“Let’s see if there’s anything we ought to do upstairs.”
They climbed the narrow ladderlike stairway to an unfinished half-story garretlike room above.
* * * * *
“My land, she was house-cleanin’ this hot weather!”
Half of the stuffy little room had been thoroughly overhauled and the other end begun. A little old horse-hair trunk stood in the middle of the floor, with portions of its contents scattered about.
“I’ll bet she was goin’ to empty that for the baby’s things. I showed her mine, jes’ like it, that I fixed up for Selina when she was little.”
“Well, we might as well pick up the things and put ’em back,” said orderly Mrs. Collins, who suited the word to the action by laboriously bending with a slight grunt.
Mrs. Prentis pushed her back.
“Here, let me pick ’em up. There ain’t no call for you to go stoopin’ ’round in this heat. First thing you know you’ll be havin’ a stroke.”
Some clothing and small articles were collected, and several bundles of yellowed old letters lay on the floor. From one of the packages the string had broken, evidently when it had been lifted from the trunk. One letter lay crumpled near its empty envelope, where it had been dropped.
With a wondering glance, the two women smoothed it out. The first paragraph was so yellowed and faded as to be illegible, but part of the second paragraph had been protected by the folded paper and they could read:
“_ ... will say that your wife is hopelessly insane. She may live for years, but will never regain her mentality, as cases like hers are incurable. We find upon investigation that the women of her family, for several generations, have become hopelessly insane at her age._
“_In view of the fact that your small daughter is tainted with this inherited insanity, we strongly advise you to take her to some new environment and, when she grows older, explain to her why marriage should be considered impossible for her._
“_As we can see the matter now, it is too bad that her mother was not warned of the same fact, and in view of all our information it would seem to have been better if we had not pulled her through that severe illness. If you--_”
The remainder of the letter was undecipherable. The two neighbors looked at each other, their eyes wide with horror. At last Mrs. Prentis gasped hoarsely:
“Do you ’spose that bundle broke open and Mamie read this letter? Her father died ’fore she was old enough to marry and left her this place partly paid for, and I remember when her and Jed was married how they planned to pay the rest of it off jes’ as soon as possible.”
“But,” interrupted Mrs. Collins, “the coroner’s jury said yesterday that they wasn’t any manner of doubt but that she _wasn’t_ crazy. She jes’ set there, with her solemn big eyes, and looked straight ahead and never said a word.
“I wonder how a woman’d feel to know that the baby girl she loved better’n her own life would have to grow up in this drudgery and then finally spend the last of her years in a ’sylum?”
“Yes and ’spose Mamie went crazy herself long ’fore the little girl grew up?”
“I wonder if a woman really loved her baby girl if she wouldn’t rather--” she stopped once more with a frightened look.
Wheels were heard coming down the lane.
Mrs. Prentis spoke quickly: “Sarah Ann Collins, we’re goin’ right downstairs and stick this letter in that cook-stove, quick!”
* * * * *
In the little kitchen below, the women were cooking supper when the county attorney and another man entered.
“Good evening, ladies,” said the attorney. “We decided to come out again and go carefully over the field to see if we could find any evidence. You haven’t, by chance, found anything, have you?”
Mrs. Prentis looked covertly at Mrs. Collins, then answered:
“No; we jes’ been cleanin’ up. We ain’t been lookin’ for no evidence.”
“Well, Walters,” said the attorney, “you know juries when it comes to women. If there never is found a definite reason for her wanting the baby to die, no jury will ever believe she is guilty.”
“Evil Demon” Drives Man to Orgy of Crime
Spurned by his young niece, Estanislao Puyat, a Filipino, ran amuck in the streets of Manila, after throwing the girl from an upper window to the ground and almost killing her. Grabbing his bolo, he rushed down the street, stabbed an aged woman in the eye, cut off the hands of two other women, slashed another, stabbed a Chinese merchant and a cart driver, cut another woman on the forehead, wounded a child and a young Filipino girl, and then, reaching the Bay, threw himself into the water in an effort to commit suicide. Capt. H. H. Elarth threw a noose over his head and dragged him ashore. The Filipinos say that Puyat was “de malas,” meaning he was possessed of an evil demon.
