O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 by Various

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"I know I acted like a fool. But I can't let you do this. I'll--I'll
try to----"

The words died on his lips and he leaped forward in time to catch her
as she swayed and fell, fainting.

An hour later Annie lay on the lounge in the sitting room, still
aching with terrible weariness, but divinely content. Far away she
could hear the steady susurrus of the reaper, driven against the
golden wheat, and the sound was a promise and a song to her ears. She
looked up now and then at the pictured face of Wes's father, frowning
and passionate, and the faint smile of a conqueror curved her tired
mouth. For she had found and proved the strongest thing in the world,
and she would never again know fear.

THE TRIBUTE

By HARRY ANABLE KNIFFIN

From _Brief Stories_

The Little Chap reached up a chubby hand to the doorknob. A few
persistent tugs and twists and it turned in his grasp. Slowly pushing
the door open, he stood hesitating on the threshold of the studio.

The Big Chap looked up from his easel by the window. His gray eyes
kindled into a kindly smile, its welcoming effect offset by an
admonitory headshake. "Not now, Son," he said. "I'm busy."

"Can't I stay a little while, Daddy?" The sturdy little legs carried
their owner across the floor as he spoke. "I'll be quiet, like--like I
was asleep."

The Big Chap hesitated, looking first at his canvas and then at the
small replica of himself standing before him.

"I got on my new pants," the youngster was saying, conversationally
easing the embarrassment of a possible capitulation. "Mummy says I
ought to be proud of them, and because I'm five years old."

The artist looked gravely down at him. "Proud, Son?" he asked, in the
peculiar way he had of reasoning with the Little Chap. "Have you
reached the age of five because of anything you have done? Or did you
acquire the trousers with money you earned?"

The Little Chap looked up at him questioningly. He had inherited his
father's wide gray eyes, and at present their expression was troubled.
Then, evidently seeking a more easily comprehended topic, his eyes
left his father's and sought the canvas on which was depicted a court
scene of mediaeval times. "Who is that, Daddy?" His small index finger
pointed to the most prominent figure in the painting.

His father continued to regard him thoughtfully. "One of England's
proud kings, Son."

"And what did _he_ do to be proud of?" came quickly from the youthful
inquisitioner.

A hearty laugh escaped the artist. "Bully for you, Son! That's a
poser! Aside from taxing the poor and having enemies beheaded, I'm
puzzled to know what he really did do to earn his high position."

The Little Chap squirmed himself between his father's knees and
started to scale the heights to his lap, where he finally settled down
with a sigh of comfort. "Tell me a story about him," he said eagerly.
"A story with castles, 'n' wars, 'n' everything."

The artist's gaze rested on the kingly figure in the picture, then
wandered away to the window through which he seemed to lose himself in
scenes of a far-distant time.

"I'll tell you a story, Son," he began, slowly and ruminatingly, "of
how Loyalty and Service stormed the Stronghold of Honour and
Splendour. This proud king you see in the picture lived part of the
time in the great castle of Windsor, and the balance of the year in
Saint James's Palace in London."

"It must have cost him a lot for rent," wisely interpolated the Little
Chap.

"No, the people paid the rent, Son. Some of them were glad to do it,
for they looked upon their king as a superior being. Among this class
of loyal subjects was an old hatter, very poor and humble."

"What was his name?" asked the Little Chap, apparently greatly
interested.

"He had no name. People in those olden days were known by their trade
or calling. So he was simply called 'the hatter'."

"And did he make nice hats?"

"I've no doubt he did, Son. But you mustn't interrupt. Well, the
hatter paid his tithes, or taxes, after which, I dare say, he had
little enough left to live on. But he appeared not to mind. And
whenever the King and Queen rode through the streets in their gilded
coach of state, his cracked old voice would cheer lustily, and his
hoary head would be bared in deepest reverence."

"Didn't he ever catch cold?"

"Hush, Son, I'm telling a story! As the hatter grew older he lost his
wits and became quite crazy on the subject of his king. He yearned to
do something to prove his loyalty. And whenever England engaged in a
war, and a proclamation was issued calling for men to fight for King
and country, he would be one of the first to volunteer. But they never
accepted him, of course, because he was so old.

