"Say, do you think she'd mind my
sending her a hymn-book and a few flowers?
sending her a hymn-book and a few flowers?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v25 - Tas to Tur
Either from policy or some
other motive, he was laughing now. "It's not nearly so inter-
esting in a literary point of view, you know," said he; "but I
guess it will be easier not to have so many things to remember.
## p. 14745 (#319) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14745
And you're right: I didn't mean to hint for money, but it did
look like it. "
"He did mean to hint," thought the sheriff; "but he's got
some sense. " The letter finally submitted was a masterpiece in
its way.
This time the sheriff smiled, though grimly. He also
gave Paisley a cigar.
liff.
Regularly the letters to Mrs. Smith were submitted to Wick-
Raker never thought of reading them. The replies came
with a pathetic promptness. "That's from your ma," said Wick-
liff when the first letter came; - Paisley was at the jail ledgers
in the sheriff's room, as it happened, directly beneath the por-
traits; "you better read it first. "
―
Paisley read it twice; then he turned and handed it to the
sheriff with a half apology. "My mother talks a good deal better
than she writes. Women are naturally interested in petty things,
you know. Besides, I used to be fond of the old dog; that's why
she writes so much about him. >>>>
"I have a dog myself," growled the sheriff. "Your mother
writes a beautiful letter. " His eyes were already traveling down
the cheap thin note-paper, folded at the top. "I know," Mrs.
Smith wrote, in her stiff, careful hand,-"I know you will feel
bad, Eddy, to hear that dear old Rowdy is gone. Your letter
came the night before he died. Ruth was over, and I read it out
loud to her; and when I came to that part where you sent your
love to him, it seemed like he understood, he wagged his tail so
knowing. You know how fond of you he always was. All that
evening he played round more than usual,—and I'm so glad we
both petted him, for in the morning we found him stiff and cold
on the landing of the stairs, in his favorite place. I don't think
he could have suffered any, he looked so peaceful. Ruth and I
made a grave for him in the garden, under the white-rose tree.
Ruth digged the grave, and she painted a Kennedy's-cracker box,
and we wrapped him up in white cotton cloth. I cried, and Ruth
cried too, when we laid him away. Somehow it made me long so
much more to see you. If I sent you the money, don't you think
you could come home for Christmas? Wouldn't your employer
let you if he knew your mother had not seen you for four years,
and you are all the child she has got? But I don't want you to
neglect your business. "
The few words of affection that followed were not written so
firmly as the rest. The sheriff would not read them; he handed
## p. 14746 (#320) ##########################################
14746
OCTAVE THANET
the letter back to Paisley, and turned his Indian scowl on the
back of the latter's shapely head.
Paisley was staring at the columns of the page before him.
"Rowdy was my dog when I was courting Ruth," he said. « I
was engaged to her once. I suppose mother thinks of that.
Poor Rowdy! the night I ran away he followed me, and I had
to whip him back. "
"Oh, you ran away? "
"Oh, yes: the old story. Trusted clerk. Meant to return
the money. It wasn't very much.
But it about cleaned mother
out. Then she started the bakery. "
"You pay your ma back? »
"Yes, I did. "
"That's a lie. "
Do you
"What do you ask a man such questions for, then?
think it's pleasant admitting what a dirty dog you've been? Oh,
damn you! "
"You do see it then," said the sheriff in a very pleasant,
gentle tone: "that's one good thing. For you have got to re-
form, Ned: I'm going to give your mother a decent boy. Well,
what happened then? Girl throw you over? »
"Why, I ran straight for a while," said Paisley, furtively wip-
ing first one eye and then the other with a finger; "there wasn't
any scandal.
Ruth stuck by me, and a married sister of hers
(who didn't know) got her husband to give me a place. I was
doing all right, and-and sending home money to ma, and I
would have been all right now, if-if-I hadn't met Mame, and
she made a crazy fool of me. Then Ruth shook me. Oh, I
ain't blaming her! It was hearing about Mame. But after that
I just went a-flying to the devil. Now you know why I wanted
to see Mame. "
"You wanted to kill her," said the sheriff, "or you think
you did.
But you couldn't: she'd have talked you over. Still,
I thought I wouldn't risk it. You know she's gone now? "
"I supposed she'd be, now the trial's over. " In a minute he
added, "I'm glad I didn't touch her: mother would have had to
know that. Look here: how am I going to get over that invita-
tion ? »
"I'll trust you for that lie," said Wickliff, sauntering off.
Paisley wrote that he would not take his mother's money.
When he could come home on his own money he would gladly.
## p. 14747 (#321) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14747
He wrote a long affectionate letter, which the sheriff read, and
handed back with the dry comment, "That will do, I guess. "
But he gave Paisley a brier-wood pipe and a pound of Yale
Mixture that afternoon.
The correspondence threw some side-lights on Paisley's past.
"You've got to write your ma every week," announced Wick-
liff when the day came round.
"Why, I haven't written once a month. "
"Probably not; but you have got to write once a week now.
Your mother'll get used to it. I should think you'd be glad to
do the only thing you can for the mother that's worked her
fingers off for you. "
"I am glad," said Paisley sullenly.
He never made any further demur. He wrote very good let-
ters; and more and more, as the time passed, he grew interested
in the correspondence. Meanwhile he began to acquire (quite
unsuspected by the sheriff) a queer respect for that personage.
The sheriff was popular among the prisoners: perhaps the gen-
eral sentiment was voiced by one of them, who exclaimed one
day after his visit, "Well, I never did see a man as had killed
so many men put on so little airs! "
Paisley began his acquaintance with a contempt for the slow-
moving intellect that he attributed to his sluggish-looking captor.
He felt the superiority of his own better education. It was grate-
ful to his vanity to sneer in secret at Wickliff's slips in gram-
mar or information. And presently he had opportunity to indulge
his humor in this respect; for Wickliff began lending him books.
