of
his forehead on the floor--in prayer, until at last the fatal day
preceding the one on which he was to die, when Pasquale was taken from
his cell here and escorted to another in the old death house beyond
and where, before the following morning, as Clyde later learned, last
farewells, if any, were to be said. Also he was to be allowed a few
hours in which to prepare his soul for his maker.
But throughout that night what a strange condition was this that
settled upon all who were of this fatal room. Few ate any supper as
the departing trays showed. There was silence--and after that mumbled
prayers on the part of some--not so greatly removed by time from
Pasquale's fate, as they knew. One Italian, sentenced for the murder
of a bank watchman, became hysterical, screamed, hashed the chair and
table of his cell against the bars of his door, tore the sheets of his
bed to shreds and even sought to strangle himself before eventually
he was overpowered and removed to a cell in a different part of the
building to be observed as to his sanity.
As for the others, throughout this excitement, one could hear them
walking and mumbling or calling to the guards to do something. And as
for Clyde, never having experienced or imagined such a scene, he was
literally shivering with fear and horror. All through the last night
of this man's life he lay on his pallet, chasing phantoms. So this was
what death was like here; men cried, prayed, they lost their minds--yet
the deadly process was in no way halted, for all their terror. Instead,
at ten o'clock and in order to quiet all those who were left, a cold
lunch was brought in and offered--but with none eating save the
Chinaman over the way.
And then at four the following morning--the keepers in charge of the
deadly work coming silently along the main passage and drawing the
heavy green curtains with which the cells were equipped so that none
might see the fatal procession which was yet to return along the
transverse passage from the old death house to the execution room. And
yet with Clyde and all the others waking and sitting up at the sound.
It was here, the execution! The hour of death was at hand. This was
the signal. In their separate cells, many of those who through fear
or contrition, or because of innate religious convictions, had been
recalled to some form of shielding or comforting faith, were upon
their knees praying. Among the rest were others who merely walked
or muttered. And still others who screamed from time to time in an
incontrollable fever of terror.
As for Clyde he was numb and dumb. Almost thoughtless. They were going
to kill that man in that other room in there. That chair--that chair
that he had so greatly feared this long while was in there--was so
close now. Yet his time as Jephson and his mother had told him was so
long and distant as yet--if ever--ever it was to be--if ever--ever----
But now other sounds. Certain walkings to and fro. A cell door clanking
somewhere. Then plainly the door leading from the old death house into
this room opening--for there was a voice--several voices indistinct as
yet. Then another voice a little clearer as if some one praying. That
tell-tale shuffling of feet as a procession moved across and through
that passage. "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy."
"Mary, Mother of Grace, Mary, Mother of Mercy, St. Michael, pray for
me; my good Angel, pray for me."
"Holy Mary, pray for me; St. Joseph, pray for me. St. Ambrose, pray for
me; all ye saints and angels, pray for me."
"St. Michael, pray for me; my good Angel, pray for me."
It was the voice of the priest accompanying the doomed man and reciting
a litany. Yet he was no longer in his right mind they said. And yet
was not that his voice mumbling too? It was. Clyde could tell. He had
heard it too much recently. And now that other door would be opened. He
would be looking through it--this condemned man--so soon to be dead--at
it--seeing it--that cap--those straps. Oh, he knew all about those by
now though they should never come to be put upon him, maybe.
"Good-by, Cutrone!" It was a hoarse, shaky voice from some near-by
cell--Clyde could not tell which. "Go to a better world than this." And
then other voices: "Good-by, Cutrone. God keep you--even though you
can't talk English."
The procession had passed. That door was shut. He was in there now.
They were strapping him in, no doubt. Asking him what more he had to
say--he who was no longer quite right in his mind. Now the straps must
be fastened on, surely. The cap pulled down. In a moment, a moment,
surely----
And then, although Clyde did not know or notice at the moment--a sudden
dimming of the lights in this room--as well as over the prison--an
idiotic or thoughtless result of having one electric system to supply
the death voltage and the incandescence of this and all other rooms.
And instantly a voice calling:
"There she goes. That's one. Well, it's all over with him."
And a second voice: "Yes, he's topped off, poor devil."
And then after the lapse of a minute perhaps, a second dimming lasting
for thirty seconds--and finally a third dimming.
"There--sure--that's the end now."
"Yes. He knows what's on the other side now."
Thereafter silence--a deadly hush with later some murmured prayers
here and there. But with Clyde cold and with a kind of shaking ague.
He dared not think--let alone cry. So that's how it was. They drew the
curtains. And then--and then. He was gone now. Those three dimmings of
the lights. Sure, those were the flashes. And after all those nights at
prayer. Those moanings! Those beatings of his head! And only a minute
ago he had been alive--walking by there. But now dead. And some day
he--he!--how could he be sure that he would not? How could he?
He shook and shook, lying on his couch, face down. The keepers came
and ran up the curtains--as sure and secure in their lives apparently
as though there was no death in the world. And afterwards he could
hear them talking--not to him so much--he had proved too reticent thus
far--but to some of the others.
Poor Pasquale. This whole business of the death penalty was all wrong.
The warden thought so. So did they. He was working to have it abolished.
But that man! His prayers! And now he was gone. His cell over there
was empty and another man would be put in it--to go too, later. Some
one--many--like Cutrone, like himself--had been in this one--on this
pallet. He sat up--moved to the chair. But he--they--had sat on
that--too. He stood up--only to sink down on the pallet again. "God!
God! God! God!" he now exclaimed to himself--but not aloud--and yet not
unlike that other man who had so terrorized him on the night of his
arrival here and who was still here. But he would go too. And all of
these others--and himself maybe--unless--unless----
He had seen his first man die.