Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1913 — TURN OF TOE PISE [ARTICLE]

TURN OF TOE PISE

Pardoned Convict Breaks His Good Resolutions, but Is Saved by Dying Woman.

By FRANK FILSON.

heal! warder cheerfully, clapping an enormous hand upon the young man’s shoulder. “The chief wants to say goodbye to you.” The convict stepped out of his cell and followed the head warder obediently, Three years of disdplinechad taught him to ask no questions, to demand no reasons. He hardly dared to hope that the pardon board had granted his petition. ~ “”1601100? Eyes front’/’ said the head warder mechanically, and the convict mechanically obeyed. But the governor stretched out his hand and took the convict’s in a hearty clasp. “The board of pardons has granted you your freedom, Graves,’’ he said. "I strongly recommended it at the last monthly meeting. I know that you will run straight in future. If you shouldn’t, remember that the dishonor and shame will be mine, and it will be just so much harder for the rest of us. Here's a letter from your mother in Mapleton,” he added, handing the missive to the prisoner. Graves read it and the governor watched him curiously. The young fellow had impressed Him favorably ever since he had entered the penitentiary three years before to serve a first sentence for forgery. He had been a model prisoner; but he seemed curiously hard. Even now he seemed unaffected either by the letter or by his release. He folded the missive and put it in the handkerchief pocket of his serge tunic. “Yes, sir, I’ll run straight in future,” he answered.

“Good,” answered the goverhor. “And my advice to you is, go home to your mother. You have ab&ut thirtyseven dollars coming to you. Go home, face the world in your home town, be a man and begin your life anew. You will find people kinder than you Imagine. Good morning." He grasped the prisoner's hand and dismissed him. Graves went out. Subdued and deferential though he seemed, he remained totally unmoved. The governor shook his head as he watched him pass through the doorway. As a matter of fact, Philip Graves was deeply moved, but for all that he had not the least intention of returning home. During his period of imprisonment he had been thoroughly initiated into the possibilities of crime by his fellow convicts. He would have liked to re-establish himself in the favor of his fellow citizens, but the idea seemed laughable. His old mother was doubtless able to exist without him; his sisters held good positions and could take care of her. He took the train to the capital and spent his money in two , days’ of riotous living. The second evening found him penniless. It was cold and dismally wet, and the long tramp through the dismal suburbs had not raised his spirits. He sat down on the sidewalk and buried his head tn his hands. That was the first time he had ever seriously considered the future. “Forging’s a mutt’s game,” one of the other prisoners had told him soon after he was brought to the jail. “Take my tip, lad, cracking a crib's the only thing worth while. Why, all you’ve got to do is to walk ip after the lights are out, take your pick, and walk out again. But say, don’t carry a gun, for that don’t pay. Just trust to your legs if you have to get away quick.” A middle-aged man in a well-made suit, and bearing all the' marks of prosperity, hurried by, not casting a glance at the ex-convict at his feet. Graves rose and followed him. At the end of the street was a long country lane, with finely-built, scattered houses lining it. each in ita garden. The man turned into one and let himself jnto the home with a key. Graves watched him. Then he felt in his pockets. At the bottom of one, hitherto overlooked by him, was a dime. Graves knew where he could get all the whisky he wanted for a dime —if he chose the time when the, bartender was not looking his way. He went there. ’’Take your fill, boy,” said the bartender good-naturedly, looking round just at the least appropriate time. “I guess you need it on a night like this. Graves tossed off the fiery liquid, set down the glass, and went out. He walked the streets until his head swam from the liquor. It was very dark and the rain fell steadily. Graves was wet to the skin. He walked an immeasurable time, until at last, looking up, he saw the house into which the prosperous man bad entered. A flame of anger burned in his heart', hotter than the fire in his brains. Good resolutions! What were they for such as he? They were for the rich, for those who ©ould afford to keep the laws! He was no fool to be bound by such a code. He crept up the garden, felt a lower window, and fouud that he could raise It. A minute later be was groping inside a dining room. Cautiously he < struck and lit a match. Then he gasped in astonishment. For on the buffet, carelessly laid out, was a galaxy of silver plate. That central piece—that fiat tray, which be could put under bls coat and walk away with, must be worth a couple of hundred dollars alone! He would take it on his way out He opened the door and crept upstairs. There were two rooms at the head