The jail library, as a rule, was managed by Mrs. Raker. She
was, she used to say, "a great reader," and dearly loved "a nice
story that made you cry all the way through and ended right. "
Her taste was catholic in fiction (she never read anything else),
and her favorites were Mrs. Southworth, Charles Dickens, and
Walter Scott. The sheriff's own reading seldom strayed beyond
the daily papers; but with the aid of a legal friend, he had
selected some standard biographies and histories to add to the
singular conglomeration of fiction and religion sent to the jail by
a charitable public. On Paisley's request for reading, the sheriff
went to Mrs. Raker. She promptly pulled Ishmael Worth, or
Out of the Depths,' from the shelf. "It's beautiful," says she;
" and when he gits through with that he can have the 'Pickwick
Papers' to cheer him up. Only I kinder hate to lend that book
## p. 14748 (#322) ##########################################
14748
OCTAVE THANET
to the prisoners: there's so much about good eatin' in it, it
makes 'em dissatisfied with the table. "
"He's got to have something improving too," says the sheriff.
"I guess the history of the United States will do: you've read
the others, and know they're all right. I'll run through this. "
He told Paisley the next morning that he had sat up almost
all night reading,- he was so afraid that enough of the thirteen
States wouldn't ratify the Constitution. This was only one of
the artless comments that tickled Paisley. Yet he soon began to
notice the sheriff's keenness of observation, and a kind of work-
a-day sense that served him well. He fell to wondering, during
those long nights when his cough kept him awake, whether his
own brilliant and subtle ingenuity had done as much for him.
He could hardly tell the moment of its beginning, but he began
to value the approval of this big, ignorant, clumsy, strong man.
Insensibly he grew to thinking of conduct more in the sher-
iff's fashion; and his letters not only reflected the change in his
moral point of view,—they began to have more and more to say
of the sheriff. Very soon the mother began to be pathetically
thankful to this good friend of her boy, whose habits were so
correct, whose influence so admirable. In her grateful happiness
over the frequent letters and their affection, were revealed the
unexpressed fears that had tortured her for years. She asked
for Wickliff's picture. Paisley did not know that the sheriff had
a photograph taken on purpose. Mrs. Smith pronounced him “a
handsome man. " To be sure, the unscarred side of his face was
taken. "He looks firm, too," wrote the poor mother, whose own
boy had never known how to be firm: "I think he must be a
Daniel. "
"A which? " exclaimed the puzzled Daniel.
"Didn't you ever go to Sunday school? Don't you know the
verses,-
"Dare to be a Daniel;
Dare to make a stand'? »
The sheriff's reply was enigmatical. It was: "Well, to think
of you having such a mother as that! "
"I don't deserve her, that's a fact," said Paisley, with his
to be the
flippant air. "And yet, would you believe it, I used
model boy of the Sunday school. Won all the prizes.
them in a drawer. "
Ma's got
## p. 14749 (#323) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14749
«< Daresay. They thought you were a awful good boy, because
you always kept your face clean, and brushed your hair without
being told to, and learned your lessons quick, and always said.
'Yes'm' and 'No'm,' and when you got into a scrape lied out
of it, and picked up bad habits as easy and quiet as a long-haired
dog catches fleas. Oh, I know your sort of model boy! We had
'em at the Orphans' Home: I've taken their lickings too. "
Paisley's thin face was scarlet before the speech was finished.
"Some of that is true," said he; "but at least I never hit a fel-
low when he was down. "
The sheriff narrowed his eyes in a way that he had when
thinking; he put both hands in his pockets and contemplated
Paisley's irritation. "Well, young feller, you have some reason
to talk that way to me," said he.
you, thinking about your mother.
highly. "
"The fact is, I was mad at
I-I respect that lady very
Paisley forced a feeble smile over his "So do I. "
But after this episode the sheriff's manner visibly softened to
the young man. He told Raker that there were good spots in
Paisley.
"Yes, he's mighty slick," said Raker.
Thanksgiving-time, a box from his mother came to the pris-
oner, and among the pies and cakes was an especial pie for Mr.
Wickliff, "From his affectionate old friend, Rebecca Smith. "
The sheriff spent fully two hours communing with a large
new 'Manual of Etiquette and Correspondence'; then he sub-
mitted a letter to Paisley. Paisley read:-
Dear Madam:
Your favor (of the pie) of the 24th inst. is received, and I beg you
to accept my sincere and warm thanks. Ned is an efficient clerk, and
his habits are very correct. We are reading history in our leisure
hours. We have read Fiske's 'Constitutional History of the United
States,' and two volumes of Macaulay's History of England. '
very interesting books. I think that Judge Jeffreys was the mean-
est and worst judge I ever heard of. My early education was not as
extensive as I could wish, and I am very glad of the valuable assist-
ance which I receive from your son. He is doing well, and sends his
love. Hoping, my dear madam, to be able to see you and thank you
personally for your very kind and welcome gift, I am, with respect,
Very Truly Yours.
AMOS T. WICKLIFF.
## p. 14750 (#324) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14750
Paisley read the letter soberly. In fact, another feeling de-
stroyed any inclination to smile over the unusual pomp of Wick-
liff's style. That's out of sight! " he declared. "It will please
the old lady to the ground. Say, I take it very kindly of you,
Mr. Wickliff, to write about me that way. "
"I had a book to help me," confessed the flattered sheriff.
"And say, Paisley, when you are writing about me to your ma,
you better say Wickliff, or Amos. Mr. Wickliff sounds kinder
stiff. I'll understand. "
The letter that the sheriff received in return, he did not show
to Paisley. He read it with a knitted brow; and more than once
he brushed his hand across his eyes. When he finished it he
drew a long sigh, and walked up to his mother's portrait. "She
says she prays for me every night, ma," he spoke under his
breath, and reverently. "Ma, I simply have got to save that boy
―――――
for her, haven't I? "
That evening Paisley rather timidly approached a subject
which he had tried twice before to broach, but his courage had
failed him. "You said something, Mr. Wickliff, of paying me
a little extra for what I do,- keeping the books, and so forth.
Would you mind telling me what it will be? I- I'd like to
send a Christmas present to my mother. "
"That's right," said the sheriff heartily. "I was thinking
what would suit her. How's a nice black dress, and a bill pinned
to it to pay for making it up? "
"But I never — "
"You can pay me when you get out. "
"Do you think I'll ever get out? " Paisley's fine eyes were
fixed on Wickliff as he spoke, with a sudden wistful eagerness.
