The Thanksgiving of Annie Adams

The Thanksgiving of Annie Adams By Elizabeth Cannon Porter As the jury filed into the room, Mrs. Adams knew with the instinct of a woman that the verdict was against her son. She knew from the sinking of her heart that she had hoped, in spite of everything, for mercy. "Guilty of manplaughter." The Judge briefly pronounced sentence: "Five years in the State's prison." She was glad, even in the midst of her sickness of heart, that he took it like a man, with squared shoulders and chin thrust out. Only once as Bert glanced in her direction did she think his lip trembled. Then they led him out and she fumbled for her gloves. Her son's attorney, the one she had engaged for him, came over and gravely shook hands with her. Be- cause he was a gentleman as well as a lawyer, and she was a good client, and he felt sorry for her, he said: "Mrs. Adams, my car is downstairs, and I'm not going to use it, so I'll have my man drive you home." She accepted gratefully. She felt that she could not bear to have strange people gaze at her in the street car. Outside a bleak storm was beating down. In the late, dark afternoon, the shops were already lighting up. The green- grocer's display, the trussed fowls, Jonathan apples, crisp cel- ery, golden pumpkins, reminded her that it was Thanksgiving time. She thought gruesomely of her boy's Thanksgiving and shivered. She crept into the auto and crouched down among the cushions. She had not experienced such abject misery since her husband had left her over twenty years before. Somehow this second great calamity brought back the first. She had failed as a wife; now she had failed as a mother. Dully, she rehearsed her life. Her one love affair, her romance with Tom Adams — not a bad man, but a weakling and a wanderer. He had tarried rather longer at Westmore because he had met and married Annie. In her desire for a home, something per- manent, at which Tom laughed, Annie worked outside. Splend- idly capable, she hustled home to meet her husband with a shining kitchen and hot supper. Tom basked in the comfort like a cat before the fire.

24 IMPROVEMENT ERA Then the baby came. Annie lay on a sick bed for weeks that drifted into months. Her illness ate up all that she had saved. A sick wife, a crying baby, a hen-hussying woman who did the work, disagreeable surroundings, unpaid bills. It was too much for Tom. One night he brought home his wages, de- posited the money on the table, took his hat, and walked out of the room and of Annie's life forever. Even in her bitterest recriminations, Annie always remembered that he left her all he had and went away empty handed. Though she realized that she couldn't have worked much harder, she felt that the fact that her husband had left her reflected on her as a wife. She had failed to keep his affections. Love is like the tide, it ebbs and flows, and Tom had drifted off to sea. The woman did not understand that love must be measured by the person who does the loving, not the beloved. That is why an utterly unworthy person will sometimes inspire a deep and lasting affection in a true and loyal nature. A woman with thrice her charm would not have held shallow Tom. Annie crept back to life with a young baby, debt, desertion, and a weakened body. But her indomitable will had conquered everything. She named the baby, Albert Le Roi, — Albert the Royal, — after the Prince of Wales. Then she went grimly to work to make the home for him that she had dreamed of with his father. The boy inherited his father's changeableness along with his mother's courage. He drifted from one school to an- other. It was the same with his work. He did not stick at one job very long. A man grown, he secured a place in the ma- chine shop of the railroad. Then came the strike, the months of idleness, the inflamed talk among the men about the abuses of the workingman, bad companions. Then had come the rob- bery. Bert and three others had robbed a freight car. They had fixed the nightwatchman, but a helper happened along and gave the alarm. Their automobile, loaded with boxes, had stuck on the tracks. They were surrounded and in the melee a policeman was shot. It mattered not that the autopsy proved that it wasn't one of young Adam's bullets that had killed the officer. Bert was taken red handed with a smoking revolver in his hand, and he was held equally guilty though he had not shed the actual blood. Sentiment was stirred up against them. Mrs. Adams went to the best lawyer she knew of, Judge Park, a man of integrity and standing in the community. She engaged him to defend Albert. She would mortgage her home if necessary. Mr. Park told her frankly there was little that he could do. It was a clear case of robbery. An officer of the law had been killed, public opinion was stirred up. Their