"With the passing of the years the Queen died, and the King decided to
marry again. Great preparations for the ceremony were begun at
Westminster Abbey, where the wedding was to take place. The old hatter
became greatly excited when he heard the news. His addled wits
presently hit upon a wonderful scheme by which he could both honour
and serve his sovereign: _He would make the King a hat to wear at his
wedding_!"

"I guess he must 've been a good hatter, after all," the Little Chap
murmured, in a tone of conviction.

"Perhaps, in his time," his father conceded. "But you must remember he
now was old and foolish. His materials were merely such odds and ends
as he could gather together, and the result was very
disreputable-looking. But in his rheumy old eyes it was the most
wonderful hat ever designed for a monarch. He carefully wrapped it in
a soiled old cloth and started out to present it to the King. At the
palace gates the guards refused him admittance, and cruelly laughed in
his face. He tried every means he could think of to have the hat reach
its destination. Once he stopped the Court Chamberlain on the street,
only to be rebuked for his pains. Another time he waylaid a peer, as
he left the House of Lords, and was threatened with arrest. Foiled in
all his attempts, the cracked-brained old fellow impatiently awaited
the wedding ceremony. At last the great day arrived. All the bells of
old London were ringing blithely as the gilded coach, drawn by ten
white horses, deposited the King at Westminster Abbey. In the
forefront of the vast throng surrounding the entrance stood the
hatter."

"And did he have the hat with him?" asked the Little Chap.

"Yes, Son, he had it with him. And when the King entered the portals
of the ancient Abbey, the hatter somehow broke through the line of
guards and ran after him crying 'Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Deign to
accept this token of a loyal subject's regard!'

"The King turned in surprise And when he saw the ragged old fellow
tending him the ridiculous-looking hat, he flew into a great rage and
cried angrily: 'How comes this varlet here, interrupting his
Sovereign's nuptials and desecrating our Tomb of Kings? Away with him
to prison, and let him repent his insolence as he rots in a dungeon!'"

"Why did he do that, Daddy?"

"The Sovereign, Son, was a very proud king, while the hatter was both
poor and humble. And at his words the guards hurried forward and
hustled the old man out of the Abbey, where his presence was an insult
to the Great. In the struggle the hat rolled into the gutter, and one
of the King's white horses put his hoof through it. The hatter cried
like a child when he saw the work of his loving hands thus ruined. But
they carried him off to prison and kept him shut up there until he
died and paid the penalty for his crime of desecrating the Abbey."

"Oh, the poor old hatter! But is that the end of the story, Daddy?"
The Little Chap's disappointment was markedly pronounced.

"No, Son, there is a little more to come. I meant to tell you that the
hatter had reared a large family of boys. His sons all married and, in
turn, raised large families. These numerous relatives or kin took the
name of Hatterskin. In course of time that became shortened to
Hatkins, and so remained until the British habit of dropping their H's
reduced it to Atkins.

"At last the proud King died and was buried with great ceremony in the
Abbey. Year followed year, and century succeeded century. England,
although blessed with a Royal pair both humane and good, was ruled by
an even wiser monarch--the Sovereign People.

"Then came an August day when the black thunder-cloud of war darkened
her smiling horizon. Four bloody, terrible years the conflict lasted.
And when at last an armistice was signed, the stricken people went
wild with joy."

The Big Chap's gaze returned to the canvas with its scene of mediaeval
splendour. A mystic light smouldered in his eyes as, unconscious of
his surroundings and his youthful auditor, he continued: "On the
second anniversary of that happy day an unprecedented thing happened.
Before the ancient Abbey a gun carriage, bearing the flag-draped
casket of an unidentified warrior, came to rest on the very spot where
the gilded coach of the proud King once had stopped. Again the square
was crowded, as on that day in the long ago when the poor hatter
foolishly tried to honour his sovereign. The traditions of centuries
toppled when the body of the unknown soldier passed through those
storied portals followed by the King of England as chief mourner. In
the dim, historic chapel the king stood, in advance of princes, prime
ministers, and the famous leaders of both army and navy. Like the
humble hatter of old his royal head was reverently bared as the
nameless hero was laid among the silent company of England's
illustrious dead. 'The Boast of Heraldry and the Pomp of Power' bowed
in silent homage before the remains of a once common soldier. Thus
Loyalty and Service eventually stormed the Stronghold of Honour and
Splendour!"

