Read Online The American: A Middle Western Legend by Howard Fast - Free Book Online Page A

array of silver baffled; challenged, and angered him all at once, and with what pain and forbearance he got through, always managing to be a little behind the others.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he nodded. “Only—”
    â€œI wonder if the newspaper isn’t a curse rather than a benefit. After all, what pleasure is there in knowing the misery of the world scarcely an hour after you awaken?”
    â€œVery little, I suppose,” he admitted, folding the paper and returning to the fruit.
    â€œIs it the anarchists?” she asked him.
    â€œYes.” And added after a moment, “They’re going to die today. They’re going to be hanged.”
    She watched him as he ate. Actually, she knew more of him than he thought, than most of his friends thought. She knew about things inside of him, and when they came up, over the improving surface of the jurist, she took her stand—not entirely with selfishness, but with a fondness which recognized, as so few did, that there was fire inside that had never been allowed to burn.
    â€œIt’s so long since they’ve been sentenced—over a year.”
    â€œAbout sixteen months.”
    â€œAnd they’ve had every chance,” she said carefully. “I think people are just tired of hearing about the anarchists. I think people are tired of talking about them.”
    â€œAre they?”
    â€œI think they are,” she said, still carefully. “With all you’ve said, Peter, I think they’ve had a fair trial.”
    â€œI don’t,” he said.
    â€œYou change your opinion,” she smiled. “I’ve heard you say that it was a very fair trial, an exceptionally fair trial. Are those your words?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd every chance for appeal?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut you change your opinion?”
    The maid came in with the hotcakes. “Draw the blinds, please,” Mrs. Altgeld said, “and let in the sun.” When she had gone, the Judge said:
    â€œYes, I change my opinion, Emma. I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of. Too many people never change. I admit I change hard, but sometimes I change.”
    â€œBut they’re anarchists.”
    â€œOr socialists, or communists. I’m not sure I know what they are. I don’t see that it matters a lot.”
    â€œNo. And at least we’ll be able to sleep without worrying about bombs—”
    â€œEmma!”
    She knew signs of anger in him. She helped him to honey, and he began to eat the hotcakes. “They’re good?” she asked.
    â€œVery good. I’m going to get fat, too. Emma, look here. In this damned paper—”
    â€œI don’t like you to swear,” she said.
    â€œI know. I shouldn’t swear. Especially at breakfast, I shouldn’t swear. I know and I’m sorry. But look here, in the paper it says: ‘… honest citizens can draw a deep breath and sleep soundly in their beds …’ The same words. I don’t like it when people begin to talk like sheep. Some of us should think.”
    â€œAre you calling me a sheep?”
    â€œNo, no, no. But what were they tried for—for being anarchists, or communists, or socialists? No! For throwing the bomb. For over a year we’ve been crazy on this subject of bombs. But there’s no evidence to convict them.”
    At that moment, she brought it up. She was not going to bring it up, not going to mention it. It was ammunition that lay in her lap, ready to fire both ways; he knew it, yet she brought it up. An appeal for clemency for these men who were going to die had been signed by sixty thousand citizens of Chicago, some of them very prominent men. Yet John Peter Altgeld’s name was missing. She said, casually, “Then why didn’t you sign the petition? Goudy signed it. Brown signed it. But you didn’t.”
    â€œI didn’t,” he admitted.
    â€œWould you sign