The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1896-12-16
HIS DAY OF FREEDOM.


OF the saddlery shop been imbedded
into their beings that not one of the
others looked up when the messenger
came in, and, after saluting the guard
standing at his lighthouse-iike desk, APP
preached and tapped STAB on the Shout
der and beckoned him to follow. But
he knew. The convict understood. 1t
was liberty at last. For % years he
had awaited it. And although the mes
senger's summons might have meant
a thousand different things to any
other of the saddlery workers, it meant
To him only that the pardon had final
ly come. He felt as he followed the
messenger. doglike in his docile sub
mission, that this was the last time he
would cross the threshold of the sad
dlery shop.
Twenty-Five years!
The time had passed in such sullen.
leaden fashion, that after the first year
or TWO he had become uncertain as to
whether he had counted the day once
of twice. He had not cared to inquire
of the guard, for the sweet puzzle of try
ing to figure out whether it were the
month of May or July was an occupa-
ton for his mind, and it would have
been a distress if he had been set right
at the time that he mistook Thanks
giving day for Christmas, for, so long
as he was not positive of the point,
he had the somber satisfaction of cele-
hrating both. The only continuity of
thought which lived to support him was
the thought that certainly at some
time his innocence would be shown and
he would be discharged.
He steadily thought of that Sun
day afternoon when he had lain on the
bed and had danced the two-year-old
boy and had allowed him to climb re-
lentlessly over him, even the pressure
of the baby shoes upon his cheek hav-
ing. as he often remembered, been
sweet to him. He recalled that the
careful wife had spread red comfort
er over the white counterpart, so that
the latter might not be disordered in
the rough play. How many times had
he remembered that! In the solitude
of his cell he had dwelt upon that Sun
day afternoon when he had played with
the baby, until every detail-every
crack of the wallpaper, which showed
that the new house was settling, every
figure of the design of the ceiling up
to which he had looked-was as plain
to him as though now before his eyes
he was called upon to describe it.
And now the time had come. The
time for which he had waited so long
and SO patiently. He had yearned for
it increasingly. Studying over the
peculiarities of the crime with the COM
mission of which he had been charged,
he had been confident that after years
the robber whom he had surprised in an
asss ult upon his own especial enemy
would be discovered, and it would be
shown that, although lie had openly
hated the man who he had found
dead at his feet, still he was not that
mans murderer. 1t would be known
at last that this sentence of his to life
tice, and he would be set free again.
He would be permitted to go back, and
from an incognito point of view see
his boy. The boy, growing, could have
known nothing of him, Of course. The
mother, who, he sometimes hor-
ribly thought, half believed him
guilty, would have safeguarded
from the child the dreaded
secret. He knew that, for he had in
sisted upon this course himself on the
day before the party of convicts, of
which he was member, were taken
down to the train, prison-bound. He
had pledged her to silence in this re-
gard, and, ranked by the bitter thought
that she herself wavered concerning
his guilt, he had supplemented the OBJ
legation by demanding that not by visit