For a moment there was an impressive, brooding silence, broken
presently by the Little Chap. "And what was the soldier's name,
Daddy?"

Recalled from his revery, the father answered:

"_He was known, Son, as Tommy Atkins_."

The Little Chap's brow was puckered in thought. At last he laughed
delightedly and clapped his hands. "Was the soldier, Daddy, one of the
hatter's family--the poor old hatter who was thrown out of the Abbey?"

The Big Chap lifted the child from his lap and placed him on his feet.
Then he picked up a brush and turned to his painting.

"I like to think so, Son. But only God knows."

THE GETAWAY

By O.F. LEWIS

From _Red Book_

Old Man Anderson, the lifer, and Detroit Jim, the best second-story
man east of the Mississippi, lay panting side by side in the
pitch-dark dugout, six feet beneath the surface of the prison yard.
They knew their exact position to be twenty feet south of the north
wall, and, therefore, thirty feet south of the slate sidewalk outside
the north wall.

It had taken the twain three months and twenty-one days to achieve the
dugout. Although there was always a guard somewhere on the north wall,
the particular spot where the dugout had come into being was sheltered
from the wall-guard's observation by a small tool-house. Also whenever
the pair were able to dig, which was only at intervals, a bunch of
convicts was always perched on the heap of dirt from various
legitimate excavations within the yard, which Fate had piled up at
that precise spot. The earth from the dugout and the earth from these
other diggings mixed admirably.

Nor, likewise because of the dirt-pile, could any one detect the job
from the south end of the yard. If a guard appeared from around the
mat-shop or coming out of the Principal Keeper's office, the convicts
sunning themselves on the dirt-pile in the free hour of noon, or late
in the afternoon, after the shops had closed, spoke with motionless
lips to the two diggers. Plenty of time was thus afforded to shove a
couple of boards over the aperture, kick dirt over the boards, and
even push a barrow over the dugout's entrance--and there you were!

One minute before this narrative opens, on July 17th, a third convict
had dropped the boards over the hole into which Old Man Anderson, the
lifer, and Detroit Jim, had crawled. This convict had then frantically
kicked dirt over the boards, had clawed down still more dirt, to make
sure nothing could be seen of the hole--had made the thing look just
like part of the big dirt-pile indeed--and then had legged it to the
ball-game now in progress on this midsummer Saturday afternoon, at the
extreme south end of the yard, behind the mat-shop.

Dirt trickled down upon the gray hair of Old Man Anderson in the dark
and stuffy hole he shared with his younger companion. But the darkness
and the stuffiness and the filtering dirt were unsensed. Something far
more momentous was in the minds of both. How soon would Slattery, the
prison guard, whom they knew to be lying dead in the alley between the
foundry and the tool-shop, be found? For years Slattery had been a
fairly good friend to Old Man Anderson, but what did that count in the
face of his becoming, for all his friendship, a last-minute and
totally unexpected impediment to the get-away? He had turned into the
alley just when Old Man Anderson and Detroit Jim were crouching for
the final jump to the dugout! A blow--a thud--that was all....

Anderson lay now, staring wide-eyed into the black nothing of the
hole. For the second time he had killed a man, and God knew he hadn't
intended to--either time! Fourteen years ago a man had tried to get
his wife away from him, while he was serving a one-year bit in the
county jail. Both men had had guns, and Old Man Anderson had killed
the other or he would have been killed himself. So that was no murder
at all! And as for Slattery--big, heavy, slow-moving, red-faced
Slattery--Old Man Anderson would even have gone out of his way to do
the guard a favour, under ordinary circumstances. But as between
Slattery and the chance to escape--that was different.

