"I knit that in his blood too. I loved him so I made myself a thief for him. Of course I did not know—I did not understand the awful danger then; but— A young mother—I—it is hard to tell it here. You will not understand—you cannot. Oh, God, for a mother on the jury! A mother on the bench!"
She caught at her escaping courage again. The officer whose duty it was to take her away moved forward a second time, and a second time the judge motioned him back. She had been his mother's friend ever since he could remember, and the ordinary discipline of the court was not for her. He would do his duty, he said to himself, but surely there was no haste. All this was irregular, of course, but if something should come of it that gave excuse for a new trial no one would be more thankful than he.
"Young mothers are so ignorant. They know so little of all the things of which they should know much. They are so helpless. Judge, there will be criminal courts and prisons—oh, so many of both—just as long as motherhood is ignorant and helpless and swayed by feeling only. Don't you know it is ignorance and feeling that leads to crime? If people only understood! If only they were able to think it out to what it means, crimes would not be—but they cannot, they cannot! Those trembling lips you see before you are no more truly a copy of mine—the boy is as responsible for the set and curve of those lips—as he is for his hopeless fault. He has stolen from his infancy; but I, not he, am the thief. Now sentence the real criminal, judge. Courts are to punish the guilty—not to further curse the helpless victims. I am the criminal here. Sentence me!"
"Mother! Mother! I never understood my-self before! Oh, mother, mother!"
It was a wild cry from Walter Banks as his mother had risen asking for sentence on herself. He sprang forward, forgetting everything and took her in his arms. There was a great stir in the room.
"Silence in the court!"
Mrs. Banks had fainted. Her son helped to carry her into another room. No one attempted to prevent him. The young prosecutor returned with him and stood dumb before the court.
"I am ready for sentence, your Honor. I committed the burglary." It was the voice of the prisoner. He was standing with his arms folded and his eyes cast down. Silence fell in the room. The women ceased to sob. There was an uneasy movement in the jury box.
"In view of the new evidence—" began the foreman but the voice of the judge, slow and steady, filled the room.
"It is the sentence of this court that you, Walter Banks, be confined at hard labor in the state penitentiary for the term of four years."