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His Gratitude
by
“A heart-broken father appeals to you in his hour of extremity, to save his son from the gallows. My boy–my wayward, reckless boy, who was once as innocent and pure as yourself, has fallen into the hands of treacherous natives and half-breeds in Arkansas, and they accuse him of murdering a traveller for his money. He is guiltless of this crime–God knows he is; but the weight of evidence is fearful, and I am powerless to refute it. The proceedings have been hurried over and the verdict is against him.
“I am unable to go to him–I bring the case to you. Go, I beg of you, to Washington and plead with the congressman from this, your native district, and the Arkansas representative, who is your kinsman. Urge them to see the President and prevail upon him to sift the evidence. I realize most bitterly that I have no claim upon you, but oh, for God’s sake, Madam, do what you can for a distracted father. Hanging! Oh, save him from that–and act quickly, for he has only five days to live. I am crazed with anxiety and sleeplessness.
“Your obedient servant,
“Robert Garrett.”
Jessie Forrester’s hour had come. The revenge so ardently longed-for since the hour her mother had invoked the curse of heaven upon this man, was here. What though his boy did perish, by an ignominous death. A more worthless cumberer of the earth did not exist. Ah! that cold, sneering voice on the winter’s eve so long ago; her mother’s tears! As he had sown so should he reap, and her hands would help to gather in the harvest. Through him they had been exiled all these years from the home that was their birthright. The husband of her early womanhood might have been spared if only they could have nursed him back to health under the cool shade of those grand old trees instead of languishing in the hot city. Help this man? This incarnation of cruel selfishness? Not she;–his boy should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. How could she lift a voice to save him! “His boy?” Ah, through her tender mother’s heart there darted a pain all unwonted. Her own noble, gifted boy–her all–what if untoward fate should have in store for him some doom of shame–him, her idol and her pride.
She sat buried in thought till suddenly starting up she consulted a time table, then rang hurriedly for her maid. She was ready in thirty minutes, and summoning her young son, was soon enroute for the capital. Arriving at ten o’clock she called a carriage and sped away to new northwest quarter of the city. By midnight she had seen both representatives and thoroughly enlisted their services. She gave no reason for her intercession, nor was it necessary. It was enough that she deemed it a case for intervention. Next morning the two statesmen had an interview with the President, and by the hardest, for the mass of evidence against young Garrett was overwhelming, got a stay of proceedings till the case could be further investigated.
Well-nigh exhausted from the mental and bodily strain, Jessie arrived at her home unfit for anything but rest. Then she answered her enemy’s letter. Did she reproach him with his life-long injustice? Did she demand the old home in exchange for the service she had rendered? Or at least the privilege of buying it? She merely wrote;–
“I have been to Washington and secured a reprieve pending further sifting of evidence.”
Ben Garrett was saved and the close view of the gallows sobered him at last. He married the daughter of a Texas ranchman and Jessie heard of him no more.
* * * * *
Five years passed away when on a gloomy afternoon in the autumn, Jessie Forrester, now a woman of thirty, and wearing her years and honors well, was sitting at her desk in an elegant sanctum, absorbed in the fate of two lovers whose history she was creating.