The Turn of the Balance

by Brand Whitlock

"That's a swell lid you've got on there, Gunny, my boy. I'm proud to fill in with your mob."

Gunning tried to smile, and his face, already white with the prison pallor, seemed to be made more ghastly by the mockery of mirth.

The Kid was well dressed, as well dressed as Graves, who still wore the good clothes he had always loved. Graves was white, too, but not as yet with the prison pallor. He tried to bear himself bravely; he did not wish to break down before his companions, all of whom had longer sentences to serve than he. He dreaded the ride through the familiar streets where a short time before he had walked in careless liberty, full of the joy and hope and ambition of youth. He knew that countless memories would stalk those streets, rising up unexpectedly at every corner, following him to the station with mows and jeers; he tried to bear himself bravely, and he did succeed in bearing himself grimly, but he had an aching lump in his throat that would not let him speak. It had been there ever since that hour in the afternoon when his mother had squeezed her face between the bars of his cell to kiss him good-by again and again. The prison had been strangely still while she was there, and for a long time after she went even the Kid had been quiet and had forgotten his joshing and his ribaldry. Graves had tried to be brave for his mother's sake, and now he tried to be brave for appearances' sake. He envied Delaney and the negro, who took it all stolidly, and he might have envied the Kid, who took it all humorously, if it had not been for what the Kid had said to him that afternoon about his own mother. But now the Kid was cheerful again, and kept up the spirits of all of them. To Graves it was like some horrible dream; everything in the room--Danner, the turnkeys, the exhibit of jailer's instruments on the wall--was unreal to him--everything save the hat-band that hurt his temples, and the aching lump in his throat. His eyes began to smart, his vision was blurred; instinctively he started to lift his hand to draw his hat farther down on his forehead, but something jerked, and Schypalski moved suddenly; then he remembered the handcuffs. The Pole was dumb under it all, but Graves knew how Schypalski had felt that afternoon when the young wife whom he had married but six months before was there; he had wept and grown mad until he clawed at the bars that separated them, and then he had mutely pressed his face against them and kissed the young wife's lips, just as Graves's mother had kissed him. And then the young wife would not leave, and Danner had to come and drag her away across the cement floor.

Johnson was stupefied; he had not known until that afternoon that he was to be taken away so soon, and his wife had not known; she was to bring the children on the next day to see him. For an hour Johnson had been on the point of saying something; his lips would move, and he would lift his eyes to Danner, but he seemed afraid to speak.

Meanwhile, Danner was making his entries and looking over his commitment papers. The Kid had begun to talk with Deacon Samuel. He and the Deacon had been working together and had been arrested for the same crime, but Danner had separated them in the jail so they could not converse, and they were together now for the first time since their arrest. The Kid bent his body forward and leaned out of the line to look down at the Deacon. The old thief was smooth-faced and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. When the Kid caught his mild, solemn eye, looking out benignly from behind his glasses, a smile spread over his face, and he said:

"Well, old pard, we're fixed for the next five-spot."

"Yes," said the Deacon.

"How was it pulled off for you?" asked the Kid.

"Oh, it was the same old thing over again," replied the Deacon. "They had us lagged before the trial, but they had to make a flash of some kind, so they put up twelve suckers and then they put a rapper up, and that settled it."

"There was nothing to it," said the Kid, in a tone that acquiesced in all the Deacon had been saying. "It was that way with me. They were out chewing the rag for five minutes, then they comes in, hands the stiff to the old bloke in the rock, and he hands it to quills, who reads it to me, and then the old punk-hunter made his spiel."