3 In Stripes

A month or two of a severe winter passed, and during that time the monotony within our stone-walled world was unbroken, but when the last snow heap in the prison yard was melting the investigating committee of the Legislature fell upon us. I do not know what particular cause it had for coming, but I have learned since that the public always thinks a Legislature wanting in its duty unless it investigates everything or attempts to do so, and ours conformed to the general rule.

I was in the blacksmith shop about the middle of a bright winter morning, and I was swinging the great sledge hammer upon the head of a chisel that another man held in place. The sledge was one of the heaviest ever used, in fact I was the only man who could handle it with quickness and skill, and I was in superb physical fettle that morning. The crisp, cold air from the prison yard flowed through the open door into my lungs, and the blood pulsated with vigor in my veins. I swung the great hammer and brought it down again and again upon the head of the steel chisel which in its turn sank deep into the iron that we were cutting. The shop was filled with the rhythmic beat of steel on steel, and as I made the strokes I became conscious that the doorway was darkened by human figures. But I did not look up, keeping my eyes on the head of the chisel which I must strike centre and true.

“The investigating Committee,” said Polk, the man who held the chisel, but my interest, was not aroused and I went on with my work, although I was conscious that several people had come into the shop and were looking at us.

“One of our best men, both for behavior and work,” I heard the warden say, and still I did not look up.

The iron bar was cut through and I put down the hammer. Then I saw that there were ladies with the committee, wives of the members perhaps or visitors in Frankfort, but already they were going away, their interest in the shop and its workers finished and the next moment only two or three were left. I leaned the great hammer against the wall and turning for my next task came face to face with a woman—Alicia!

She was more beautiful than ever and also far sadder. The pathetic, appealing look in her eyes had deepened and I knew instantly, as the lightning flash clears the darkness, that she had not been guilty of any treason to me, that if she had seemed to desert me, it was because it lay beyond her power to do otherwise.

I turned back hastily but it was too late. She saw my face, and beneath all its soot and grime, with all the changes of the prison, she knew me at once. I saw the color leave her cheeks until they were like those of the dead, and I saw a look of surprise and horror come into her eyes.

“Harry!” she exclaimed in a frightened whisper. “You! you here! How has this happened?”

“You heard my confession that night in your house when he came,” I replied.

But by the look of deepening horror in her eyes I saw that something still unexplained lay between us. I glanced about me. The rest of the visitors had gone, and Polk, a common convict who was there because he deserved to be, showed a delicacy that would have done credit to many a better man. When he heard us talking together he turned away and began to fuss with the tools at the far end of the shop.

“But he—he told me”—the word “he” came painfully, “that you escaped from the jail there in Louisville and that you had completely disappeared. I was ill, very ill for a long time and I did not know what was passing then. I never dreamed that—that——”

She stopped and I saw her tremble. The appealing look in her eyes now was for me, and told of a hope that I would say something to exculpate her. I could not resist it. After all, my position was better than hers. Moreover what was done was done and could not be undone.

“You heard my confession that night,” I repeated, “I came to the house to rob. I did not know that it was yours, and when I saw you I pretended to something else. But I was caught and I had your purse in my pocket.”

I spoke with every appearance of earnestness. One can tell a lie sometimes with as much zeal as the truth, but it made no impression upon her.

“Oh, Harry, Harry!” she cried, “you have suffered all this for me!”

“It was worth it,” I could not keep from saying. And at that moment I meant my words. Her look, her manner sent through me a thrill of the most exquisite joy. Nothing better can ever come to a man than the gratitude of a good woman, and I think I understood then that my misadventure had not been wholly a misfortune. But I repeated.

“It is as I say, and don’t forget that here I am Charles Johnson. Let Harry Clarke be dead for the time.”

She put her hand upon my arm, and brought her face close to mine, until her eyes fairly looked into me. Alicia had wonderful eyes, I have never seen another’s that varied so in shade, that expressed so many emotions, that could be at one moment gentle and appealing, and at another so firm and masterful. Now they were strong, with a high purpose, and she said in a resolute tone:

“Do you think that I could let you be disgraced for me? Am I a woman of that kind? I shall go before the Governor and tell all the facts! I shall get you out of here at once.”

It was grateful to me to hear these words, to know the full nobility of her nature, but I only shook my head.

