O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 50

"What was his name?" asked the Little Chap, apparently greatly interested.

"He had no name. People in those olden days were known by their trade or calling. So he was simply called 'the hatter'."

"And did he make nice hats?"

"I've no doubt he did, Son. But you mustn't interrupt. Well, the hatter paid his t.i.thes, or taxes, after which, I dare say, he had little enough left to live on. But he appeared not to mind. And whenever the King and Queen rode through the streets in their gilded coach of state, his cracked old voice would cheer l.u.s.tily, and his h.o.a.ry head would be bared in deepest reverence."

"Didn't he ever catch cold?"

"Hush, Son, I'm telling a story! As the hatter grew older he lost his wits and became quite crazy on the subject of his king. He yearned to do something to prove his loyalty. And whenever England engaged in a war, and a proclamation was issued calling for men to fight for King and country, he would be one of the first to volunteer. But they never accepted him, of course, because he was so old.

"With the pa.s.sing of the years the Queen died, and the King decided to marry again. Great preparations for the ceremony were begun at Westminster Abbey, where the wedding was to take place. The old hatter became greatly excited when he heard the news. His addled wits presently hit upon a wonderful scheme by which he could both honour and serve his sovereign: _He would make the King a hat to wear at his wedding_!"

"I guess he must 've been a good hatter, after all," the Little Chap murmured, in a tone of conviction.

"Perhaps, in his time," his father conceded. "But you must remember he now was old and foolish. His materials were merely such odds and ends as he could gather together, and the result was very disreputable-looking. But in his rheumy old eyes it was the most wonderful hat ever designed for a monarch. He carefully wrapped it in a soiled old cloth and started out to present it to the King. At the palace gates the guards refused him admittance, and cruelly laughed in his face. He tried every means he could think of to have the hat reach its destination. Once he stopped the Court Chamberlain on the street, only to be rebuked for his pains. Another time he waylaid a peer, as he left the House of Lords, and was threatened with arrest. Foiled in all his attempts, the cracked-brained old fellow impatiently awaited the wedding ceremony. At last the great day arrived. All the bells of old London were ringing blithely as the gilded coach, drawn by ten white horses, deposited the King at Westminster Abbey. In the forefront of the vast throng surrounding the entrance stood the hatter."

"And did he have the hat with him?" asked the Little Chap.

"Yes, Son, he had it with him. And when the King entered the portals of the ancient Abbey, the hatter somehow broke through the line of guards and ran after him crying 'Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Deign to accept this token of a loyal subject's regard!'

"The King turned in surprise And when he saw the ragged old fellow tending him the ridiculous-looking hat, he flew into a great rage and cried angrily: 'How comes this varlet here, interrupting his Sovereign's nuptials and desecrating our Tomb of Kings? Away with him to prison, and let him repent his insolence as he rots in a dungeon!'"

"Why did he do that, Daddy?"

"The Sovereign, Son, was a very proud king, while the hatter was both poor and humble. And at his words the guards hurried forward and hustled the old man out of the Abbey, where his presence was an insult to the Great. In the struggle the hat rolled into the gutter, and one of the King's white horses put his hoof through it. The hatter cried like a child when he saw the work of his loving hands thus ruined. But they carried him off to prison and kept him shut up there until he died and paid the penalty for his crime of desecrating the Abbey."

"Oh, the poor old hatter! But is that the end of the story, Daddy?"

The Little Chap's disappointment was markedly p.r.o.nounced.

"No, Son, there is a little more to come. I meant to tell you that the hatter had reared a large family of boys. His sons all married and, in turn, raised large families. These numerous relatives or kin took the name of Hatterskin. In course of time that became shortened to Hatkins, and so remained until the British habit of dropping their H's reduced it to Atkins.

"At last the proud King died and was buried with great ceremony in the Abbey. Year followed year, and century succeeded century. England, although blessed with a Royal pair both humane and good, was ruled by an even wiser monarch--the Sovereign People.

"Then came an August day when the black thunder-cloud of war darkened her smiling horizon. Four b.l.o.o.d.y, terrible years the conflict lasted.

And when at last an armistice was signed, the stricken people went wild with joy."

The Big Chap's gaze returned to the canvas with its scene of mediaeval splendour. A mystic light smouldered in his eyes as, unconscious of his surroundings and his youthful auditor, he continued: "On the second anniversary of that happy day an unprecedented thing happened.

