Had I been the Governor of the State of New York, I would have pardoned “Shorty.” There was universal sorrow in the Death-Chamber when he died, for we knew his story, and every one of us felt that justice might have been satisfied in another way. Each of us had learned to respect this stupid-faced little fellow of five feet one inch; who walked with such heavy feet, and whose stooped shoulders were the result of a long life of excessive hard work, yet Shorty was only twenty-two years old.

On arriving among us, there was something very like an animal about him. He could not read or write; he learned to do both while there. Larry, an Italian member of our guild, taught him. At that time, when he was not drawing pictures for “The Murderers’ Home Journal,” which the editor had to suppress, he was catching flies; he did this almost as well as a monkey—and why not? How the flies loved Shorty! But this was at first. So was his feud with our colored brother, Benjamin, which was renewed daily. Every morning Shorty told Benjamin that his face was black, and urged him to wash it. Benjamin replied; Shorty responded; Benjamin observed, and then the keeper would interfere.

What trivial things bring about misunderstandings among friends. A mere nothing at all will start a quarrel in the Death-Chamber. We had cookies for Sunday dinner, “the kind mother used to make,” all dotted over with dried currants. She gave them to me when I was a good boy: she gave them to me incessantly. Shorty replaced the currants with dried flies, and sent them in the twilight to Benjamin with his compliments.

Benjamin was in a dark cell, it was a dark day; Benjamin—my pen refuses to write it. I shall never be hungry again as long as I live, when I think of what happened.

“I doan think much of dem currants,” said Ben.

Shorty replied, “No-a-currant—heap a—” My pen again refuses its task. No; I cannot tolerate the thought, can you? Don’t ask me to write that word, and then I need not repeat Benjamin’s reply, for Ben’s reply was awful to hear.

This started the feud, and a little pleasantry of Ben’s not long afterwards added kerosene to the flame. Benjamin bided his time. One evening he challenged Shorty to a game of checkers, for a paper of chewing tobacco a side; best two games in three, the winner to take all. Now in the Death-Chamber each of us had made a checker-board, and the squares of each board were numbered alike; so, when an important match is made, we can follow the game as the combatants call off the moves by numbers to each other. It is just like a chess match “by cable,” and we are almost as far away from each other, although in the same room. The stakes were put up in the keeper’s hands. Shorty won the first game, Benjamin the second, Shorty the third, and took the tobacco. Shorty was jubilant; he declared that “Ben knew nothing from the game what he is about.”

It became strangely silent in Benjamin’s cell. Benjamin was waiting until Shorty should regale himself with the victor’s spoils. For worlds Ben would not have lost a word of Shorty’s remarks. The noises which proceeded from “little Italy” later were worth waiting for. There were two dead mice hidden away in the interior of that package of tobacco.

“How does yer like dem kurrents?” asked Ben. “Doan yer be afeared to chaw dem, dey’s perfectly ripe.”

They were.

No more presents were exchanged after that. It is sad when friends lose confidence in each other.

Shorty spoke a language of his own. It was English in sound and accent, but the grouping of the words was according to his own sweet will. For Shorty the rules of syntax had no terrors.

One day he told me his story. “I did was from Italy six year. All the time mostly work the railroad on. So much big, heavy carry ties. That don’t make me any never mind. I get the mon. Ah! that is altogether something—three hundred dollar. I will go home. Ah! a prettyful of a girls is there to marry.”

Then Shorty told me how he came to New York to take the steamer. Here he met some friend who invited him to the Italian colony across the river in Jersey.

“He did went.” Every one said how foolish he was. “Such a nonsense. You don’t know what’s no good. You talk like a nanny goat.” Why not marry the beautiful daughter of the house at which they were calling, “ain’t yer”?

The mother slipped away while the father and friends argued with Shorty; they were all so kind and convivial. Yes, their new friend must marry Agnes. The three hundred dollars should set them up in housekeeping, the prospective father-in-law, who was in “publitics,” would obtain a brilliant position for Shorty; only a fool would do anything else. And then the mother brought in the girl, dressed as every mother’s heart would prompt for the occasion. Shorty looked into her eyes; at the borrowed plumage; he had, alas, already looked into the cup.

