My interview with Johnson was undisturbed by any other presence, and he greeted me with no premonition of the meaning of the roll of white paper that I held. Very quietly our visit began; but when Johnson was quite at his ease, I asked: "Has anything been done about your case since I saw you last?" "Oh, no, nothing ever will be done for me! I've given up all hope."
"I had a talk with the governor about you yesterday, and he was willing to help you. He gave me this paper which you and I will look over together." I watched in vain for any look of interest in his face as I said this.
Slowly, aloud, I read the official words, Johnson's eyes following as I read; but his realization of the meaning of the words came with difficulty. When I had read the date of his release we both paused; as the light broke into his mind, he said:
"Then in January I shall be free"; another pause, while he tried to grasp just what this would mean to him; and then, "I shall be free. Now I can work and earn money to send you to help other poor fellows." That was his uppermost thought during the rest of the interview.
In the evening the Catholic chaplain, Father Cyriac, of beloved memory, came to me with the request that I have another interview with Johnson, saying: "The man is so distressed because in his overwhelming surprise he forgot to thank you to-day."
"He thanked me better than he knew," I replied.
But of course I saw Johnson again the next day; and in this, our last interview, he made a final desperate effort to tell me what his prison life had been. "Behind me were stone walls, on each side of me were stone walls, nothing before me but stone walls. And then you came and brought hope into my life, and now you have brought freedom, and I cannot find words to thank you." And dropping his head on his folded arms the man burst into tears, his whole body shaken with sobs. I hope that I made him realize that there was no need of words, that when deep calleth unto deep the heart understands in silence.
Only yesterday, turning to my writing-desk in search of something else, I chanced across a copy of the letter I wrote to the governor after my interview with Johnson, and as it is still warm with the feelings of that never-to-be-forgotten experience, I insert it here:
"I cannot complete my Thanksgiving Day until I have given you the message of thanks entrusted to me by Hiram Johnson. At first he could not realize that the long years of prison life were actually to be ended. It was too bewildering, like a flood of light breaking upon one who has long been blind. And when he began to grasp the meaning of your gift the first thing he said to me was, 'Now I can work and earn money to send you for some other poor fellow.'
"Not one thought of self, only of the value of liberty as a means, at last, to do something for others. How hard he tried to find words to express his gratitude. It made my heart ache for the long, long years of repression that had made direct expression almost impossible; and in that thankfulness, so far too deep for words, I read, too, the measure of how terrible the imprisoned life had been. Thank heaven and a good governor, it will soon be over! Hiram Johnson has a generous heart and true, and he will be a good man. And it is beautiful to know that spiritual life can grow and unfold even under the hardest conditions."