"Tommy, go speak to her," I said. "That's Dick's mother."
"Aw, gee, ain't that hell! The poor old soull"
The spring wagon rattled by. Tommy put up his hand to the driver. "Go slow there, ye heartless boob. That there is the poor lad's old mother."
The driver reined in the horse. Dick's mother lurched, against the wagon and looked in at; the wooden box. She was swaying from side to side like a crazy thing.
All that she had on earth—the boy whose tragic, broken life had been her crucifixion—was in that crude box. The wagon jogged off—the trembling, heart-piercing old figure half running, half falling along the road after it.
Society had taken the last farthing of its debt from Dick Price and it had beaten his mother into the dust in the cruel bargain.
CHAPTER XX.
The Prison Demon; the beast exhibited; magic of kindness; reclamation;tragedy of Ira Maralatt; meeting of father and daughter.
Such is the story of Jimmy Valentine as it unfolded itself in the Ohio penitentiary. O. Henry takes the one great episode in that futile life and with it he wins the tears and the grateful smiles of the nation. In that throbbing silence, when the ex-con opens the safe and the little sister of the girl he loves is saved from suffocation, Jimmy as he might have been, not Jimmy as he was, is before us. Few who have breathed hard in that gripping moment would have denied Dick Price his chance, would have refused him the pardon he earned, would have doomed him to his forlorn and lonely death in the prison hospital.
Bill Porter was not the grim artist to paint that harsh picture for the world. He loved a happy ending. He could not even give the exact details of the safe- opening. It was too cruel for his light and winsome fancy.
That was ever Bill's way. He took the facts, but he twisted them as he would. I asked him about it later. In the story he gives the hero a costly set of tools wherewith to open the vault. He does not have him file his nails.
"Colonel, it chills my teeth to think of that gritting operation," he said. "I prefer the set of tools. I don't like to make my victims suffer. And then, you see, the tools enable Jimmy to make a present to a friend. That gift illustrates the toleration of the man who has been in prison.
"Jimmy decided to quit the game himself, but he does not expect the whole world to share his fervor of reform. Instead of burying the instruments of his former profession, as your reformed citizen would have done, he straightway sends them to a former pal. I like that spirit in my character.
"The ordinary man who makes a New Year's resolution immediately sends down censure on the fellow who isn't perched on the wagon with him. Jimmy does no such thing. That's one of the advantages of spending a few vacations in prison. You grow mellow in your judgments."
This soft, golden toleration was one of the gracious traits in Porter's character. It won him friends even though his aloof dignity forbade familiarity. In the "pen" he was universally respected. The meanest cutthroat in the ranges felt honored to serve him.
Porter's "drag" with the prison barber was the subject of raillery at the club. The barber was an artist in his trade. He seemed to take a mean delight in turning out grotesque, futuristic patterns in headdress. But for Porter the most exquisite precision was observed. His thin, yellow hair was trimmed to a nicety. The kind, easy manner of the man had completely captivated, the burly-hearted convict barber.
If it had not been for this humorous, penetrative understanding in Porter, the Recluse Club would not have endured a month. He was its equilibrium. Many a violent clash ended in a laugh because of an odd fling Bill Porter would interject into the turmoil.
Men who have been walled off from free contact with their fellows become excessively quarrelsome and "touchy." We were cooped together like children in an over-large family. We had no escape from each other's society.
The isolation of prison life whets antagonism. Men who could travel to the ends of the earth in friendship would, in a sudden raging bitterness, spring like tigers at each other's throat. Even in the happiness of our Sunday dinners these explosive outbursts would break out among the members.
It would start with the merest trifle, and all at once there would be fiercely angry taunts flung from one to the other. In one of these uncalled for eruptions I sent in my resignation to the club.
Billy Raidler had protested that he could taste the soapsuds on the dishes. I was the chief dishwasher. I did not like the imputation. I would not have minded Billy's protest, but old man Carnot backed him up with further criticism.
"Most assuredly we can taste the soap," he said. "But worse than that, I do not like the garlic. Now, Mr. Jennings, why can you not pick the odious vegetable out of the roast?"
Carnot was an irascible old epicure. He wanted his napkin folded oblong and his knife and fork laid down in a certain fashion. He never failed to resent the introduction of the garlic Louisa loved.
Every one at the table took up the issue. They could all taste the soapsuds, they said. "Damn* pigs, all of you! Take the honor at the dishpan yourselves." I was furious with resentment. I could have hurled the pots and skillets at them. The next Sunday I did not go to the club. I told Billy I was finished with them. Billy had no patience with the sulks and left me in a huff.
Porter came over to the post-office and knocked at the door. "Colonel," he said, and there was such understanding indulgence in his tone I felt immediately appeased, "don't you think you better reconsider?"
"You're the very salt of the earth. The club is absolutely flat without your presence. You see, we only agreed with Billy to sustain him. He's a cripple. He can't stand alone."
It was just the sort of pampering to mollify unreasonable hot temper. Porter was always ready to smooth us down. He was always ready to hear our grievances. His own troubles he bore alone.
Whenever he did reveal his thoughts it was by an accidental outcropping in a lightsome talk. He and Louisa used to indulge in long discussions on astronomy and evolution. Porter was facetious, Louisa serious and very scientific. Louisa would be mixing up a gravy or a sauce.
"You're something of a little creator in the culinary line, Louisa," Porter would say. "What do you suppose were the ingredients used in the creation of the world?"
Louisa's attention was instant. He would talk about protoplasm and the gradual accommodation of living organism to environment.
"Tut, tut," Porter would mock. "I hold fast to the Biblical story. What else should men be made of but a handful of mud? The Creator was right; men are but dirt. Take Ira Maralatt, the Prison Demon, for instance."
A queer, yellowish pallor spread over Bill's face. I knew that the name had slipped from Porter's lips unconsciously.
"Colonel, it is a ghastly thing to see a man degraded into a beast like Maralatt," he said. "Last night they beat him to strips again. I had to go down to the basement to sponge him off. I tell you it would take a floor mop to do the job right he is such a giant."
It was the first time I had ever heard Porter speak of Maralatt, the Prison Demon, yet he had perhaps to sponge him off two or three times a week. Maralatt was the untamed tiger of the "stir." He was the prison horror. He had attacked and stabbed a dozen guards.
For fourteen years he had been in solitary, practically buried alive in the black hole in the basement without a bed, without blankets, without light.