Before the ancient Abbey a gun carriage, bearing the flag-draped casket of an unidentified warrior, came to rest on the very spot where the gilded coach of the proud King once had stopped. Again the square was crowded, as on that day in the long ago when the poor hatter foolishly tried to honour his sovereign. The traditions of centuries toppled when the body of the unknown soldier pa.s.sed through those storied portals followed by the King of England as chief mourner. In the dim, historic chapel the king stood, in advance of princes, prime ministers, and the famous leaders of both army and navy. Like the humble hatter of old his royal head was reverently bared as the nameless hero was laid among the silent company of England's ill.u.s.trious dead. 'The Boast of Heraldry and the Pomp of Power' bowed in silent homage before the remains of a once common soldier. Thus Loyalty and Service eventually stormed the Stronghold of Honour and Splendour!"

For a moment there was an impressive, brooding silence, broken presently by the Little Chap. "And what was the soldier's name, Daddy?"

Recalled from his revery, the father answered:

"_He was known, Son, as Tommy Atkins_."

The Little Chap's brow was puckered in thought. At last he laughed delightedly and clapped his hands. "Was the soldier, Daddy, one of the hatter's family--the poor old hatter who was thrown out of the Abbey?"

The Big Chap lifted the child from his lap and placed him on his feet.

Then he picked up a brush and turned to his painting.

"I like to think so, Son. But only G.o.d knows."

THE GETAWAY

By O.F. LEWIS

From _Red Book_

Old Man Anderson, the lifer, and Detroit Jim, the best second-story man east of the Mississippi, lay panting side by side in the pitch-dark dugout, six feet beneath the surface of the prison yard.

They knew their exact position to be twenty feet south of the north wall, and, therefore, thirty feet south of the slate sidewalk outside the north wall.

It had taken the twain three months and twenty-one days to achieve the dugout. Although there was always a guard somewhere on the north wall, the particular spot where the dugout had come into being was sheltered from the wall-guard's observation by a small tool-house. Also whenever the pair were able to dig, which was only at intervals, a bunch of convicts was always perched on the heap of dirt from various legitimate excavations within the yard, which Fate had piled up at that precise spot. The earth from the dugout and the earth from these other diggings mixed admirably.

Nor, likewise because of the dirt-pile, could any one detect the job from the south end of the yard. If a guard appeared from around the mat-shop or coming out of the Princ.i.p.al Keeper's office, the convicts sunning themselves on the dirt-pile in the free hour of noon, or late in the afternoon, after the shops had closed, spoke with motionless lips to the two diggers. Plenty of time was thus afforded to shove a couple of boards over the aperture, kick dirt over the boards, and even push a barrow over the dugout's entrance--and there you were!

One minute before this narrative opens, on July 17th, a third convict had dropped the boards over the hole into which Old Man Anderson, the lifer, and Detroit Jim, had crawled. This convict had then frantically kicked dirt over the boards, had clawed down still more dirt, to make sure nothing could be seen of the hole--had made the thing look just like part of the big dirt-pile indeed--and then had legged it to the ball-game now in progress on this midsummer Sat.u.r.day afternoon, at the extreme south end of the yard, behind the mat-shop.

Dirt trickled down upon the gray hair of Old Man Anderson in the dark and stuffy hole he shared with his younger companion. But the darkness and the stuffiness and the filtering dirt were unsensed. Something far more momentous was in the minds of both. How soon would Slattery, the prison guard, whom they knew to be lying dead in the alley between the foundry and the tool-shop, be found? For years Slattery had been a fairly good friend to Old Man Anderson, but what did that count in the face of his becoming, for all his friendship, a last-minute and totally unexpected impediment to the get-away? He had turned into the alley just when Old Man Anderson and Detroit Jim were crouching for the final jump to the dugout! A blow--a thud--that was all....

Anderson lay now, staring wide-eyed into the black nothing of the hole. For the second time he had killed a man, and G.o.d knew he hadn't intended to--either time! Fourteen years ago a man had tried to get his wife away from him, while he was serving a one-year bit in the county jail. Both men had had guns, and Old Man Anderson had killed the other or he would have been killed himself. So that was no murder at all! And as for Slattery--big, heavy, slow-moving, red-faced Slattery--Old Man Anderson would even have gone out of his way to do the guard a favour, under ordinary circ.u.mstances. But as between Slattery and the chance to escape--that was different.

