When Egypt Went Broke Part 32

Frank Vaniman's mother was allowed to visit him once a month at the prison. She was not present at his trial. She had respected his earnest wishes in that matter.

When she came to him she smiled--she did not weep. When she smiled he wanted to weep. He realized how much that display of calm courage was costing Martha Vaniman. He remembered how bravely and steadfastly she had brought that same heroine's quality to the support of his father when she had taken Frank with her to the prison; they used to walk in through the gloomy portal hand in hand, and, though her face was serene, her throbbing fingers told him what her heart was saying to her.

Her husband had thankfully accepted that little fiction of her fort.i.tude; her son, under like circ.u.mstances, did the same. Between mother and son, as between husband and wife, was the bond of an implicit faith in the innocence of the accused. Love was not shamed, no matter how the outside world might view the matter.

The prison warden was a fat man, full of sympathy. He gave the mother and son the privileges of his office, and to those rea.s.suring surroundings the mother brought Frank's sister on one of the regular visits.

After Mr. Wagg's guile gave Vaniman his outdoor job, the mother brought Anna each month, for the school vacation season was on. The sun was bright out there in the yard. One could look up into the fleecy clouds, over the walls, and forget the bars and the armed guards.

In fact, one day, Anna's ingenuous forgetfulness of the true situation provoked real merriment for the little party--Guard Wagg included.

Anna surveyed apprehensively several particularly villainous-looking barrowmen who pa.s.sed and expressed the devout hope that Frank always saw to it carefully that he locked his bedroom door nights.

Before all the zest of that joke had evaporated, Mrs. Vaniman departed; it was a part of her helpful tact in alleviating the grievous situation in which Frank was placed. She always came with the best little piece of news she could provide for the meeting; for the parting she reserved a bit of a joke.

Mr. Wagg chuckled for a long time after the visitors went away.

Gradually his face became serious. "Of course, I have to sit here and listen to what's said, because that's my duty. But, as I have told you before, all family matters simply pa.s.s into one ear and out of the other."

"I'm mighty grateful for the way you have treated us," said Vaniman.

"The fact that we haven't done business as yet hasn't changed me--never will change me. That mother of yours is so fine a woman that she deserves every favor that I can grant her, for her own sake. And, she being so fine a woman, I was sorry to hear what you wormed out of her this day--that she has gone back to work in the store again."

"It was the one big happiness in my life in Egypt, Mr. Wagg, to feel that at last my mother was having the little rest and comfort that she deserved. I used to look ahead to the time when I could give her what I was able to give her while I was at work. I had a dreadful struggle with her, getting her to leave her work. The only way I ever did get around her was to complain that she was spoiling my prettiest dream by staying in the store. And now it's all to do over again. I haven't even the realization of the dream to help me here."

"It's tough--realizing what you could do if you had the chance, and not being able to do it," averred Mr. Wagg. He lighted his pipe and slid off his stool. "A woman earning her living these days has to do a terrible lot of hard work in seven years."

And having, after his usual custom, lighted a fire under the kettle, Mr.

Wagg went to a distance and allowed the contents to boil.

The contents did boil that day, when Vaniman had an opportunity to do some concentrated thinking.

That morning he had received his weekly letter from Vona. She confessed to him that for some weeks she had refrained from telling him that Tasper Britt was a member of the household. She explained under what circ.u.mstances Britt was there and what her att.i.tude was and would continue to be. She had not written anything about the matter, she said, on account of her anxiety to keep petty troubles and worries away from one who was suffering from such cruel injustice. But now that her father had gone away for an indefinite stay, leaving Britt as general guardian, she wrote to Vaniman to antic.i.p.ate any rumors which might reach the young man from another quarter.

She did not state that this intrusion by Britt into her home was perpetual persecution where she was concerned; Vaniman felt that she did not need to say so. His imagination pictured the situation. He had become morbid. He admitted it, but he could not help himself. He had done his best to keep his judgments sane and his hopes untarnished. But he was judging Britt by what Britt had already done, and he was in a mood to believe that Britt would be able to go ahead and accomplish a lot more in the way of hideous deviltry. The thought of Britt in that house--a girl there with no other protection than the presence of a silly mother--made for agony of apprehension that was excruciating.

One of his most precious dreams had just melted into drab reality--his mother was compelled to go back to her toil.

His other dream--the one that was consoling him through the dreary wait of seven years behind bars--was threatened by the malevolence of a man who was showing himself to be a veritable fiend in his machinations.

Vaniman put some questions to himself. Who on G.o.d's green earth had a more imperious call to be out--to be free to fight for himself and the innocent? Would not a lie be holy if it should open prison doors and allow a guiltless man to go forth and battle with the guilty? Did not the end justify all the means? The state had declared that his liberty must be forfeited. Had the state the right to take away his reason?