He had never alluded to his health before; yet it had steadily
failed. Now he would not let Amos answer: he may have flinched
from any confirmation of his own fears; he took the word hast-
ily. "Anyhow, you'll risk my turning out a bad investment. But
you'll do a damned kind action to my mother; and if I'm a rip,
she's a saint. "
"Sure," said the sheriff.
"Say, do you think she'd mind my
sending her a hymn-book and a few flowers? "
Thus it came to pass that the tiny bakery window, one Christ-
mas day, showed such a crimson glory of roses as the village had
never seen; and the widow Smith, bowing her shabby black bon-
net on the pew rail, gave thanks and tears for a happy Christmas,
and prayed for her son's friend. She prayed for her son also,
## p. 14751 (#325) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14751
that he might "be kept good. " She felt that her prayer would
be answered. God knows; perhaps it was. That night before she
went to bed she wrote to Edgar and to Amos. "I am writing
to both my boys," she said to Amos, "for I feel like you were my
dear son too. "
When Amos answered this letter he did not consult the 'Man-
ual. ' It was one day in January, early in the month, that he
received the first bit of encouragement for his missionary work
palpable enough to display to the scoffer Raker. Yet it was not
a great thing either; only this: Paisley (already half an hour at
work in the sheriff's room) stopped, fished from his sleeve a piece
of note-paper folded into the measure of a knife-blade, and offered
it to the sheriff.
"See what Mame sent me," said he; "just read it. "
There was a page of it, the purport being that the writer had
done what she had through jealousy, which she knew now was
unfounded; she was suffering indescribable agonies from remorse:
and to prove she meant what she said, if her darling Ned would
forgive her, she would get him out before a week was over.
If
he agreed he was to be at his window at six o'clock Wednesday
night. The day was Thursday.
"Do you mind tell-
"How did you get this? " asked Amos.
ing? »
"Not the least. It came in a coat. From Barber & Glas-
son's. The one Mrs. Raker picked out for me, and it was sent
up from the store. She got at it somehow, I suppose. "
"But how did you get word where to look? "
Paisley grinned. "Mame was here, visiting that fellow who
was taken up for smashing a window, and pretended he was so
hungry he had to have a meal in jail. Mame put him up to it,
so she could come. She gave me the tip where to look then. "
"I see. I got on to some of those signals once. Well, did
you show yourself Wednesday? "
"Not much! " He hesitated, and did not look at the sheriff,
scrawling initials on the blotting-pad with his pen. "Did you
really think, Mr. Wickliff, after all you've done for me and my
mother-I would go back on you and get you into trouble for
that_»
"'S-sh! Don't call names! "
at the picture of his mother.
before ? »
Wickliff looked apprehensively
"Why didn't you give me this
## p. 14752 (#326) ##########################################
14752
OCTAVE THANET
"Because you weren't here till this morning. I wasn't going
to give it to Raker. "
"What do you suppose she's after? "
"Oh, she's got some big scheme on foot, and she needs me
to work it. I'm sick of her. I'm sick of the whole thing. I
want to run straight. I want to be the man my poor mother
thinks I am. "
"And I want to help you, Ned," cried the sheriff. For the
first time he caught the other's hand and wrung it.
"I guess the Lord wants to help me too," said Paisley in a
queer dry tone.
"Why — yes—of course he wants to help all of us," said the
sheriff, embarrassed. Then he frowned, and his voice roughened
as he asked, "What do you mean by that? "
"Oh, you know what I mean," said Paisley smiling; "you've
always known it. It's been getting worse lately. I guess I
caught cold. Some mornings I have to stop two or three times
when I dress myself, I have such fits of coughing. "
"Why didn't you tell, and go to the hospital? »
"I wanted to come down here. It's so pleasant down here. "
"Good The sheriff reined his tongue in time, and only
said, "Look here: you've got to see a doctor! "
Therefore the encouragement to the missionary work was
embittered by divers conflicting feelings. Even Raker was dis-
turbed when the doctor announced that Paisley had pneumonia.
"Double pneumonia and a slim chance, of course," gloomed
Raker. "Always so. Can't have a man git useful and be a lit-
tle decent, but he's got to die! Why couldn't it 'a' been that
tramp tried to set the jail afire? "
"What I'm a-thinking of is his poor ma, who used to write
him such beautiful letters," said Mrs. Raker, wiping her kind
eyes. They was so attached. Never a week he didn't write
her. "
«<
"It's his mother I'm thinking of, too," said the sheriff with
a groan: "she'll be wanting to come and see him, and how in-"
He swallowed an agitated oath, and paced the floor, his hands
clasped behind him, his lip under his teeth, and his blackest In-
dian scowl on his brow,- plain signs to all who knew him that
he was fighting his way through some mental thicket.
But he had never looked gentler than he looked an hour later,
as he stepped softly into Paisley's cell. Mrs. Raker was holding
## p. 14753 (#327) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14753
a foaming glass to the sick man's lips. "There; take another
sup of the good nog," she said coaxingly, as one talks to a child.
"No, thank you, ma'am," said Paisley. "Queer how I've
thought so often how I'd like the taste of whisky again on my
tongue, and now I can have all I want, I don't care a hooter! "
His voice was rasped in the chords, and he caught his
breath between his sentences. Forty-eight hours had made an
ugly alteration in his face: the eyes were glassy, the features had
shrunken in an indescribable, ghastly way, and the fair skin was
of a yellowish pallor, with livid circles about the eyes and the
open mouth.
Wickliff greeted him, assuming his ordinary manner. They
shook hands.
"There's one thing, Mr. Wickliff," said Paisley: "you'll keep
this from my mother. She'd worry like blazes, and want to come
here. "
There was a photograph on the table, propped up by books;
the sheriff's hand was on it, and he moved it unconsciously: "To
Eddy, from Mother. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The
Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto
thee >> Wickliff cleared his throat. "Well, I don't know,
Ned," he said cheerfully: "maybe that would be a good thing;
- kind of brace you up and make you get well quicker. "
Mrs. Raker noticed nothing in his voice; but Paisley rolled
his eyes on the impassive face in a strange, quivering, searching
look; then he closed them and feebly turned his head.