_A Five-minute Story_
_The_ Gallows
_By_ I. W. D. PETERS
Tomorrow morning, at sunrise, I am to hang for the murder of a man.
At sunrise on the ninth of June, the anniversary of my wedding day. I am to be hanged by the neck until I am dead.
I am glad this state has not yet adopted the use of electricity in executions. I prefer to spend my last moments out in the open under the sky.
The building of the gallows is finished; the workmen are gone, and it seems that the execution at sunrise is certain to take place; but every step along the corridor sends my heart into my mouth. Gladys is working for a reprieve. I am praying she will not succeed.
The Governor is off on a fishing trip, away from railroad and telegraph. If they do not locate him in the next few hours I shall be hanged. God grant they fail to find him!
It is Glady’s will against mine. She usually wins, but every passing minute lessens her chance to have her way in this. It is now ten minutes to midnight. Dr. Brander, the prison chaplain, has just left me, gratified, poor fellow, that he has succeeded in reconciling me to my fate. If he had known that the tall skeleton of wood outside, with its lank line of rope, was in my mind a refuge, he would have turned from me in horror.
The next five hours will be the longest of my life. Every step in the corridor strikes fear to my heart. It is not because I am guilty of the crime, for which I was sentenced, that I am glad to die. I _am_ guilty, but that doesn’t mean that I deserve to die.
I am going to hang tomorrow at sunrise because _I want to be hung_!
I could have saved myself, but refused to do so, solely because life had lost its savor, a great wave of disgust with living possessed and still possesses me. I am writing these words now that Gladys may know the truth. She has tried to see me, ever since I was brought here, and I have refused to be seen. That is one right a condemned man has--to refuse to see visitors.
* * * * *
From the day we were married, Gladys demanded to know my every thought, my every act every hour of the day.
If every one of them was not concerned with her she criticised, condemned or cried. She resented, in bitterly-spoken words and equally bitter acts, the small recesses of my soul that I, for the sake of my own self-respect, kept to myself.
Finally she determined to show me that there were other men who appreciated her, if I did not. For a while, after that, all hours of the day and evening my home was infested with lounge lizards. I endured it without a word, which infuriated her.
Lester Caine, a young fellow, honest and simple, was her first victim. The first time I found him seated close beside her on the dimly lit porch I welcomed him warmly. We smoked and talked of our days in the army together. I felt that Gladys could safely enough flirt with such as Lester, if that was what she wanted: but Lester called only a few times after that.
For two months there was a succession of young fellows about the place. Our house was not far from the Westmoor Country Club, and the golf links came almost up to our side-yard. Our porch was a convenient place to “drop in.”
Suddenly all that sort of thing ceased. Gladys was away a great deal, but as her mother lived in a town just a few miles away I thought nothing of that. She became very quiet, was thoughtful, absent-minded, flushed easily, seemed not herself.
At first I was a good deal puzzled, then, suddenly an explanation for the change in her dawned on me. Joy filled my soul. I was inordinately gentle with her, bought her a small automobile for her birthday, did everything I could think of for her comfort and pleasure.
After all, I told myself, the emotional phase she had passed through was natural. Marriage is a more difficult readjustment with some than others. It had evidently been so with Gladys. If a child came to us it would make everything right.
A child--_our child_! It was wonderful to think of. She had always refused to consider the subject saying she wished to enjoy life while she was young. But she knew I wanted a son to bear my name, a daughter to inherit her beauty, and she had accepted the inevitable. A wave of exaltation made me feel as if I were treading on clouds. I longed to mention the subject to her, but I felt that the first word about it should come from her.