Of the first flight. The door of one was closed; the iecond door was open, and inside, by the light of the lowered gas jet, Graves could see a i table strewn with rings. He crept in and stood staring at them. There were nearly a dozen of them—diamond, pearl, sapphire, cat’s eye, flashing emeralds and rubies. It was the dressing table wealthy woman who. . 1 . There was somebody in the bed}! An old, white-haired woman who la/ there, hardly breathing, flat, with whjte_hands picking at the bed covers! Graves snatched up a handful of the baubles an<j turned. Suddenly two powerful arms caught him as in a vise and he looked up into the face of the middle-aged man. “Come outside, you—you dog!” whispered the other. “Caught in the act, you dirty sneak-thief! I-et me look at your face! So you would rob woman, would you? I’m gotag to strip the hide off you before I call the police.” “I didn’t know—” Graves babbled. A feeble voice from the sick bed made both start. “John!” whispered the sick woman. “John! It’s you, dear John! I knew you would come home!” The captor and the captive stood motionless, thrilled by the pity in the voice. “John, won’t you come here and kiss your old mother?” pleaded the voice. “I knew that I should live to see you again.” The middle-aged man whispered into the ear of the thief. “Her son was killed in an automobile accident last week. Now’s your chance. I’ll let you go if —” “You’re coming to me, aren’t you, John?” “Yes,” muttered the thief, and with unsteady footsteps he staggered toward the bed, found it, and sank down upon a chair. He felt the hand of the old woman close upon his. “Are you John? Are you my boy? I cannot see. Tell me that you are John," the old woman whispered. “Yes, I am John,” the convict whiskered back. She said no more for a while but seemed to doze. Gently, by almost imperceptible degrees, the man in the room lowered the gas light till It was only a little twinkling flame in the darkness. And the thief sat motionless, his hand held tightly in the light clasp of the dying woman. After a long time she roused herself. “Johnny,” she whispered, “turn me so that I can put my lips to your ear.” And the convict turned the shrunken old body reverently.—andwith a new and strange fearlessness. Then the old woman spoke again, and so low and weak were her tones that he could only grasp them by bending his ear till her lips touched it. “Johnny,” she said, “J want you to be a good boy after I am gone. I want you to be good for your old mother’s sake, Johnny. There’s nobody will ever love you as I have done —nobody in the whole world. You’ve been wild, Johnny, dear, and people have said hard things about you and called you hard names, but I knew that you were my boy Johnny, my good boy, and that you were good at heart. Promise me you’ll always run straight, Johnny!” Graves promised. “Then I can go In peace, Johnny, dear. Kiss me.” The dying woman half raised herself and Graves took her in his arms and pressed his lips reverently to her forehead. And not daring to stir, he remained thus half through the night. Then longer—till the gray light began to steal through the shutters, vying with the low glow of the gas. The outlines of the room became apparent, the objects visible. Graves had almost fallen asleep when the man touched him on the shoulder and pointed." -^ —“ The vital fires had burned themselves out; gently and imperceptibly the life had faded out of the old frame. The dead woman's placid smile seemed like a benediction. Graves rose up. “I’m ready now,” he said to the man. "Go!” answered the man, pointing to the door; and the ex-convict shuffled along the carpet, his face working, his checks stained with tears. He halted at the door, hesitated, and shuffled back again. He went up to the man. “I don’t want-to go,” he muttered. "I want you to call the police. Say,” he went on, in impassioned accents, "I’ve got an old mother like that in Mapleton, and she's alive and Wants me to come home. Do you think if I went that I could ever become a man again? I’ve been in prison three years.” The man's hand fell on his shoulder, just as the head warder’s had fallen. He seemed sorry for him; it was odd, to come to think of it, how kind men were to one another. "My d ?ar fellow, I believe that Providence sent you here—Providence, which is only another name for God,” said the man. “Go back and face the world anew in your home town.” Why that was just what the governor had said! He held his hand out and the other took it and grasped it warmly. Suddenly Graves remembered. He pulled out from his pocket a handful of shimmering rings He placed them upon the dressing table an<J walked lightly out of the room. He did not shuffle now, for his heart was filled with lightness aqd for the in years he was at peace. "I’m going home!” he murmured. (Copyright. 1912, by W. 0.. Chapman.)