"Don't you want me to telegraph? Don't you want to see
her? "
Some throb of excitement gave Paisley the strength to lift
himself up on the pillows. "What do you want to rile me all
up for? »
His voice was almost a scream. "Want to see her?
It's the only thing in this damned fool world I do want! But I
can't have her know: it would kill her to know. You must make
up some lie about its being diphtheria and awful sudden, and no
time for her to come, and have me all out of the way before she
gets here.
You've been awful good to me, and you can do any-
thing you like: it's the last I'll bother you don't let her find
out! "
"For the land's sake! " sniffed Mrs. Raker, in tears
she know? »
XXV-923
-
"don't
## p. 14754 (#328) ##########################################
14754
OCTAVE THANET
"No, ma'am, she don't; and she never will, either," said the
sheriff. "There, Ned, boy, you lay right down. I'll fix it. And
you shall see her too. I'll fix it. "
"Yes, he'll fix it. Amos will fix it. Don't you worry," sobbed
Mrs. Raker, who had not the least idea how the sheriff could
arrange matters, but was just as confident that he would as if
the future were unrolled before her gaze.
The prisoner breathed a long deep sigh of relief, and patted
the strong hand at his shoulder. And Amos gently laid him
back on the pillows.
Before nightfall Paisley was lying in Amos Wickliff's own
bed, while Amos, at his side, was critically surveying both cham-
ber and parlor under half-closed eyelids. He was trying to see
them with the eyes of the elderly widow of a Methodist minister.
"Hum-yes! " The result of the survey was, on the whole,
satisfactory. "All nice, high-toned, first-class pictures. Nothing
to shock a lady. Liquors all put away, 'cept what's needed for
him. Pops all put away, so she won't be finding one and be
killing herself, thinking it's not loaded. My bed moved in here
comfortable for him, because he thought it was such a pleasant
room, poor boy. Another bed in my room for her. Bath-room
next door, hot and cold water. Little gas stove. Trained nurse
who doesn't know anything, and so can't tell. Thinks it's my
friend Smith. Is there anything else? "
At this moment the white counterpane on the bed stirred.
"Well, Ned? " said Wickliff.
"It's nice! " said Paisley.
"That's right. Now you get a firm grip on what I'm going
to say,- such a grip you won't lose it, even if you get out of
your head a little. "
―――――――
-
"I won't," said Paisley.
"All right. You're not Paisley any more. You're Ned Smith.
I've had you moved here into my rooms because your boarding-
place wasn't so good. Everybody here understands, and has got
their story ready. The nurse thinks you're my friend Smith. You
are, too, and you are to call me Amos. The telegram's gone.
'S-sh! what a way to do! " - for Paisley was crying. "Ain't I
her boy too? "
One weak place remained in the fortress that Amos had
builded against prying eyes and chattering tongues. He had
## p. 14755 (#329) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14755
searched in vain for "Mame. " There was no especial reason,
except pure hatred and malice, to dread her going to Paisley's
mother; but the sheriff had enough knowledge of Mame's kind
to take these qualities into account.
From the time that Wickliff promised him that he should
have his mother, Paisley seemed to be freed from every misgiv
ing. He was too ill to talk much, and much of the time he was
miserably occupied with his own suffering; yet often during the
night and day before she came he would lift his still beautiful
eyes to Mrs. Raker's, and say, "It's to-morrow night ma comes,
isn't it? " To which the soft-hearted woman would sometimes
answer, "Yes, son," and sometimes only work her chin, and put
her handkerchief to her eyes. Once she so far forgot the pres-
ence of the gifted professional nurse that she sniffed aloud;
whereupon that personage administered a scorching tonic, in the
guise of a glance, and poor Mrs. Raker went out of the room
and cried.
He must have kept some reckoning of the time, for the next
day he varied his question. He said, "It's to-day she's coming,
isn't it? " As the day wore on, the customary change of his
disease came: he was relieved of his worst pain; he thought
that he was better. So thought Mrs. Raker and the sheriff. The
doctor and the nurse maintained their inscrutable professional
calm. At ten o'clock the sheriff (who had been gone for a half-
hour) softly opened the door. The sick man instantly roused.
He half sat up. "I know," he exclaimed: "it's ma. Ma's
come! "
The nurse rose, ready to protect her patient.
There entered a little, black-robed, gray-haired woman, who
glided swift as a thought to the bedside, and gathered the worn
young head to her breast. "My boy, my dear, good boy! " she
said under her breath, so low the nurse did not hear her; she
only heard her say, "Now you must get well. "
"Oh, I am glad, ma! " said the sick man.
After that the nurse was well content with them all. They
obeyed her implicitly. It was she rather than Mrs. Raker who
observed that Mr. Smith's mother was not alone, but accompa-
nied by a slim, fair, brown-eyed young woman, who lingered in
the background, and would fain have not spoken to the invalid
at all had she not been gently pushed forward by the mother,
with the words, "And Ruth came too, Eddy! "
## p. 14756 (#330) ##########################################
14756
OCTAVE THANET
"Thank you, Ruth: I knew that you wouldn't let ma come
alone," said Ned feebly.
The young woman had opened her lips. Now they closed.
She looked at him compassionately. "Surely not, Ned," she said.
But why, wondered the nurse, who was observant,—it was
her trade to observe,- why did she look at him so intently, and
with such a shocked pity?
Ned did not express much,- the sick, especially the very sick,
cannot; but whenever he waked in the night, and saw his mother
bending over him, he smiled happily, and she would answer his
thought. "Yes, my boy; my dear, good boy," she would say.
And the sheriff in his dim corner thought sadly that the
ruined life would always be saved for her now, and her son
would be her good boy forever. Yet he muttered to himself, “I
suppose the Lord is helping me out, and I ought to feel obliged,
but I'm hanged if I wouldn't rather take the chances and have
the boy get well! "
But he knew all the time that there was no hope for Ned's
life. He lived three days after his mother came. The day be-
fore his death, he was alone for a short time with the sheriff,
and asked him to be good to his mother. "Ruth will be good
to her too," he said; "but last night I dreamed Mame was chas-
ing mother, and it scared me. You won't let her get at mother,
will you? "
"Of course I won't," said the sheriff: "we're watching your
mother every minute; and if that woman comes here, Raker has
orders to clap her in jail.
other motive, he was laughing now. "It's not nearly so inter-
esting in a literary point of view, you know," said he; "but I
guess it will be easier not to have so many things to remember.
