I moved to leave the bed, but he laid a detaining hand lightly upon me. I shivered, and looking up I met his gaze and was held by it. It was pleading—commanding, almost compelling. I understood him perfectly, and I tried hard to break away from that controlling glance, but all in vain, until a dimness came across his eyes and slow tears gathered there. Then I wrenched my eyes from his and hung my head and whispered, “Good-bye.” As my mother called me I slid off the bed to go to her, but the hoarse whisper came, “Little torment!” and I stopped. Again, “Dear, little torment!” and foolishly I looked at him, and for the last time our struggle was renewed, and now I had to resist not only his pleading, but that of something within me that said, “Think of his little daughter who cannot tell him good-bye, and kiss him for her sake.” Almost I yielded—and then—the homesick friend, the bridge, the knife, and I threw back my head violently and exclaimed, “No! No! I can’t! but——” and I laid my little hand against his lips. He took it gently, gently, and sighing heavily he kissed it, palm and back, and every dimple, including the tiny one in my wrist, and every finger-tip, and then said under his breath, as it were, “Good-bye, little maid who knows her own mind,” and as the key was turning in the lock after we had gone from the cell we heard him give a husky laugh and say, “She’s got a will—it’s stronger than mine—for, mind you, she never kissed me!”
And that was our last sight of “the gentleman who was going to die,” because that bright day, when Charley and I were out making the acquaintance of a very remarkable calf—remarkable because its forequarters were mild and gentle, while its hindquarters stung like an adder—and we were about to play marketing, and we both had a desire to purchase the forequarters of the calf, and as we never quarreled we drew lots for choice, while the calf slowly chewed up our market basket—and at that very moment, in the city, Goldy-locks’ beloved “Mr. No. 3” was heading a procession to the scaffold with many a jest about the “blue funk” he said the men were in about him. He remarked their pale faces and trembling hands, and actually encouraged and advised them, himself directing the proper placing of the fatal knot. Then with alert, springy step, bright eye and cheerful voice he mounted the scaffold, stepped with quick obedience upon the trap, and was hurled out of this world into—what?
White and cold and silent his wife removed her coffined dead, and when we returned “the gentleman who was going to die” had died. He was gone, and his cell and corridor knew him no more.
Old Myra’s Waiting
Old Myra’s Waiting
Was she mad? I do not know. I only know that she was old, oh! very old, and had known such sorrows as break the heart and blast the intellect of many of her sex. So old, so fragile—so poor—with a wit like polished steel and a tongue like an adder. I was her one friend in the world and was as helpless as herself. We each earned our own living—that was the one experience we had in common. Save for that, there was a whole world between us. She stood wavering and unstrung at one end of life—I stood quivering and tense at the other end. She had known it all, all, and only wished to sleep, to forget—I knew nothing, and only longed to learn, to feel, to know.
The first time I saw her she stood on the bank of the lake, a little, swaying, black-robed figure, facing a blinding gale. The wild wind tore her pitifully thin shawl from her shoulders and sent it whirling down the lonely street. I set my long, young legs in motion and ran it down, and returning, put it about her sharp, old shoulders.