THE THANKSGIVING OF ANNIE ADAMS 25 only hope of clemency lay in the prisoner's youth and the fact that it was his first offense. After all the years of struggle, her boy was being taken to the penitentiary. She had come home alone. Things went black. The car had stopped before her house. She went up the path and stumbled through the door. Her cousin, Christine, had made a fire in the sitting-room grate, and its warmth greeted her like a welcome. "Well?" asked Christine, as she helped her off with her things. "It was what we expected," she replied briefly. Christine brought her a glass of hot milk and some toast. Somehow the little act of kindness did what all the terrors of the day had failed to do. It loosed the floodgates and she crumpled all up in a heap on the floor. Christine lugged her to the lounge and phoned for the old doctor, who was also a friend. When he entered the room the light fell on his patient. She seemed suddenly old, as if the life were sapped from her. He felt her pulse, then patted the gnarled hand. She had cleaned his office for fifteen years. "Well, well, Annie, I thought that you had more grit than this." "Must one show grit when one's son goes to the peniten- tiary? I must have failed in my training, or it wouldn't have happened. Yet, how I have worked!" "If you made a mistake, you did too much for the boy." "He had no father. I wanted to make it up to him." Dr. Spencer had ushered many souls into the world, as well as eased the departing spirit. He understood human nature as only an old doctor can. He had been close to the naked truth of things and he ministered to sick minds as well as sick bodies. "We are only the parents of our children's bodies. We are not the parents of their souls. Their spirits existed long be- fore they came to this world. They will go on after they leave. If we bring them into the world, provide for their bodily wants, when they are small, and prepare them as best we can for their struggle in this life, that is all we can do. We can bring in- fluences to bear on them, but in the final analysis, they, them- selves, are responsible for their own acts. I heard a very great man say the other day — a man who has made a success of every- thing except raising his own son — that the Lord must have had a good deal of confidence in him to trust him with the care of such a rebellious spirit." "You have heard of the 'Sieve of fulfilment,' — how we fill

26 IMPROVEMENT ERA up an ambition, only to find that its joy has all leaked away. A man amasses a large fortune for his son. The heir dies. A woman dreams all her life of a beautiful home. When she gets it she is too old to enjoy it. On the other hand, seeming ca- lamities often are blessings in disguise. A woman toils for a large family. She not only gives a lot of useful men and women to the world, but she emerges pure gold, such has been her daily training in tact, patience and efficiency. A young man struggles with poverty. He acquires thrift, industry and clean living, which stand him in good stead when success finally comes his way." "It may seem a strange thing to say, but even this terrible thing that has come to your son may be the very thing he needs. You used to tell me that Albert was bright and that he would make his mark if he would stick at anything, which he wouldn't do. The warden is a broad-minded man and will probably put him in the machine shops, which he likes. He will keep regular hours, stay in one place, do the work until he learns it thor- oughly, because he will have to. It is the very training he needs, and perhaps he had to go to jail to get it." "What is that? Yes, you may have a powder for tonight, Christine, bring her a glass of water." Whereat, the old doctor put on his overcoat and departed into the storm. After seeing him out, Christine brought Mrs. Adam's nightgown and slippers and warmed them at the hearth. "The doctor actually tried to make me believe that I ought to be Thanksgiving that Albert's in the penitentiary," she wailed. "Well," said Christine, and her plain face looked squarer than ever. "You have some things to be thankful for. You had a beau and you had a husband, even if he did run off, you bore a son and you fed and clothed him and raised him to man- hood, even if he is in jail. You have a home to protect you from the storms. You've had love, and sorrow, and life, while I — " She turned and faced her in the doorway. "I have never had anything. I am only an old maid."