“No, Alicia,” I said, “it’s no use. You may believe me or not about my errand in your house that night, but I shall stick to the tale, and it’s too late for you to change it. You could not prove your story nor would it be believed, while I stick to mine. I have gained something by coming here. I really mean it. I am not more unhappy than you are.” I spoke the last sentence unwillingly, but when she heard it she stepped back, letting her hand fall from my arm, while the shamed color flew to her cheeks.

“Forgive me!” I cried in quick remorse—I would not have her to see that I knew her miserable in her married life, “I meant to say that the prison has not been unkind to me. I shall go from it a far better and a far stronger man than I was when I came. Believe me, Alicia, when I say that I have gained rather than lost.”

She shook her head and the appealing look came back into those wonderful eyes of hers.

“I do not understand you, Harry,” she said, “but I shall help you. Do you think I could be content while you are here?”

“You’d better go now,” I said rudely and I was rude from purpose. “They’ll be missing you if you stay longer. Besides there’s nothing more to be said.”

I turned away from her and went back toward the rack of tools, but I could feel her eyes upon me, following me in wonder and bewilderment. Then I knew that she too turned away and went out of the blacksmith shop into the prison yard. Polk quit fussing with the tools and began to pump at the bellows. I said nothing to him but looked my gratitude. The old saying that there is honor among thieves is true. He would not ask me of my secret, of the woman, young and beautiful, who talked to me so earnestly, nor did he ever do so.

As for me—a man in stripes, a convict—I was happy, and I think it was one of the purest joys that I have ever felt. Alicia had not been a traitor to me, she had not willingly allowed me to suffer that I might protect her good name, and now she would instantly put herself in a false light to save me, had I not made it impossible.

I went to the door of the blacksmith shop. The members of the committee and their friends were just entering the broom factory on the far side of the yard, but Alicia lingered behind. I could see her standing somewhat detached from the others, her slender figure a line of light for me. She was wrapped in a long black cloak, but in her black hat there was a knot of red ribbon that gleamed like a flame in the winter sunshine. It was to me a splash of color and vivid hope in the gloomy prison yard. As I looked she entered the broom factory after the others and then all the light was gone from the sombre enclosure. Ugly clouds floated out of the northwest, and slow flakes of snow began to fall.

When the day’s work was over and I returned to my cell I found there a man transformed by joy, his hollow cheeks flushed, his tired eyes alive and eager. Elias waved at me a legal document that he had been clutching tightly in his hand.

“I’m free! I’m free, Charlie,” he cried, and it was the tone of a boy let loose from a hard school. “See, it’s my pardon! I go to-morrow.”

I smiled. I shared his joy, although I knew how I should miss him.

“You’ll soon see your mountains again, Elias,” I said.

“Never to leave them again I hope,” he said. Then he paused, and his face fell.

“But, Charlie, you stay here,” he added. “I can’t be happy when I think of you behind.”

“Don’t bother about me,” I said cheerily and my good humor was not assumed. “I’m going, too, in time and I’ve plans for the future. You can help me with them now; you can do me a great favor, if you will, Elias.”

A happy thought had come to me when he told me of his speedy freedom, and I did not linger now over its execution. Well-behaved prisoners were allowed a certain amount of stationery, and I wrote a long letter which Elias promised to smuggle to a lady in the town. He could do it easily as he was to go forth a free man on the morrow, and when I assured him on my word of honor that it was to serve a good purpose he put aside his scruples.

I hid nothing from Alicia, I told her of my life before I came to her house in Louisville, of the depths to which I had sunk, and then I related all my plans for the future. What these were I put before her in careful outline, and I showed her clearly how any interference by her now, however well meant, would spoil them all. It would ruin my life as well as hers, and I begged her if she had any care for me to let things go as they were; my real identity was hidden, and if she undertook to release me she would have to lift this veil of secrecy, which would be fatal. Then at the close I asked her to destroy the letter as soon as she had read it. I signed no name.

I sealed the envelope and handed it to Elias, requesting him to find her and to deliver it to her secretly, or not at all.

“You can trust me, Charlie,” he said, and I trusted him absolutely.

He left the next morning, already a new man both physically and mentally. I saw his lank frame filling out, a steady light burning in his eyes, and I listened with pleasure to his firm confident voice. The striped convict clothing was gone now and in a neat black suit he had a new dignity.

“Charlie, I feel that you and I are not done with each other,” he said; “we are going to be together again sometime and somewhere, and I think it will be for a good purpose.”