## p. 14745 (#319) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14745
And you're right: I didn't mean to hint for money, but it did
look like it. "
"He did mean to hint," thought the sheriff; "but he's got
some sense. " The letter finally submitted was a masterpiece in
its way.
This time the sheriff smiled, though grimly. He also
gave Paisley a cigar.
liff.
Regularly the letters to Mrs. Smith were submitted to Wick-
Raker never thought of reading them. The replies came
with a pathetic promptness. "That's from your ma," said Wick-
liff when the first letter came; - Paisley was at the jail ledgers
in the sheriff's room, as it happened, directly beneath the por-
traits; "you better read it first. "
―
Paisley read it twice; then he turned and handed it to the
sheriff with a half apology. "My mother talks a good deal better
than she writes. Women are naturally interested in petty things,
you know. Besides, I used to be fond of the old dog; that's why
she writes so much about him. >>>>
"I have a dog myself," growled the sheriff. "Your mother
writes a beautiful letter. " His eyes were already traveling down
the cheap thin note-paper, folded at the top. "I know," Mrs.
Smith wrote, in her stiff, careful hand,-"I know you will feel
bad, Eddy, to hear that dear old Rowdy is gone. Your letter
came the night before he died. Ruth was over, and I read it out
loud to her; and when I came to that part where you sent your
love to him, it seemed like he understood, he wagged his tail so
knowing. You know how fond of you he always was. All that
evening he played round more than usual,—and I'm so glad we
both petted him, for in the morning we found him stiff and cold
on the landing of the stairs, in his favorite place. I don't think
he could have suffered any, he looked so peaceful. Ruth and I
made a grave for him in the garden, under the white-rose tree.
Ruth digged the grave, and she painted a Kennedy's-cracker box,
and we wrapped him up in white cotton cloth. I cried, and Ruth
cried too, when we laid him away. Somehow it made me long so
much more to see you. If I sent you the money, don't you think
you could come home for Christmas? Wouldn't your employer
let you if he knew your mother had not seen you for four years,
and you are all the child she has got? But I don't want you to
neglect your business. "
The few words of affection that followed were not written so
firmly as the rest. The sheriff would not read them; he handed
## p. 14746 (#320) ##########################################
14746
OCTAVE THANET
the letter back to Paisley, and turned his Indian scowl on the
back of the latter's shapely head.
Paisley was staring at the columns of the page before him.
"Rowdy was my dog when I was courting Ruth," he said. « I
was engaged to her once. I suppose mother thinks of that.
Poor Rowdy! the night I ran away he followed me, and I had
to whip him back. "
"Oh, you ran away? "
"Oh, yes: the old story. Trusted clerk. Meant to return
the money. It wasn't very much.
But it about cleaned mother
out. Then she started the bakery. "
"You pay your ma back? »
"Yes, I did. "
"That's a lie. "
Do you
"What do you ask a man such questions for, then?
think it's pleasant admitting what a dirty dog you've been? Oh,
damn you! "
"You do see it then," said the sheriff in a very pleasant,
gentle tone: "that's one good thing. For you have got to re-
form, Ned: I'm going to give your mother a decent boy. Well,
what happened then? Girl throw you over? »
"Why, I ran straight for a while," said Paisley, furtively wip-
ing first one eye and then the other with a finger; "there wasn't
any scandal.
Ruth stuck by me, and a married sister of hers
(who didn't know) got her husband to give me a place. I was
doing all right, and-and sending home money to ma, and I
would have been all right now, if-if-I hadn't met Mame, and
she made a crazy fool of me. Then Ruth shook me. Oh, I
ain't blaming her! It was hearing about Mame. But after that
I just went a-flying to the devil. Now you know why I wanted
to see Mame. "
"You wanted to kill her," said the sheriff, "or you think
you did.
But you couldn't: she'd have talked you over. Still,
I thought I wouldn't risk it. You know she's gone now? "
"I supposed she'd be, now the trial's over. " In a minute he
added, "I'm glad I didn't touch her: mother would have had to
know that. Look here: how am I going to get over that invita-
tion ? »
"I'll trust you for that lie," said Wickliff, sauntering off.
Paisley wrote that he would not take his mother's money.
When he could come home on his own money he would gladly.
## p. 14747 (#321) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14747
He wrote a long affectionate letter, which the sheriff read, and
handed back with the dry comment, "That will do, I guess. "
But he gave Paisley a brier-wood pipe and a pound of Yale
Mixture that afternoon.
The correspondence threw some side-lights on Paisley's past.
"You've got to write your ma every week," announced Wick-
liff when the day came round.
"Why, I haven't written once a month. "
"Probably not; but you have got to write once a week now.
Your mother'll get used to it. I should think you'd be glad to
do the only thing you can for the mother that's worked her
fingers off for you. "
"I am glad," said Paisley sullenly.
He never made any further demur. He wrote very good let-
ters; and more and more, as the time passed, he grew interested
in the correspondence. Meanwhile he began to acquire (quite
unsuspected by the sheriff) a queer respect for that personage.
The sheriff was popular among the prisoners: perhaps the gen-
eral sentiment was voiced by one of them, who exclaimed one
day after his visit, "Well, I never did see a man as had killed
so many men put on so little airs! "
Paisley began his acquaintance with a contempt for the slow-
moving intellect that he attributed to his sluggish-looking captor.
He felt the superiority of his own better education. It was grate-
ful to his vanity to sneer in secret at Wickliff's slips in gram-
mar or information. And presently he had opportunity to indulge
his humor in this respect; for Wickliff began lending him books.