“Ah,” said he to me, overcome by the mere remembrance; “Ah, there was something not to believe it.”

“Did you like her?” I asked.

“You have good to talk, the same thing is to me,” said Shorty, and there was a sob in his voice.

Then he went on to tell how the mother took care of the three hundred dollars; how they, Shorty and the girl, signed a paper; this made them man and wife, he explained, and then they celebrated—“Maka th’ congratulate.”

Then came the tragedy. “It was one o’clock after twelve—I feel awfully worse—I don’t know what isn’t—I want my wife,” explained Shorty.

“You must be drink,” said the mother.

“Why don’t you say what you are telling about?” cried the father.

“I want de mon!” demanded Shorty.

“Lie business!” screamed the father.

“Throw away! No believe!” said the friends.

Shorty was trembling as he went on with the story.

“That’s a fearful, what I see? A sharpa wire (stiletto). Ah, that is a different something!”

Shorty was magnificent now; no words were necessary to tell the story, his face and gestures showed me all that happened. Tearing back his shirt, he showed me a long, jagged scar from shoulder to waist.

“Quicker, quick into hall. Light no more. What you have? It is to fight. Right away quick off. Bigger man throw down on me. They kill. I shoot—just the same like this—Dio! Madre de Dio!—on the floor, the mother! So, little, small hole in face. I do be arrested.”

As the French say, figure for yourself what justice poor Shorty received at his trial against these witnesses and without his money—a paper man in hell would get a fairer chance. So it came to pass that Shorty arrived in the Death-Chamber at Sing Sing, and deported himself at first as I have described.

But there came a time when Sister Xavier brought him an Italian Bible and catechism, and Larry Priori taught him to read them. Then Shorty was a different creature. He became a man—quiet, considerate, industrious, and we respected him. About this time came a letter and photograph from Italy—from home. They read the letter to Shorty—he could not read writing as yet—they gave him the photograph because it was not a tintype. You may not possess a tintype in the Death-Chamber. A man once cut his throat with a picture of his mother; they have been more careful since. The picture had been taken by a rural artist in some little mountain town. Shall I ever forget it? On a gilt chair—no, a throne—sat his mother in peasant dress. I only remember that she had on white stockings and congress gaiters, and that the elastics on the sides of them were worn out. She must have weighed a ton, and evidently was frightened to death. Perhaps the camera was an “evil eye.” The father on one side looked a hundred and fifty years old. He must have toiled every moment of it. Oh, the sister on the other side of the mother, how hideous she is! But listen: that the good saints might be pleased to look with pity upon her brother at the other end of the earth (the letter said this), his sister walked to and from church every day—barefooted. “It’s about eight miles away,” sobbed Shorty. “Let me see the picture again. It looks different to me now.” Shorty wept; Shorty howled; Shorty prayed to the picture. He covered the back of it with soap, pressed it against the wall, and knelt before it.

Humor and agony are near neighbors in the Death-Chamber. From Italy had come one hundred dollars; all his family possessed. This was to be used in arguing the appeal. It was forwarded to an Italian banker in New York to Shorty’s credit. It was then, and not till then, that Shorty’s brother appeared. All Shorty had to do was to sign a paper. The brother had the paper all ready, and the keeper brought a pen. Well, I guess not! Have you forgotten about the three hundred dollars and the other paper Shorty signed? Shorty hadn’t. While there was breath in his body he would not sign another paper. It was “lie business.” Then the brother explained it all over again, the keepers explained, and the “P. K.,” meaning principal keeper, came with an interpreter and explained many times over that it was for a trial, lawyer; trial, lawyer. “Don’t you see, Shorty?”

Shorty stood with his short legs apart, hands behind him, pipe in the corner of his mouth, and eyes half closed, listening to all they had to say.

“Throw away lawyer,” remarked Shorty.

“Yes, yes, Shorty, but he’d use it to get you a new trial.”

“I had trial. See?” urged he of small stature.

“No, no, Shorty; a new trial—new—new!”

“They give new trial? Yes?” Shorty was delighted.

“I don’t know,” said the P. K.

“I wait,” said Shorty, and dismissed them all.

