“Poor fellow,” said the guard, “I’ll be kind of lonesome when he’s gone. He’s been a good prisoner.” This was the highest character that a guard could give.
“Well, Hank, if you are ready now, I’ll go on with my story. That whiskey kind of braced me up, and I s’pose you needed it too, after listenin’ so long. I must hurry, for I ain’t near through with what I wanted to say. I’ve thought lots about how I hit her, and I s’pose I ought to think it was awful, and it looks so to me now, and still it didn’t seem so then. I can’t help thinkin’ of what that feller said to us in his speech. He claimed that punishin’ people didn’t do no good; that other people was just as likely to kill someone if you hung anybody, as they would be if you let ‘em go, and he went on to say that they used to hang people for stealin’ sheep and still just as many sheep got stole and probably more’n there was after they done away with it. I don’t s’pose I ever should have thought anything about it if I hadn’t killed her, but, of course, that made me think a lot. I’m sure that I wouldn’t do such a thing again; I wouldn’t be near so likely to do it as I was before, because now I know how them things commence, and I’m awful, awful sorry for her too. There wa’n’t no reason why she should die, and why I should have killed her, and if there was anything I could do to change it, of course I would.
“But I can’t really see how hangin’ me is goin’ to do any good. If it was I might feel different, but it ain’t. Now, all my life I always read about all the murders in the newspapers and I read about all the trials and hangin’s, and I always kind of wished I could go and see one. But I never thought I’d go this way. Why, I was readin’ about a murder and how a feller was found guilty and sentenced to be hung just before I killed her. And do you s’pose I thought anything about it? If there’d been forty scaffolds right before my eyes I’d have brought down that poker just the same. I don’t believe anyone thinks of gettin’ hung when they do it; even if they did think of it they’d plan some way to get ‘round it when they made up their mind to do the killin’. But they don’t think much about it. I believe sometimes that the hangin’ makes more killin’. Now look at them car-barn fellers; they just went out and killed people regardless, same as some men go out to shoot game. I don’t believe they’d ‘ve done it if it hadn’t been so dangerous. And then you know when they hung the whole three of ‘em at once, and one feller cut his own throat so as to cheat ‘em, and they took him right up and hung him, too, though he was so weak they had to carry him onto the scaffold, and the doctors done ever’thing they could do to keep him from dyin’ just so’s they could hang him. Well, you know they hadn’t any more’n finished them until another gang of young fellers commenced doin’ just the same kind of thing, and they are in jail now for murder, and you know one of ‘em came in here one day and looked at the other ones before he done the killin’. I half believe that all the fuss they made ‘bout them fellers and hangin’ ‘em and printin’ it all in the newspapers did more to make the other ones do it than anything else. But I s’pose there ain’t no use hangin’ ‘em unless you put it all in the newspapers, for it won’t scare anyone from doin’ it unless people know they are hung.
“But, of course what I think about it don’t make any difference, so I’d better hurry on. Well, after she fell over I stood still for a few minutes waitin’ for her to get up. Of course I thought she’d get right up again, and mebbe come back at me. But she didn’t move. Then I thought she was scarin’ me, and I just sat down for a few minutes to show her that I wa’n’t goin’ to be fooled in no such way. Still she didn’t stir. Then I commenced to be half scart and half mad. I didn’t think it was right to try to make me believe I had done anything like that. So I said, ‘When you’ve laid there long enough you’d better get up.’ Then I said, ‘What’s the use of playin’ theater, you can’t fool me. I’m goin’ to bed and when you get ready you can come along.’ But I didn’t go to bed; I just sat still a little longer, and then I stepped over by her head and looked down at it, and I thought it didn’t look right, and then I was scart in earnest. Just then I heard the kid cry, and I didn’t want him to come out, so I locked the outside door and took a good look to see that all the curtains was clear down, and went in to see the kid. I lit a candle in the bedroom and talked with him a little; told him ever’thing was all right and to go to sleep, and I’d come in again in a minute or two. Then I went back to the settin’ room to see her.
“Before I looked at her face I looked down to her feet to see if maybe they hadn’t moved, for I didn’t want to look at her face if I could help it. And I thought mebbe this would be the best way. But the feet was just where they was before; then I looked at her hands and they hadn’t moved, so I knew I just had to look at her face. I hadn’t examined her very close before, I was so scart, and I never could look at blood or dead folks, but of course this was different; so I got down on the floor close up to her face, and I seen the great welt along her forehead and top of her head and across the temple, and ‘twas all covered with blood and a lot of it had got on the floor. Her eyes was wide open. I knew they didn’t see anything. They looked just as if they’d been turned to glass, before she’d had time to shut ‘em. I felt of her wrist to see if her pulse was goin’. At first I thought it wa’n’t, and then I thought I felt it go a little, and I never felt so good in all my life. I pushed my finger down harder, but I couldn’t get it again. Then I felt of her heart and it was just the same way. I leaned over to her ear, and asked her to please wake up, that I was awful sorry, and I didn’t know what I was doin’, and if she’d just speak I’d be good to her all my life and do ever’thing I could for her, and then I asked her to do it on account of the boy, but still she didn’t move. Of course I was almost scart to death by this time; first I thought I’d call the neighbors and send for a doctor and then I thought that was no use. If she wa’n’t dead I didn’t need him, and if she was I must try to do somethin’ so no one would find it out. Then I began to think what could be done to bring her to. I never had much experience with people that got hurt, except the ones I’d seen at the railroad, and I wa’n’t just sure what to do with anyone in this fix. But I’d read somethin’ about it somewhere, and so I went into the back room and drew some water into a pail and took an old cloth and got down on the floor and commenced washin’ her head. But I couldn’t see the first sign of life. Then I looked around for some whiskey and found a little in a bottle in the closet and poured some in her mouth, but it all run right out, and she didn’t move.
