“Your wish comes from a kind heart,” he said. “But this man has been convicted. The law must be obeyed. There is nothing in it that allows us to let a guilty man go free.”
The jurymen whispered together and one of them arose.
“Your Honor,” he said, “a higher law than any made by man came into the world at Christmas—that we love one another. These men would obey it. Will you not let them? The jury pray as one man that you let mercy go before justice on this Holy Eve.”
A smile lit up Judge O’Sullivan’s face. “Filippo Portoghese,” he said, “you are a very fortunate man. The law bids me send you to prison for ten years, and but for a miraculous chance would have condemned you to death. But the man you maimed for life pleads for you, and the jury that convicted you begs that you go free. The Court remembers what you have suffered and it knows the plight of your family, upon whom the heaviest burden of your punishment would fall. Go, then, to your home. And to you, gentlemen, a happy holiday such as you have given him and his! This court stands adjourned.”
The voice of the crier was lost in a storm of applause. The jury rose to their feet and cheered judge, complainant, and defendant. Portoghese, who had stood as one dazed, raised eyes that brimmed with tears to the bench and to his old neighbor. He understood at last. Ammella threw his arm around him and kissed him on both cheeks, his disfigured face beaming with joy. One of the jurymen, a Jew, put his hand impulsively in his pocket, emptied it into his hat, and passed the hat to his neighbor. All the others followed his example. The court officer dropped in half a dollar as he stuffed its contents into the happy Italian’s pocket. “For little Vito,” he said, and shook his hand.
“Ah!” said the foreman of the jury, looking after the reunited friends leaving the court-room arm in arm; “it is good to live in New York. A merry Christmas to you, Judge!”
OUR ROOF GARDEN AMONG THE TENEMENTS
A year has gone since we built a roof garden on top of the gymnasium that took away our children’s playground by filling up the yard. In many ways it has been the hardest of all the years we have lived through with our poor neighbors. Poverty, illness, misrepresentation, and the hottest and hardest of all summers for those who must live in the city’s crowds—they have all borne their share. But to the blackest cloud there is somewhere a silver lining if you look long enough and hard enough for it, and ours has been that roof garden. It is not a very great affair—some of you readers would smile at it, I suppose. There are no palm trees and no “pergola,” just a plain roof down in a kind of well with tall tenements all about. Two big barrels close to the wall tell their own story of how the world is growing up toward the light. For they once held whisky and trouble and deviltry; now they are filled with fresh, sweet earth, and beautiful Japanese ivy grows out of them and clings lovingly to the wall of our house, spreading its soft, green tendrils farther and farther each season, undismayed by the winter’s cold. And then boxes and boxes on a brick parapet, with hardy Golden Glow, scarlet geraniums, California privet, and even a venturesome Crimson Rambler.