Vaniman told himself that he was on the straight road to lunacy.

He leaped up, in the frenzy of his determination forgetting that there were preliminaries yet to be attended to.

"Sit down there, Convict Two-Seven-Nine, or I'll bore ye!" bawled Guard Wagg, with a mighty volume of tone. A deputy warden was crossing the yard. He flourished a commendatory salute to the vigilant warder.

"Good stuff, Bart! Always on your job, eh?"

"Always!" agreed Mr. Wagg.

The warden went on his way and the guard marched to the convict with a manner which expressed a determination to give No. 279 an earful. He stood over Vaniman, who had dropped back to the chair, and the two of them swapped stares.

"I want to get out--I want to get out!" whimpered Vaniman.

Mr. Wagg nodded.

"What must I do?"

"Whack up with me--fifty-fifty. Haven't I told you times enough?"

"But, I mean, what must I do to help?"

"I don't need any of your help. I only want you to say that you'll lead me to that money."

Vaniman drew a deep breath. "I will lead you to that money."

"Some men would make you swear that you know just where the coin is,"

proceeded Wagg. "But I'm playing my own hunch in this thing on that point. Furthermore, I have talked with a chap named Bixby." He looked hard at the ex-cas.h.i.+er. "Bixby tied your little game into knots, didn't he?"

Vaniman admitted that fact by a rueful sag of his chin.

"Confidence--mutual confidence in each other!" Mr. Wagg walked away.

When he came back past Vaniman, patrolling, he snapped: "No more talk!

No more need of talk. Never can tell when talk may trip us. From now on, sit tight!"

After that, though days pa.s.sed, Wagg had not one word for the amelioration of the convict's impatience. Then, one day, Wagg changed his job again. Vaniman was kept at the same work, if work it could be called. He caught glimpses of Wagg. The guard was busy on the opposite side of the big pit. He had two or three convict helpers. They began to operate drills in the side of a rocky hillock which towered considerably above the level of the yard.

News circulates inside prison walls despite the inhibition on communications between the inmates. Vaniman got information piecemeal from convicts who stopped near him on the pretense of spitting on their hands to get a new grip on their barrow handles. He learned that the plan was to mine the hillock and rig a blast that would tip it into the pit for filling. The barrow work was proving too slow an operation and the prison commissioners wanted the outside men put back into the shops where they could earn money for the state.

It was evident that Guard Wagg was having a great deal of trouble with his helpers. He was continually bawling them out with a violence whose volume reached the ears of Vaniman.

One day Wagg perceived the warden inspecting the work from the edge of the pit near Vaniman; the guard came trotting around.

"Warden, I'm an expert on quarry work, as you know," he panted. "I'm doing my best to show you that I haven't forgotten what I learned over at Stoneport, and to back up what I promised you and the commissioners after I gave you the tip as to what could be done with that hill. Much obliged to you for allowing me all the dynamite I need. But, demmit!

I haven't got anybody with brains to help me handle it. It's notional stuff, sir. It hates a blasted fool." He pointed a finger at the men across the pit. Their striped suits suggested the nomenclature he used "Those potato bugs will do something to blow us to blazes sure'n there's air in a doughnut hole!"

The warden showed his concern. "Don't you know of some man who is used to dynamite?"

"That ain't it, sir. A fool gets used to it, till he's too cussed familiar. I want a man with brains enough to be polite to it."

The warden, making a general survey of the scene, beheld Vaniman. "A man who knows enough to be a bank cas.h.i.+er ought to have brains, Wagg. How about Number Two-Seven-Nine?"

Mr. Wagg contemplated Vaniman and took plenty of time for thought. "I'll try him," he said, without enthusiasm. "I hadn't thought of him--but I'll try him."

Directed to do so by the warden, Vaniman went to his new work with Wagg.

The latter exhibited no especial symptoms of satisfaction at securing such a helper. He told the young man that his particular care would be the dynamite--to handle the boxes, store them in the little shed, unpack the sticks, and follow the drills, planting the rendrock ready for the blast that was to topple the hillock into the pit. Mr. Wagg explained to the warden, after a time, that the dynamite could be planted more safely and to better advantage when the drillers were off the job. Therefore, Vaniman was detailed to help during the noon hour while the prisoners were at dinner.

But, even when they were alone together, day after day, Mr. Wagg maintained his reticence. Once in a while he did wink at Vaniman. The winks grew more frequent when Mr. Wagg began to connect up the dynamite pockets in the hill with wires. One afternoon, near knocking-off time, he stepped into the shed where Vaniman was covering up his boxes for the night. "When you leave your cell in the morning," said the man who had promised freedom, "hide in your pockets all the letters and little chickle-fixings you intend to carry away with you. You won't be going back into that cell again, Number Two-Seven-Nine."