The jail library, as a rule, was managed by Mrs. Raker. She
was, she used to say, "a great reader," and dearly loved "a nice
story that made you cry all the way through and ended right. "
Her taste was catholic in fiction (she never read anything else),
and her favorites were Mrs. Southworth, Charles Dickens, and
Walter Scott. The sheriff's own reading seldom strayed beyond
the daily papers; but with the aid of a legal friend, he had
selected some standard biographies and histories to add to the
singular conglomeration of fiction and religion sent to the jail by
a charitable public. On Paisley's request for reading, the sheriff
went to Mrs. Raker. She promptly pulled Ishmael Worth, or
Out of the Depths,' from the shelf. "It's beautiful," says she;
" and when he gits through with that he can have the 'Pickwick
Papers' to cheer him up. Only I kinder hate to lend that book
## p. 14748 (#322) ##########################################
14748
OCTAVE THANET
to the prisoners: there's so much about good eatin' in it, it
makes 'em dissatisfied with the table. "
"He's got to have something improving too," says the sheriff.
"I guess the history of the United States will do: you've read
the others, and know they're all right. I'll run through this. "
He told Paisley the next morning that he had sat up almost
all night reading,- he was so afraid that enough of the thirteen
States wouldn't ratify the Constitution. This was only one of
the artless comments that tickled Paisley. Yet he soon began to
notice the sheriff's keenness of observation, and a kind of work-
a-day sense that served him well. He fell to wondering, during
those long nights when his cough kept him awake, whether his
own brilliant and subtle ingenuity had done as much for him.
He could hardly tell the moment of its beginning, but he began
to value the approval of this big, ignorant, clumsy, strong man.
Insensibly he grew to thinking of conduct more in the sher-
iff's fashion; and his letters not only reflected the change in his
moral point of view,—they began to have more and more to say
of the sheriff. Very soon the mother began to be pathetically
thankful to this good friend of her boy, whose habits were so
correct, whose influence so admirable. In her grateful happiness
over the frequent letters and their affection, were revealed the
unexpressed fears that had tortured her for years. She asked
for Wickliff's picture. Paisley did not know that the sheriff had
a photograph taken on purpose. Mrs. Smith pronounced him “a
handsome man. " To be sure, the unscarred side of his face was
taken. "He looks firm, too," wrote the poor mother, whose own
boy had never known how to be firm: "I think he must be a
Daniel. "
"A which? " exclaimed the puzzled Daniel.
"Didn't you ever go to Sunday school? Don't you know the
verses,-
"Dare to be a Daniel;
Dare to make a stand'? »
The sheriff's reply was enigmatical. It was: "Well, to think
of you having such a mother as that! "
"I don't deserve her, that's a fact," said Paisley, with his
to be the
flippant air. "And yet, would you believe it, I used
model boy of the Sunday school. Won all the prizes.
them in a drawer. "
Ma's got
## p. 14749 (#323) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14749
«< Daresay. They thought you were a awful good boy, because
you always kept your face clean, and brushed your hair without
being told to, and learned your lessons quick, and always said.
'Yes'm' and 'No'm,' and when you got into a scrape lied out
of it, and picked up bad habits as easy and quiet as a long-haired
dog catches fleas. Oh, I know your sort of model boy! We had
'em at the Orphans' Home: I've taken their lickings too. "
Paisley's thin face was scarlet before the speech was finished.
"Some of that is true," said he; "but at least I never hit a fel-
low when he was down. "
The sheriff narrowed his eyes in a way that he had when
thinking; he put both hands in his pockets and contemplated
Paisley's irritation. "Well, young feller, you have some reason
to talk that way to me," said he.
you, thinking about your mother.
highly. "
"The fact is, I was mad at
I-I respect that lady very
Paisley forced a feeble smile over his "So do I. "
But after this episode the sheriff's manner visibly softened to
the young man. He told Raker that there were good spots in
Paisley.
"Yes, he's mighty slick," said Raker.
Thanksgiving-time, a box from his mother came to the pris-
oner, and among the pies and cakes was an especial pie for Mr.
Wickliff, "From his affectionate old friend, Rebecca Smith. "
The sheriff spent fully two hours communing with a large
new 'Manual of Etiquette and Correspondence'; then he sub-
mitted a letter to Paisley. Paisley read:-
Dear Madam:
Your favor (of the pie) of the 24th inst. is received, and I beg you
to accept my sincere and warm thanks. Ned is an efficient clerk, and
his habits are very correct. We are reading history in our leisure
hours. We have read Fiske's 'Constitutional History of the United
States,' and two volumes of Macaulay's History of England. '
very interesting books. I think that Judge Jeffreys was the mean-
est and worst judge I ever heard of. My early education was not as
extensive as I could wish, and I am very glad of the valuable assist-
ance which I receive from your son. He is doing well, and sends his
love. Hoping, my dear madam, to be able to see you and thank you
personally for your very kind and welcome gift, I am, with respect,
Very Truly Yours.
AMOS T. WICKLIFF.
## p. 14750 (#324) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14750
Paisley read the letter soberly. In fact, another feeling de-
stroyed any inclination to smile over the unusual pomp of Wick-
liff's style. That's out of sight! " he declared. "It will please
the old lady to the ground. Say, I take it very kindly of you,
Mr. Wickliff, to write about me that way. "
"I had a book to help me," confessed the flattered sheriff.
"And say, Paisley, when you are writing about me to your ma,
you better say Wickliff, or Amos. Mr. Wickliff sounds kinder
stiff. I'll understand. "
The letter that the sheriff received in return, he did not show
to Paisley. He read it with a knitted brow; and more than once
he brushed his hand across his eyes. When he finished it he
drew a long sigh, and walked up to his mother's portrait. "She
says she prays for me every night, ma," he spoke under his
breath, and reverently. "Ma, I simply have got to save that boy
―――――
for her, haven't I? "
That evening Paisley rather timidly approached a subject
which he had tried twice before to broach, but his courage had
failed him. "You said something, Mr. Wickliff, of paying me
a little extra for what I do,- keeping the books, and so forth.
Would you mind telling me what it will be? I- I'd like to
send a Christmas present to my mother. "
"That's right," said the sheriff heartily. "I was thinking
what would suit her. How's a nice black dress, and a bill pinned
to it to pay for making it up? "
"But I never — "
"You can pay me when you get out. "
"Do you think I'll ever get out? " Paisley's fine eyes were
fixed on Wickliff as he spoke, with a sudden wistful eagerness.