I did not have the heart to tell him that I intended to vanish from his life and from that of all who were in the prison with me, my purpose allowing of nothing else, and I merely squeezed his hand, while the water rose to my eyes, because here was a true friend, whom I intended to lose.

“Good bye, Charlie,” he said, patting me on the shoulder in his fatherly way—I was little more than a boy then; “you can trust me about the letter: I know that it touches you deep.”

“It does,” I replied, “and if I can’t trust you I can trust nobody.”

In a half hour he was gone and with his going the great prison seemed empty to me. I was terribly lonesome, and all the time I remained in the penitentiary there was not a day that I did not miss him. But, for the present most of my thoughts were for Alicia, and I wondered how and when I should hear from her again. The answer came quickly.

Three days later I was notified that a lady was waiting to see me in the warden’s private office, and I knew at once that it was Alicia. I was glad and yet sorry, glad to see her and to hear her speak, and sorry because of my fear that she ran a great risk.

“Who is it?” I asked of Stone—it was the deputy warden who brought me the message, and I wished to know whether Alicia had told her name.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “I suppose that nobody but the warden does. I caught a glimpse of her, she’s tall and slender, Johnson, a fine figure of a woman; I didn’t know that you had feminine friends, Johnson.”

“Neither did I know it,” I said with a flippancy I was far from feeling, “but I fancy it’s some charity worker who wants to turn me into a reformed burglar.”

I walked across the prison yard toward the warden’s office, and I glanced half in pity and half in contempt at the slouching figures in striped suits as they went about their errands. It is true that I often felt a sense of comradeship with them, that is, of membership in a great family, but my consciousness of innocence always gave me a sense of superiority. It was stronger than ever now when I was going to meet Alicia. No such woman ever came to see any of them, and it was she, not I, who was to be the supplicant.

I went into the warden’s private office and the armed guard closed the door behind me. A lady, all in black, was standing by the little barred window that looked over the prison yard, but she turned when she heard my footstep. I had made no mistake; it was Alicia, she was heavily veiled because of the winter cold and not because of any vulgar attempt at disguise, but I should have known her at a glance anywhere. The light, graceful figure and the swift impulsive movements could belong to nobody else. She lifted the veil, and I saw her beautiful face, oh, so much saddened by many nights and days of painful thought and reflection! But I now saw the color rise in her pale cheeks, and her eyes glow with a light which I felt was for me. It repaid me for much. She held out both her hands and almost unconsciously I clasped them in mine. I felt or thought I felt their warmth through her gloves, and my frame tingled pleasantly.

“Harry,” she said, “I have had your letter, and I have read it. I cannot doubt that you meant what you said, but I have come to ask you to take it back. It is I who should be in convict garb and not you, because another has suffered so long in my place. No woman can accept such a sacrifice from anybody. I entreat you to let me tell all. I can secure your pardon. Nothing can alter the fact that you have been here so long, but hereafter if there is any way in which I can make it up to you, at least in part, I shall not hesitate to use it. What is my life to me now? You came here to defend my good name; but was it worth defending?”

I saw that I must protect her, that I must be the one who would strengthen and cheer, and even to a man in convict garb it is an electrifying thought that he can help a woman who is young and beautiful, and, as he knows, of noble character.

“Alicia,” I said, “I explained my purpose in my letter. What you propose is an impulse of your own true heart, but it would ruin all my plans; it would destroy my future.”

I saw that I must base my appeal upon my own interest; only thus could I reach her, and I noted its effect as her face paled and her eyes fell.

“But for you to stay here in this prison, a convict, oh, I cannot stand it!” she exclaimed.

She put her hands over her face and cried softly, gently, almost without a sound, but I knew that the sobs came from the very bottom of her heart. It is an awful thing to see a woman cry so, and to know that you cannot help her, and I trembled. I knew that I was now putting the burden upon her rather than myself, but I saw no other way. And she was a poor unhappy creature at the best, tied to such a man as Grey. It was forcing upon her a weight more than one woman ought to bear, yet I must do it. I longed to speak of Grey, to sympathize with her because of him, but I could not give her the mortal hurt that such words would bring and perforce I was silent.

