Free trader-journal. (Ottawa, Ill.) 1916-1920, 1918-08-31

snuttied around on motions and other
legal delays. Jefferson was brought be.
fore the bar.
In court in which contempt was
hut little lower in the criminal scale
IMAM murder a kept Judge sat upon
the trial of an innocent man. who was
being 1obbed by kept prosecutor to
satisfy the demands OF Justice. JEFF
ferson was found guilty. and the
court sent him TO the penitentiary for
MS long as il had power to sentence
him.
The little man heard the sentence
with a slowly whitening face. Re
seemed dazed at first. and looked odd.
~ at The shaft of sunlight which came
thru the tall windows OF the court.
room, and fell on the table before him.
once he turned and glanced at his
little family, which hudded hopeless
ly behind him. A tear trickled down
his face, but he wiped il away with
his dusty sleeve and left a grotesQue
black mark on his white skin. The he
swallowed once or twice and licked
his lips as II they We're dry.
Suddenly he asked If he might
speak. The Judge nodded assent, and
Hartridge found himself leaning over
bis table. while every word that JET.
ferson said hammered Its way into his
brain.
THE district attorney knows what
hes done to me-" Jefferson was saying.
He will never forget it, As he grows
older. the memory OF it will becor'
keener. The burden will bear on his
conscience until his life becomes mis-.
cradle. no matter how great he may
get to be. Eventually twill break
him. The burden is on his back. As
long as he lives he viii remember that
he went out OF his way to ruin the
lives of an innocent man. woman,
and three innocent children"
That was all. He turned to the watt
ing deputy sheriff and was led out Of
the courtroom.
Maybe the scene was little Thea.
trc. especially as JefYerson's wife G ID
children were sobbing out l}ul az he
talked. No one paid much attention
To the incident at the time. One or
two bright newspaper reporters work.
ed up good stories out of it for their
morning papers, and everybody pro.
coed to forget all about It. That u,
everybody but Hartridge.
Somehow the district attorney
couldn't get thApicture of Jefferson
as he stood talking at the table in the
courtroom out of his mind. Ii the lit
tie man had been melodramatic; il he
had pointed an accusing finger" or
something of that sort, it might have
been different. Hartridge began to
brood over the matter. He wondered
if what Jefferson had said could come
true. Could it be possible he would
never get Jefferson out of his mind?
II seemed absurd.
He tried to throw off his obsesson.
but, somehow, it refused to leave him.
He began to loose flesh and take on
an abstract air. After six months, he
was so selfeentered that he had lost
all Of his friends. His acquaintance
shrugged their shoulders at the sight
of him, and said something about his
looking badly and needing a rest"
None Of them knew the real cause of
Hartridge's crouch.
But the way that Jeffersons proph. !
ecy worked out has yet to be told
Succeeding events showed that when !
still waters run deep, they may run
very, very deep.
Fate, the gambler. played at high
stakes with Hartridge and Jefferson
and both men lost their all. Two
years after Jefferson went to prison,
an absurd but unimpeachable grand
jury was investigating the official acts
CT the district attorney, The prosecu.
tor fought the case for a year. but
finally. gray-haired, bent in body, and
broken in spirit like an old man, he
Jefferson to the narrow cell
and barred windows of the State peni.
Tertiary. He was sentenced for three
years for malfeasance In office.
Hartridge stood in the prison Office,
as the clerk entered his name in the
prison record, and looked thru the
window at the world he was leaving
II seemed twisted and
erotesQue. In his mind he saw the
career he had mapped out for himself
saw it In heap Of tumbled ruins
Bitterness gnawed at his heart. He
attributed his fall to Jeiferson--Jeffer
son. the harmless and lnoffensive. His
downward course seemed, when he re-
viewed it, to have begun at the end
If Jefferson's trial. II was curious,
lie thought, but jefferson had been his
Nemesis.
They led him away, ~ they would
my other common convict, to be
washed and barbered, and clothed in
worn suit Of prison stripes, such as
he lower grade Of prisoners wear,
md newcomers are given, until they
rove themselves worthy of the pri.