He had never alluded to his health before; yet it had steadily
failed. Now he would not let Amos answer: he may have flinched
from any confirmation of his own fears; he took the word hast-
ily. "Anyhow, you'll risk my turning out a bad investment. But
you'll do a damned kind action to my mother; and if I'm a rip,
she's a saint. "
"Sure," said the sheriff.
"Say, do you think she'd mind my
sending her a hymn-book and a few flowers? "
Thus it came to pass that the tiny bakery window, one Christ-
mas day, showed such a crimson glory of roses as the village had
never seen; and the widow Smith, bowing her shabby black bon-
net on the pew rail, gave thanks and tears for a happy Christmas,
and prayed for her son's friend. She prayed for her son also,
## p. 14751 (#325) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14751
that he might "be kept good. " She felt that her prayer would
be answered. God knows; perhaps it was. That night before she
went to bed she wrote to Edgar and to Amos. "I am writing
to both my boys," she said to Amos, "for I feel like you were my
dear son too. "
When Amos answered this letter he did not consult the 'Man-
ual. ' It was one day in January, early in the month, that he
received the first bit of encouragement for his missionary work
palpable enough to display to the scoffer Raker. Yet it was not
a great thing either; only this: Paisley (already half an hour at
work in the sheriff's room) stopped, fished from his sleeve a piece
of note-paper folded into the measure of a knife-blade, and offered
it to the sheriff.
"See what Mame sent me," said he; "just read it. "
There was a page of it, the purport being that the writer had
done what she had through jealousy, which she knew now was
unfounded; she was suffering indescribable agonies from remorse:
and to prove she meant what she said, if her darling Ned would
forgive her, she would get him out before a week was over.
If
he agreed he was to be at his window at six o'clock Wednesday
night. The day was Thursday.
"Do you mind tell-
"How did you get this? " asked Amos.
ing? »
"Not the least. It came in a coat. From Barber & Glas-
son's. The one Mrs. Raker picked out for me, and it was sent
up from the store. She got at it somehow, I suppose. "
"But how did you get word where to look? "
Paisley grinned. "Mame was here, visiting that fellow who
was taken up for smashing a window, and pretended he was so
hungry he had to have a meal in jail. Mame put him up to it,
so she could come. She gave me the tip where to look then. "
"I see. I got on to some of those signals once. Well, did
you show yourself Wednesday? "
"Not much! " He hesitated, and did not look at the sheriff,
scrawling initials on the blotting-pad with his pen. "Did you
really think, Mr. Wickliff, after all you've done for me and my
mother-I would go back on you and get you into trouble for
that_»
"'S-sh! Don't call names! "
at the picture of his mother.
before ? »
Wickliff looked apprehensively
"Why didn't you give me this
## p. 14752 (#326) ##########################################
14752
OCTAVE THANET
"Because you weren't here till this morning. I wasn't going
to give it to Raker. "
"What do you suppose she's after? "
"Oh, she's got some big scheme on foot, and she needs me
to work it. I'm sick of her. I'm sick of the whole thing. I
want to run straight. I want to be the man my poor mother
thinks I am. "
"And I want to help you, Ned," cried the sheriff. For the
first time he caught the other's hand and wrung it.
"I guess the Lord wants to help me too," said Paisley in a
queer dry tone.
"Why — yes—of course he wants to help all of us," said the
sheriff, embarrassed. Then he frowned, and his voice roughened
as he asked, "What do you mean by that? "
"Oh, you know what I mean," said Paisley smiling; "you've
always known it. It's been getting worse lately. I guess I
caught cold. Some mornings I have to stop two or three times
when I dress myself, I have such fits of coughing. "
"Why didn't you tell, and go to the hospital? »
"I wanted to come down here. It's so pleasant down here. "
"Good The sheriff reined his tongue in time, and only
said, "Look here: you've got to see a doctor! "
Therefore the encouragement to the missionary work was
embittered by divers conflicting feelings. Even Raker was dis-
turbed when the doctor announced that Paisley had pneumonia.
"Double pneumonia and a slim chance, of course," gloomed
Raker. "Always so. Can't have a man git useful and be a lit-
tle decent, but he's got to die! Why couldn't it 'a' been that
tramp tried to set the jail afire? "
"What I'm a-thinking of is his poor ma, who used to write
him such beautiful letters," said Mrs. Raker, wiping her kind
eyes. They was so attached. Never a week he didn't write
her. "
«<
"It's his mother I'm thinking of, too," said the sheriff with
a groan: "she'll be wanting to come and see him, and how in-"
He swallowed an agitated oath, and paced the floor, his hands
clasped behind him, his lip under his teeth, and his blackest In-
dian scowl on his brow,- plain signs to all who knew him that
he was fighting his way through some mental thicket.
But he had never looked gentler than he looked an hour later,
as he stepped softly into Paisley's cell. Mrs. Raker was holding
## p. 14753 (#327) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14753
a foaming glass to the sick man's lips. "There; take another
sup of the good nog," she said coaxingly, as one talks to a child.
"No, thank you, ma'am," said Paisley. "Queer how I've
thought so often how I'd like the taste of whisky again on my
tongue, and now I can have all I want, I don't care a hooter! "
His voice was rasped in the chords, and he caught his
breath between his sentences. Forty-eight hours had made an
ugly alteration in his face: the eyes were glassy, the features had
shrunken in an indescribable, ghastly way, and the fair skin was
of a yellowish pallor, with livid circles about the eyes and the
open mouth.
Wickliff greeted him, assuming his ordinary manner. They
shook hands.
"There's one thing, Mr. Wickliff," said Paisley: "you'll keep
this from my mother. She'd worry like blazes, and want to come
here. "
There was a photograph on the table, propped up by books;
the sheriff's hand was on it, and he moved it unconsciously: "To
Eddy, from Mother. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The
Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto
thee >> Wickliff cleared his throat. "Well, I don't know,
Ned," he said cheerfully: "maybe that would be a good thing;
- kind of brace you up and make you get well quicker. "
Mrs. Raker noticed nothing in his voice; but Paisley rolled
his eyes on the impassive face in a strange, quivering, searching
look; then he closed them and feebly turned his head.
"Don't you want me to telegraph? Don't you want to see
her? "
Some throb of excitement gave Paisley the strength to lift
himself up on the pillows. "What do you want to rile me all
up for? »
His voice was almost a scream. "Want to see her?