“Alicia,” I said, and I spoke almost as a man to the woman whom he loves, “I cannot say that I am happy here, that I can ever rejoice to have been a convict. He who enters a penitentiary is branded in a way that can never be forgotten. There are humiliations that even a knowledge of one’s innocence cannot drive away, but I do believe that our meeting that night in your house and all that came after were intended by Providence for my good. I was embarked upon a bad road, the road to degradation and destruction and I was so far gone upon it that only a mighty wrench could save me. The mighty wrench was given and I feel that another path is now opening before me.”

I spoke with the deepest earnestness, and when the words come straight from the heart they always give to a man a certain eloquence that carries conviction. Alicia took her hands from her sweet sad face, stained now with tears that were shed for me, and when her eyes met mine I saw in them the light of a new knowledge.

“Harry,” she said, “I feel that you are telling me this because you believe it and not merely to save me from pain. I came here, resolved that you should let me tell, and I am going away equally resolved to keep your secret. But there is to be a hereafter when you come out, and again I say that if there is any way in which, I, another man’s wife, can reward you, no matter what the way, you are to claim it.”

Suddenly she—the shy little Alicia, whom I had known so long—stepped forward and kissed me on the brow, kissed me as if she gloried in it, as if she were willing, nay wished for all the world to see.

I trembled violently, and gazed not at her, but through the little cross-barred window, through which I could see the gloomy prison yard, and the men in the gloomy, striped suits passing and repassing. I have said a little while ago that I spoke almost as a man to the woman whom he loves but I knew now that it was not “almost,” but “wholly.” Alicia had come to fill the place in my life that can be filled in any life by only one. No man can ever really love twice, he may think otherwise in his middle years, but when he is old and comes to die he will know better. I turned my eyes at last from the window to her glorified face.

“Alicia,” I said, “the bargain is made between us. Remember you have promised and you are not one to break your word. I must ask you never again to come to see me here. It is too dangerous, too dangerous for us both,” again I played upon her concern for myself, “and you must not seek to communicate with me.”

“A year yet,” she said, “it is too long.”

“It is as long for me as it is for you,” I said—to another man’s wife, “and now it is better to go. Good bye Alicia.”

“Good bye,” she said, clasping my hand in hers. Then she let the heavy winter veil fall over her face and left the room,

It was the warden himself who let me out of his office and I felt his inquiring gaze upon me. Undoubtedly he knew the identity of the woman who came to see me, otherwise she could not have obtained permission for the interview, but he restrained his curiosity, contenting himself with remarking at the last moment:

“It appears, Johnson, that you are not wholly without friends.”

“I have learned so, lately,” I said.

But the warden of a penitentiary sees so many strange things in his time that one cannot hang long in his memory and he never again spoke to me of the visit.

Elias’ successor in my cell was a boy of twenty, from Louisville, named Seth Larkin, callow and dull, sluggish alike of mind and body. He had been sentenced for picking pockets, but I saw at once that he was a product of his environment, knowing little of the difference between good and evil and caring only for physical wants. I undertook to teach him, at first in order to make him more companionable. I do not claim any unselfish motive —but soon I began to take an interest in the work for its own sake. Seth was not intractable. He was loth to learn, but from a sort of good nature he wished to oblige me and he made an effort. I saw that in a blind sort of way he appreciated what was being done for him and was attached to me. He could not fill the place of Elias, but he was much better than nothing.

I heard from Alicia only once. A trusty, that is a convict who in the course of years had earned a character and was allowed to go about the town on errands, told me that on the evening before in the thick twilight a lady had stopped him on the street and had asked him if he knew a convict named Charles Johnson. When he said yes, she told him to say friends were near and would always watch over me.

“I wouldn’t know her if I saw her again,” said the trusty, “because it was almost dark and she was all wrapped up from the winter cold, but she had a mighty sweet voice, Johnson, and it sounded anxious when she was asking about you. Sister, I suppose?”

He put forth the query in a mildly tentative way, and as I made no reply he did not repeat it, perhaps supposing that he was right in his surmise. I was content to let him think so.

Three days after the delivery of this message I was at work as usual in the blacksmith shop, where Seth, who had become my helper, told me that some visitors were in the prison.

“They’ve been goin’ about the place for an hour or two,” he said, “an’ I guess they’ll look in here before they leave.”