“Of course I never went to school very much but no matter how good an education I had I don’t s’pose I could tell you how I felt so you’d know it yourself. I never s’posed I’d do anything to get into any trouble, and I always thought I was different from criminals. But here I was in the house with her dead, and I’d killed her, and what would happen to me? I just pictured the headlines in the newspapers and the boys callin’ ‘all about the Jackson murder,’ and me tried for murder and hung, and the kid goin’ ‘round the rest of his life knowin’ that his father had killed his mother and then got hung.
“At first I just set paralyzed and sort of held my head in my hands and moaned, and wondered if mebbe it wa’n’t a dream and if I couldn’t wake up, and then I thought I’d go and give myself up to the police and be done with it, and then I thought I might just as well kill myself, so I went and got an old razor, that I used to shave with sometimes, and tried to get up my nerve to cut my throat. But somehow I couldn’t put the edge over my wind-pipe. I wish though now that I had. Did you ever try to kill yourself? Them people that say it’s only cowards that kill themselves don’t know what they’re talkin’ about. I’d like to see them try it once. I’d have killed myself only I didn’t have the nerve. It wa’n’t because I cared anything about livin’; but I just couldn’t cut my own throat. Then I thought mebbe she wa’n’t dead, and I’d look again. So I done just the way I had before,—commenced at her feet to see if they’d moved, then when I got up to her hands I thought one of ‘em had moved, and my heart just gave a great big jump. Then I remembered that I’d picked it up, when I’d felt for her pulse and had put it down in a different place. Then I looked up to her face and it was just the same. It was white as a sheet, all except the long red and black welt and the blood, and her eyes wide open, and lookin’ right straight up to the ceilin’ starin’ just like a ghost. Then I felt of her hands and feet, and they was cold as ice and she was stiff, and I knew it was all off and she was dead.
“If you don’t mind I’ll just take a little more of that whiskey before I go on; the whole thing’s been a little wearin’ on me and I think it’ll brace me up a bit. You’d better have some, too. That guard is a good feller, considerin’ the place he’s in. I believe if you hadn’t come I’d told my story to him. I didn’t feel as if I could go without tellin’ someone how it really was. You see no one ever made the least bit of allowance for me in the trial, and I got tired of talkin’ to my lawyer all the time. He always said that what I told him didn’t amount to anything, and he was so well educated that he couldn’t understand me anyhow.
“When I was sure that she was dead, I just throwed myself over on the floor, and laid my face flat down on my arm and give up. I’m sure I cried and I thought they could hear me next door, but I guess they didn’t. Anyhow I cried without payin’ any attention to ‘em. I must have laid this way for ten or fifteen minutes without once lookin’ up, and she was right close to me, and I could just reach out my hand and touch her. And I hadn’t begun to think what I’d do. Then after I’d laid a while, I just thought mebbe I’d ought to pray. It had been a long while since I’d prayed. Of course, I hadn’t paid much attention to such things when I was all right; I guess there ain’t many people that does, except women and children, but I always really believed in it, just the same as I do now. I kind of thought that God knew that I wasn’t wicked enough to kill her, and have all this trouble, and bring all that misery on the kid; so I thought I’d try him. I didn’t know much about prayers except only the ones I’d learnt long ago, and they didn’t any of ‘em seem to fit this case. But I didn’t need to know any prayers; I just got down on my knees and prayed myself. I begged God to have her come back; I told him how good she was, and how the boy needed her and what a hard time I’d always had, same as I told you, only not near so long, and I apologized the best I could for not goin’ to church more reg’lar and not ever prayin’ to him, and I asked him to forgive me for the time I kicked her, and the other things I’d done, and I promised if he only would let her come back I’d always be good and take care of her and the boy, and never do anything wrong and always go to church and confessional, and love God and Jesus and the Virgin and all the saints, and quit politics and drinkin’, and do right. I prayed and prayed, and I meant it all, too. And I don’t believe it was all for myself, ‘though I s’pose most of it was, but I really felt awful sorry for her, as I have ever since, and I felt awful sorry for the boy, who never had anything at all to do about it all.
“Then after I quit prayin’ I got up slow, thinkin’ that it might have done some good, and that mebbe she’d be all right, so I started in, just as I had before, with her feet to see if they’d moved. I s’pose the reason I done this way was that if I saw her head first and knew she was dead ‘twould be all off the first thing; and when I commenced with her feet I always had some hope till I got clear up to her head. Well, her feet hadn’t moved a bit. Then I went to her hands, and they was just in the same place, and I began to feel it wa’n’t any use to look at her head; but I did. And there it was just as white as that plaster-Paris lady, and her eyes lookin’ straight up.