It's the only thing in this damned fool world I do want! But I
can't have her know: it would kill her to know. You must make
up some lie about its being diphtheria and awful sudden, and no
time for her to come, and have me all out of the way before she
gets here.
You've been awful good to me, and you can do any-
thing you like: it's the last I'll bother you don't let her find
out! "
"For the land's sake! " sniffed Mrs. Raker, in tears
she know? »
XXV-923
-
"don't
## p. 14754 (#328) ##########################################
14754
OCTAVE THANET
"No, ma'am, she don't; and she never will, either," said the
sheriff. "There, Ned, boy, you lay right down. I'll fix it. And
you shall see her too. I'll fix it. "
"Yes, he'll fix it. Amos will fix it. Don't you worry," sobbed
Mrs. Raker, who had not the least idea how the sheriff could
arrange matters, but was just as confident that he would as if
the future were unrolled before her gaze.
The prisoner breathed a long deep sigh of relief, and patted
the strong hand at his shoulder. And Amos gently laid him
back on the pillows.
Before nightfall Paisley was lying in Amos Wickliff's own
bed, while Amos, at his side, was critically surveying both cham-
ber and parlor under half-closed eyelids. He was trying to see
them with the eyes of the elderly widow of a Methodist minister.
"Hum-yes! " The result of the survey was, on the whole,
satisfactory. "All nice, high-toned, first-class pictures. Nothing
to shock a lady. Liquors all put away, 'cept what's needed for
him. Pops all put away, so she won't be finding one and be
killing herself, thinking it's not loaded. My bed moved in here
comfortable for him, because he thought it was such a pleasant
room, poor boy. Another bed in my room for her. Bath-room
next door, hot and cold water. Little gas stove. Trained nurse
who doesn't know anything, and so can't tell. Thinks it's my
friend Smith. Is there anything else? "
At this moment the white counterpane on the bed stirred.
"Well, Ned? " said Wickliff.
"It's nice! " said Paisley.
"That's right. Now you get a firm grip on what I'm going
to say,- such a grip you won't lose it, even if you get out of
your head a little. "
―――――――
-
"I won't," said Paisley.
"All right. You're not Paisley any more. You're Ned Smith.
I've had you moved here into my rooms because your boarding-
place wasn't so good. Everybody here understands, and has got
their story ready. The nurse thinks you're my friend Smith. You
are, too, and you are to call me Amos. The telegram's gone.
'S-sh! what a way to do! " - for Paisley was crying. "Ain't I
her boy too? "
One weak place remained in the fortress that Amos had
builded against prying eyes and chattering tongues. He had
## p. 14755 (#329) ##########################################
OCTAVE THANET
14755
searched in vain for "Mame. " There was no especial reason,
except pure hatred and malice, to dread her going to Paisley's
mother; but the sheriff had enough knowledge of Mame's kind
to take these qualities into account.
From the time that Wickliff promised him that he should
have his mother, Paisley seemed to be freed from every misgiv
ing. He was too ill to talk much, and much of the time he was
miserably occupied with his own suffering; yet often during the
night and day before she came he would lift his still beautiful
eyes to Mrs. Raker's, and say, "It's to-morrow night ma comes,
isn't it? " To which the soft-hearted woman would sometimes
answer, "Yes, son," and sometimes only work her chin, and put
her handkerchief to her eyes. Once she so far forgot the pres-
ence of the gifted professional nurse that she sniffed aloud;
whereupon that personage administered a scorching tonic, in the
guise of a glance, and poor Mrs. Raker went out of the room
and cried.
He must have kept some reckoning of the time, for the next
day he varied his question. He said, "It's to-day she's coming,
isn't it? " As the day wore on, the customary change of his
disease came: he was relieved of his worst pain; he thought
that he was better. So thought Mrs. Raker and the sheriff. The
doctor and the nurse maintained their inscrutable professional
calm. At ten o'clock the sheriff (who had been gone for a half-
hour) softly opened the door. The sick man instantly roused.
He half sat up. "I know," he exclaimed: "it's ma. Ma's
come! "
The nurse rose, ready to protect her patient.
There entered a little, black-robed, gray-haired woman, who
glided swift as a thought to the bedside, and gathered the worn
young head to her breast. "My boy, my dear, good boy! " she
said under her breath, so low the nurse did not hear her; she
only heard her say, "Now you must get well. "
"Oh, I am glad, ma! " said the sick man.
After that the nurse was well content with them all. They
obeyed her implicitly. It was she rather than Mrs. Raker who
observed that Mr. Smith's mother was not alone, but accompa-
nied by a slim, fair, brown-eyed young woman, who lingered in
the background, and would fain have not spoken to the invalid
at all had she not been gently pushed forward by the mother,
with the words, "And Ruth came too, Eddy! "
## p. 14756 (#330) ##########################################
14756
OCTAVE THANET
"Thank you, Ruth: I knew that you wouldn't let ma come
alone," said Ned feebly.
The young woman had opened her lips. Now they closed.
She looked at him compassionately. "Surely not, Ned," she said.
But why, wondered the nurse, who was observant,—it was
her trade to observe,- why did she look at him so intently, and
with such a shocked pity?
Ned did not express much,- the sick, especially the very sick,
cannot; but whenever he waked in the night, and saw his mother
bending over him, he smiled happily, and she would answer his
thought. "Yes, my boy; my dear, good boy," she would say.
And the sheriff in his dim corner thought sadly that the
ruined life would always be saved for her now, and her son
would be her good boy forever. Yet he muttered to himself, “I
suppose the Lord is helping me out, and I ought to feel obliged,
but I'm hanged if I wouldn't rather take the chances and have
the boy get well! "
But he knew all the time that there was no hope for Ned's
life. He lived three days after his mother came. The day be-
fore his death, he was alone for a short time with the sheriff,
and asked him to be good to his mother. "Ruth will be good
to her too," he said; "but last night I dreamed Mame was chas-
ing mother, and it scared me. You won't let her get at mother,
will you? "
"Of course I won't," said the sheriff: "we're watching your
mother every minute; and if that woman comes here, Raker has
orders to clap her in jail.