I heard him, but the words fell unheeded. Alicia would not be with these visitors, that I knew well, and without her what they might say or do had no interest for me. I went on with my work, and in a half hour Seth’s words came true. A dozen men entered the shop, and stood about, glancing at us in the perfunctory way that people have when they are jaded by scene after scene. I should have paid them little attention, in fact I should not have looked up at all, but a bulky figure near the door caught a wandering glance of mine, and I knew at once that in place of Alicia, Alicia’s husband had come.

It had been nearly two years since I saw him in the Criminal Court, but the process of change for the worse in him had been going on steadily. His eyes were obscured by red spots and the heavy jaw and bloated cheeks told of dissipation and cruelty. The sight of him filled me with rage. I could not bear the thought that Alicia, should belong to such a man, to do with as he would, and presently when he came near me, watching me swing the great sledge, a terrible idea crept into my mind. It would be easy to let the sledge glance from the steel upon which it should fall, and strike him. With all my weight and strength in the blow it must be fatal—an accident it might seem—and then Alicia would be released.

I confess that I was tempted, tempted sorely, how sorely those who are free and happy can never know, but I put the feeling aside. It was no part of my scheme of reinstatement to do murder, and he should live for aught of me. I brought the great sledge straight and true upon its mark, and the steel that we were beating into shape rang with the blow.

“You look like a strong man,” said Grey to me.

I nodded. I saw that he had not recognized me, that he had not yet seen my face, and I resolved upon a test. I turned and gazed squarely into his eyes, but he gave back my look, uncomprehending. I did not know then how much my prison life and those interior forces which are of the heart and brain had changed me. He looked me up and down, but the remotest light of recognition did not appear in his eyes.

“At all events,” said Grey to some of the others, “these men ought to have good appetites and sleep well.”

It was a brutal remark to make in our hearing and two or three of the visitors laughed with the deference that the servile pay to the rich, but the majority, I was glad to notice, were silent. Nor do I boast when I say that at that moment, with the striped clothing of the prison upon me, I felt myself his superior in all things, and if the point be pressed better situated than he.

All of them went out presently and I did not follow Grey with my eyes. The new meeting inspired only contempt in my mind for him, but with it came increased anxiety for Alicia.

I asked nothing about Grey, I made no inquires in the prison, I would not let any one know that I was interested in him in any manner, and soon I heard that the Legislature had adjourned. I presumed then that both he and Alicia had left the capital for their home in Louisville, and I tried to banish them from my thoughts as much as possible until such time as I should be free.

Spring came and I felt its influence within the prison. After cold winds and cold rains a warm breeze blew from the South, and I knew that the young buds were forming on the boughs. Then the desire for freedom became almost unendurable. But a change was coming for me, too. Spring passed. We were in midsummer now and in a few more weeks I should be free, free to go where I pleased, subject to no man’s call and order, free to take up my life anew and to make more of it than I had done. The prison brand was upon me, yet I knew that circumstance had made me a far better and stronger man, one beaten into shape by the world’s rough hand.

The last week or two lagged terribly, and the last day was cruel in its length, but it too passed and my imprisonment was over; the sentence had been served. I said good bye to Seth and he shed tears at my going— I knew that he leaned on me. His own term would be at an end in six months, and I promised to help him then, though he little guessed in what manner.

I threw off the hateful convict clothes, those hideous stripes that had burned into my very body, and putting on the plain suit of gray provided for me—the garb of an honest citizen, that gave me a new dignity—I went into the warden’s office. He looked at me some time, and then he said gravely:

“Johnson, you have been a good prisoner, and you have made the impression upon us all that you are not an ordinary man. I, for one, am confident that you are through with crime. But the passage from a prison to the world is not without shocks. Can I help you in any way, with letters of recommendation or anything of that kind?”

“I am grateful to you,” I replied, and I meant it, “but in the course that I have chosen I could not use them. I think I shall take a new start altogether.”

“I infer that from this day Charles Johnson ceases to exist?”

I did not answer him, but looked him in the eye with the gaze that one free man gives to another.

“It’s not for me to counsel you,” he said, good-humoredly, “I think you’ll be able to take care of yourself and I’m your friend. I want you to know that.”

“I know it.”

He held out his hand and I clasped it. A man who, year after year, has charge of a thousand prisoners learns much of human nature, and casts aside some false standards.

Then he gave me more than a hundred dollars, a gold watch and some other valuables that had been found on me when I was captured, and as the gate of the penitentiary swung wide for me, I walked into the world, a free man.

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