Old Man Anderson rubbed his right hand in the dirt and held it before his eyes in the blackness. He knew that the moisture on it was Slattery's blood. The iron pipe in Old Man Anderson's hands had struck Slattery on the head just once, but once was enough.

Old Man Anderson burst into hiccoughing sobs. The younger convict punched him in the ribs, and swore at him in m.u.f.fled tones. Anderson stifled his sobs then, but continued to sniffle and shiver. This time it would absolutely be The Chair for him--if they got him! In a few minutes they couldn't help discovering Slattery. Anderson never could give himself up now, however this business of the dugout and the hoped-for old sewer conduit should finally turn out. In the beginning he had counted on crawling out, if worst came to worst, and surrendering. But to crawl out now meant but one thing--The Chair!

In all his fourteen years behind the walls the vision of The Chair had terrorized the old man. When they had sent him to prison his first cell had been in the death-house, separated from The Chair only by a corridor that, they told him, was about twenty feet long, and took no more than five seconds to traverse--with the priest. Until they changed his cell, the gaunt, terrible Thing in the next room edged every day nearer, nearer, nearer, looming, growing, broadening before his morbid vision until it seemed to have cut off from his sight everything else in the world--closer, closer until it was only seven incredible hours away! Then had come the commutation of his sentence from death to life!

The next day Old Man Anderson, gray-haired even then, went out from the death-house among his gray-clad fellows, but straight into the prison hospital, where for three months be lay a victim of chair-shock just as surely as was ever a man sh.e.l.l-shocked on the Flanders front.

And never since had the hands of the man wholly ceased to quiver and to shake.

Now he was a murderer for the second time! In the blackness he stretched out his hand, and ran it over a stack of tin cans. Detroit Jim had been mighty clever! Canned food from the storehouse, enough to last perhaps two weeks! Detroit Jim had had a storehouse job. Twice a day, during the last ten days, the wiry little ferret-faced second-story man had got away with at least one can from the prison commissary. Also he had provided matches, candles, and even a cranky little flashlight. Only chewing tobacco, because you can smell smoke a long way when you are hunting escaped convicts. And a can of water half the size of an ash can!

Despair fastened upon Old Man Anderson, and a wave of sickness swept over him. All the food in the world wouldn't bring Slattery back to life. And again that Thing in the death-house rose before his mind's eyes. Throughout all the years he had carried a kind of dread that sometime a governor might come along who would put back his sentence where it had been at first--and then all his good behaviour in these endless years would count for nothing. Until Detroit Jim had told him about the long-forgotten sewer conduit, he had never even thought to disobey the prison rules.

The old man's teeth chattered. Detroit Jim's thin fingers tugged at his sleeve. That meant getting busy, and digging with the pick with the sawed-off handle. So Anderson wriggled into the horizontal chamber, which was just large enough to permit his body and arms to function.

As he hacked away at the damp earth, he could see in the pitch darkness the dirty sheet of paper, now in Detroit Jim's pocket, upon which their very life depended. It was a tracing made by a discharged convict from a dusty leather-covered book in the public library in New York, sent in by the underground to Jim. The book had contained the report of some forgotten architect, back in the fifties of the last century, and the diagram in his report showed the water and sewage conduit--in use! It ran from the prison building, right down across the yard, six feet under ground, and out under the north wall, under the street outside, and finally into the river. Built of brick, four feet wide, four feet high. A ready-made tunnel to freedom!

Old Man Anderson could hear Detroit Jim's hoa.r.s.e whisper now, as he chopped away at the dirt, which he shoved back under his stomach, to where Jim's fingers caught it and thrust it farther back.

"We're only a couple of feet from that old conduit right now. Dig, you son of a gun, dig! Can the snifflin'! You dig, and then I'll dig!"

They were saving their matches and candles against necessity.

Mechanically the old man chopped and hacked at the wall of earth in front of him. Now and then the pick would encounter a stone or some other hard substance. In the last few days they had come upon frequent pieces of old brick. Detroit Jim had rejoiced over these signs. For the old man every falling clod of earth seemed to bring him nearer to freedom. They also took his mind off Slattery.