The Sunny Side of the Street

by Marshall P. Wilder

She had Dressed in a Style Truly Wonderful.

During the drive she sat stiffly erect, gazed with scorn at people who were merely walking, and occasionally dropped a stiff, formal speech, after the manner of polite conversation in her youthful days. When we had almost reached our destination, she said to my friend her escort:

“For your extreme kindness to me, I should like to bestow upon you a slight remembrance, something saved from the beautiful things I once owned.” She put her hand into her reticule and we expected to see a trinket such as women prize, but she pulled out a pistol and apparently leveled it at my friend. We gasped, instantly convinced that she had lost the tiny bit of sanity that was left to her, but in a second we saw that she was presenting it to, not at, him. It was a pretty toy with a pearl handle and inlaid with silver, but, like herself, rusty and dilapidated. It was her last bit of elegance and all the poor creature had to offer in token of her gratitude.

A touching feature of this Home was the manner of furnishing the rooms for the pay patients. When the wing for this class of inmates was built it was believed that a long time would elapse before there would be money enough in the treasury to furnish the rooms. A kind hearted woman who visited the house weekly with donations of snuff, tobacco and candy conceived a clever plan. She had just lost her mother, in whose name she presented the entire furnishings of her mother’s room to the Home. Word of this got abroad; other people followed her example and in a short time the entire wing was furnished in similar manner; so now the visitor to the home sees a wing of four stories, the halls lined with doors on each of which is a brass plate engraved with the name of the person who furnished the room in memory of parent, brother, sister or child.

This is an appropriate place in my story to tell of the largest fee I ever received for entertaining, for although the giver was not heartily interested in a public institution, he was en route for one.

I was traveling in the West and looking about the railway car for a friend, an acquaintance or even some one with whom I might scrape acquaintance, for I don’t enjoy being alone a long time, when I saw, in one end of the car, an officer with a prisoner. It did not take long to see that the prisoner was handcuffed, his feet were shackled to the bottom of the seat, and behind him were two guards with revolvers in hand. Evidently the prisoner was of some consequence, although he looked like a mere boy. He sat with bowed head and a hopeless look on his white face. His eyes, which in so young a man ought to have been bright and merry, were downcast and full of gloom.

I ventured over to the party and soon recognized one of the guards, as a man I had seen in a similar capacity at the Elmira Reformatory. In reply to my questions about the prisoner, he told me that the youth had been brought on extradition proceedings from England, after evading capture a long time. His crime had been peculiarly atrocious and he was now being taken to Kansas City for trial.

I was sorry for the officer and guards, as well as for the prisoner, for there can’t be much that’s cheery in hunting down and manacling a fellow man, no matter how bad he may be. Besides, they looked about as uncomfortable as the prisoner, so I got off a joke or two to brace them up. Soon the prisoner raised his head and manifested a trace of interest. Then I asked if I might try some card tricks on them. Of course I might; it’s hard to find a man so troubled, that he won’t forget his misery a moment or two over a card trick.

All the men in the car were soon looking on, but I kept my eye and heart on the prisoner; no matter what he deserved, it was plain to see what he needed. The poor wretch became thoroughly aroused from his dejection, so I sandwiched tricks and stories and saw him “pick up” a little more after each one. I “played at him,” and him alone, as actors sometimes do at one man in a theatre audience. It was a big contract, and I was a small man, but I was bound to see it through. It took two hours of hard work, but at the end of that time the prisoner was an entirely different man in appearance. His eyes were bright, the color had come back to his cheeks, his whole manner had changed; he had forgotten his past and for the moment he was a man again. When we were near Kansas City, he asked me if I wouldn’t shake hands with him, and he said that I could never know what my kindness in the past two hours had been to him. The look he gave me, as I clasped his manacled hand, was the biggest pay I ever got in my life.