An Italian lawyer came, engaged in a conversation lasting hours, which sounded like a battle royal between ten thousand enraged parrots; he departed in tears. An Italian priest came, prayed strenuously, and went away. The one hundred dollars remained in the bank. Shorty would not sign a paper to save his life. It’s bad luck to put your name to a paper, very bad luck, indeed.

In the course of time (a very long time) Shorty’s case reached the Court of Appeals, and the Court of Appeals decided against Shorty. This made Shorty furious. He explained that he had been convicted again; that he had not been present, an outrage; that no witness had spoken for him; that no one had “said the word.” Why didn’t they send for him, for the witnesses? Why? a thousand whys? No one was ever able to make him understand.

Again the brother came. Shorty was going to the “good heaven,” he would not need the one hundred dollars, but his “loving brother” could use it in his business; would he sign the paper?

“No! no—no!” said Shorty. Beads of rich perspiration stood out on “loving brother’s” forehead. “Loving brother” had spent much money; there was the Italian lawyer, the priest, the carfare, the paper. Loving brother’s grief was piteous to see. For the sake of the dear Dio, would Shorty sign the paper? No! no—no! Then Shorty might go to the eternal bad place. Loving brother left and came no more.

Benjamin asked Shorty why he did not give the money to his brother.

“No!” said Shorty.

“What in hell is yer going to do with it?” asked Benjamin.

“No-a hell,” replied Shorty. “Heaven! Go wash your face.”

Larry’s time drew near. Shorty’s chum and teacher was to go out through the “little door” and be killed. How Shorty prayed for him! But prayers are not always answered in the Death-Chamber. Larry said good-by to us and departed; seven others have bidden me good-by. And now there was no one for Shorty to talk to in his mother tongue.

Shorty’s time drew near, the day was fixed. Loving brother wrote to him, there was much news in the letter. The girl over in Jersey, whom Shorty always spoke of as “my wife,” had married another. The couple, her father, and the mutual friends who had brought Shorty to call so long ago and Shorty’s brother were going to buy a keg and have a picnic on a certain day, the same day that Shorty looked ahead to on his calendar, and— The picnic was to be in honor of that event.

It was just after this letter that Shorty’s eyes went way back into his head. Shorty ate little or nothing. Those terrible prison lines began to cut into Shorty’s face. Every day they grew deeper, starting at the eyes, carving furrows to each end of the mouth, and extending to the chin. They divided Shorty’s face into three ghastly panels. Shorty’s skin was turning clay color—and why not? Shorty will soon be—dust. He got thin; you could almost see through Shorty’s hands.

Shorty prayed night and day, crawling up and down his cell on his hands and knees, kissing the floor, licking the feet of the crucifix they had given him. All night long, all night long he did this. We who lay awake and tried to read heard him mumbling as the beads dropped through his fingers; heard the tap, tap, tap of his forehead on the floor, repeated hundreds of times before each of the many pictures of the saints which were stuck up on the walls. In front of each of these pictures were little fly-covered heaps of decaying food—Shorty’s votive offering to the good saints. The saints never accepted the offerings, but the flies and roaches did. They came by millions, flying and crawling to devour it; they covered the walls of Shorty’s cell; they covered Shorty. The saints, in gorgeous crimson and blue robes, with their mitres, crooks, and uplifted fingers regarded Shorty. Their eyes followed him about wherever he knelt. Perhaps they will save Shorty’s soul, but they do not drive away the flies.

Shorty’s brown knees came through his trousers, the toes of Shorty’s slippers turned up like cotton hooks from kneeling, kneeling, all day long, all night long.

The priest noticed these things, heard the account of Shorty’s nocturnal devotions, and told him to stop them, for he realized then—what we had known long before—that the strain had been too much for Shorty’s intellect—that Shorty was insane. But Shorty prayed on, harder than ever. The good Sisters and the priest did all they could to moderate his devotions. During those final weeks we noticed that they besought him to do something; what, it was a mystery to us. Finally the morning came—the last morning.

The priest blessed him, and as they opened the cell-door in the early morning for the last time, asked him, “Do you forgive your enemies?” then pleaded “you must do it. Say ‘yes,’ for God’s sake say yes. You must, or God will not—” The priest was weeping now.

“No! no—no!” screamed Shorty, as they marched him away.