Through the kindness of a friend I had the very great happiness of sending Anton a pass, "For bearer and one," that gave him, with an escort, the freedom of the World's Fair steamers for the summer—the greatest possible boon to the boy, for even when too weak to go to the steamer he could still cherish the expectation of that delight.
Anton's strength failed rapidly. He wrote me one letter saying: "I can die happy now that I am with my mother. I thank you a thousand times over and over for your kind feeling towards me and the kind words in your letters, and the charming rose you sent. I cannot write a long letter on account of my pains through my whole chest. I can't turn during the night from one side to another. Dear Friend, I don't like to tell my misery and sorrows to persons, but I can't help telling you."
Another letter soon followed, but not from Anton. It was the sister who wrote:
"Dear Friend:
"With deep sorrow I inform you of my dear brother's death. He died at four o'clock in the morning. He had a great desire to see you before he died. We should be glad to see you at the funeral if convenient Wednesday morning.
"Pardon this poor letter
"from your loving friend
"Miss Nina Zabrinski."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] These "solitary" cells in which a prisoner passed his first night were in a detached building in which the punishment cells were located. The solitude was absolute and terrible.
[9] The striped convict suit was practically abolished at Joliet the following year.
[10] This young man, Edmund M. Allen, is now warden of this same prison, and has so developed the humanizing methods of his father as to bring Joliet penitentiary into the front rank of progressive prison reform.