The guards were rushing noisily around among the visitors and inmates, passing bundles and baskets out and in, calling the names of the prisoners to be taken from their cells inside and brought down to the wire netting to get a glimpse of some relative or friend. Hank was bewildered by it all and for a few minutes stood almost dazed, wondering what it meant and what good purpose it all served.
Next to him stood a woman, perhaps forty years of age; in one hand she held a basket, and by the other the hand of a little girl about nine years old. The woman was dressed in a loose, ill-fitting gown and on her head was a black sailor hat. Behind the wire screen was a man of about her own age. He wore only black trousers, suspenders, a grayish woolen shirt and old shoes. The man and woman stood with their fingers touching through the netting. Hank heard the man say that he did not know what to do, that the good lawyers charged so much that he couldn’t have them, and the ones who came to the jail did more harm than good. It was funny that you couldn’t do anything without a lawyer. One of the prisoners, who was a smart man and had been there a good many times, had told him that the best way was to plead guilty and ask the mercy of the court; that he thought the judge might let him off with a two hundred dollar fine—“you know the State’s Attorney gets the money.” Hank heard the woman answer that maybe to pay the fine was the best way after all; as soon as he was arrested she took Gussy out of the high school, and Gussy was now working in the department store and thought Aggie could get in as a cash girl; of course Aggie was too young, but still she was pretty large for her age and might get through, as Gussy knew the floorwalker very well—he stopped at the house to visit one evening that week and was real nice.
“I’ve been scrubbing in the Masonic Temple nights, but it’s pretty hard work and I am getting so large I am afraid I can’t keep it up much longer. You know I’ll be sick next month. There are a few things in the house yet and I might get a little money on them, and then there are the Maloneys next door; you know we were always fighting, but after you went away they seemed kind of sorry and have been awfully good to us, and I think they might help us a little, although they haven’t got much themselves——”
Hank couldn’t stop to hear all they said, and besides he felt as if he had no right to stand and listen, so he let his eye wander on down the line. Just beyond he saw an old bent, gray-haired woman with a long black veil and spotless black gown. She was crying and talking to a young man inside the grating. He heard her ask, “How could you have done it?” and heard him answer, “Mother, I don’t know, but somehow I didn’t seem to think about it at the time.” Just beyond were a man and a woman and it was so hard for them to get close to the screen that the man held a little baby up in his arms to look over the people in front. The child looked in wonder and then held out its hands and shouted with delight, “Mamma, there’s papa. Papa, have you been here all the time? Why don’t you come back home?” Young girls, too, pressed closely up to the screen, each with that look at the youth inside that neither the wise nor the foolish have ever failed to understand. The prison bars and the laws that placed their lovers outside the pale had no power to change their feeling, only to deepen and intensify their love.
While Hank stood in the corridor a number of men called from the inside: “Pardner, have you got any tobacco?” Hank hastily gave away all he had, and thought that if he should ever come back he would buy as much as he could before his visit. But his musing was soon interrupted by the guard tapping him on the shoulder and telling him he was ready. Then another turnkey opened a barred door and let him inside the wicket. Here he stood in a narrow hallway with still another big locked door in front. Soon this was swung open, and at last Hank stood inside the bars and the nettings with a great throng of coatless, hatless men all talking, laughing, chewing and smoking, and walking by twos and threes, up and down the room. Hank had always supposed that these men were different from the ones he knew and had fancied that he would be afraid to be with such a crowd, but when he got inside, somehow he did not think of them as burglars and pickpockets; they seemed just like other men, except that they were a little paler and thinner and more bent. Some of these men spoke to Hank, asking him for tobacco or for money. He saw one man whom he knew very well, one of his neighbors that he supposed was out of town; and he quickly noticed that this man tried to keep out of his sight. Hank had never thought that he was bad, and could not but wonder how he happened to be here.
Hank looked around for Jim, but was told that he was upstairs locked in his cell. The guard explained that the death-watch had been set on him and that for some time no one had left him day or night. He was to be hanged in the morning before sunrise. He himself had gone around that day and handed written invitations to the judges to be present. Some of them had asked him whether they could get in a few friends who wanted to go and see the hanging. The guard said they had over a thousand applications for tickets; that it was one of the most popular hangings they’d ever had in the jail. He supposed this was because Jackson had killed his wife and the newspapers had said so much about it.
He could not help feeling sorry for Jackson. Of course, he supposed he was awfully wicked or he wouldn’t have killed his wife, but since he had come to know Jackson he had found him a perfect gentleman and very kind and obliging, and he acted like a good fellow. It really seemed kind of tough to hang a man. He had seen a good many men hung and was getting kind of tired of it. He believed he would go out in the country fishing somewhere tomorrow instead of staying to see it done. They never needed so many guards on that day because all the prisoners were kept locked up in their cells.
As Hank went along, the guard chatted to him in the most friendly way. He pointed over to the courtyard where there were some long black beams and boards, and said that was where they were going to hang Jackson, that the carpenters would put up the scaffold in the night. The murderers’ row where Jim was kept was around on the side where he couldn’t see the carpenters put up the scaffold. It used to be right in front but it had been changed. The guard said he didn’t see much difference, because the men could hear it and they knew just what it was, and anyhow they never could sleep the last night unless they took something. He told Hank that after they got through he would take him down to the office and show him a piece of the rope that they used to hang the Anarchists, and the one they used on Pendergast, who killed Carter Harrison, and the one they had for the car-barn murderers. It was the very best rope they could get; some people wouldn’t know it from clothes-line but it was a good deal finer and more expensive.
The guard said it was strange how these men acted before they were hanged.
“You wouldn’t hardly know them from the prisoners who were in jail working out a fine,” he explained. “They don’t seem to mind it very much or talk about it a great deal. Of course, at first they generally kind of think that the Supreme Court is going to give them a new trial; their lawyers tell them so. But half the time this is so that their friends will get more money to pay for carrying the cases up; though I must say that some of the lawyers are good fellows and do all they can to help them. Sometimes some of the lawyers that have the worst reputations are really better than the others. Then after the Supreme Court decides against them, they have a chance to go to the governor and the Board of Pardons. Of course this isn’t much use, but somehow they always think it will be, and the case is never really decided until the last day and that kind of helps to keep them up. Now, there’s Jackson; I took him the telegram about an hour ago and he read it and it didn’t seem to make much difference. He just said, ‘Well, I s’pose that’s all.’ And then he picked it up and read it again and said, ‘Well, the lawyer says he’s going back to the governor at midnight. Something might happen then; will the office be open if any telegram comes?’ I told him that it would and he says, ‘Well, I presume that it’s no use; but where there’s life there’s hope.’ I s’pose the lawyer just said that to kind of brace him up and that he took the night train back to Chicago, but I didn’t tell Jim so. Well, anyhow, I’m going to see that he has a good breakfast. We always give ‘em anything they want, either tea or coffee, ham and eggs, bacon, steak, beans, potatoes, wheat cakes and molasses, almost anything you can think of. Of course most of ‘em can’t eat much, but some of ‘em take a pretty big breakfast. It really don’t do any good, only the taste of it goin’ down; they are always dead before it has a chance to digest. A good many of ‘em feel rather squeamish in the morning and drink a good deal before they start out. We always give ‘em all they want to drink; most of ‘em are really drunk when they are hung. But I think that’s all right, don’t you? There were some temperance people once that made a row about it, but I think that’s carrying temperance entirely too far myself.