Old Man Anderson rubbed his right hand in the dirt and held it before
his eyes in the blackness. He knew that the moisture on it was
Slattery's blood. The iron pipe in Old Man Anderson's hands had struck
Slattery on the head just once, but once was enough.

Old Man Anderson burst into hiccoughing sobs. The younger convict
punched him in the ribs, and swore at him in muffled tones. Anderson
stifled his sobs then, but continued to sniffle and shiver. This time
it would absolutely be The Chair for him--if they got him! In a few
minutes they couldn't help discovering Slattery. Anderson never could
give himself up now, however this business of the dugout and the
hoped-for old sewer conduit should finally turn out. In the beginning
he had counted on crawling out, if worst came to worst, and
surrendering. But to crawl out now meant but one thing--The Chair!

In all his fourteen years behind the walls the vision of The Chair had
terrorized the old man. When they had sent him to prison his first
cell had been in the death-house, separated from The Chair only by a
corridor that, they told him, was about twenty feet long, and took no
more than five seconds to traverse--with the priest. Until they
changed his cell, the gaunt, terrible Thing in the next room edged
every day nearer, nearer, nearer, looming, growing, broadening before
his morbid vision until it seemed to have cut off from his sight
everything else in the world--closer, closer until it was only seven
incredible hours away! Then had come the commutation of his sentence
from death to life!

The next day Old Man Anderson, gray-haired even then, went out from
the death-house among his gray-clad fellows, but straight into the
prison hospital, where for three months be lay a victim of chair-shock
just as surely as was ever a man shell-shocked on the Flanders front.
And never since had the hands of the man wholly ceased to quiver and
to shake.

Now he was a murderer for the second time! In the blackness he
stretched out his hand, and ran it over a stack of tin cans. Detroit
Jim had been mighty clever! Canned food from the storehouse, enough to
last perhaps two weeks! Detroit Jim had had a storehouse job. Twice a
day, during the last ten days, the wiry little ferret-faced
second-story man had got away with at least one can from the prison
commissary. Also he had provided matches, candles, and even a cranky
little flashlight. Only chewing tobacco, because you can smell smoke a
long way when you are hunting escaped convicts. And a can of water
half the size of an ash can!

Despair fastened upon Old Man Anderson, and a wave of sickness swept
over him. All the food in the world wouldn't bring Slattery back to
life. And again that Thing in the death-house rose before his mind's
eyes. Throughout all the years he had carried a kind of dread that
sometime a governor might come along who would put back his sentence
where it had been at first--and then all his good behaviour in these
endless years would count for nothing. Until Detroit Jim had told him
about the long-forgotten sewer conduit, he had never even thought to
disobey the prison rules.

The old man's teeth chattered. Detroit Jim's thin fingers tugged at
his sleeve. That meant getting busy, and digging with the pick with
the sawed-off handle. So Anderson wriggled into the horizontal
chamber, which was just large enough to permit his body and arms to
function.

As he hacked away at the damp earth, he could see in the pitch
darkness the dirty sheet of paper, now in Detroit Jim's pocket, upon
which their very life depended. It was a tracing made by a discharged
convict from a dusty leather-covered book in the public library in New
York, sent in by the underground to Jim. The book had contained the
report of some forgotten architect, back in the fifties of the last
century, and the diagram in his report showed the water and sewage
conduit--in use! It ran from the prison building, right down across
the yard, six feet under ground, and out under the north wall, under
the street outside, and finally into the river. Built of brick, four
feet wide, four feet high. A ready-made tunnel to freedom!

Old Man Anderson could hear Detroit Jim's hoarse whisper now, as he
chopped away at the dirt, which he shoved back under his stomach, to
where Jim's fingers caught it and thrust it farther back.

"We're only a couple of feet from that old conduit right now. Dig, you
son of a gun, dig! Can the snifflin'! You dig, and then I'll dig!"

They were saving their matches and candles against necessity.
Mechanically the old man chopped and hacked at the wall of earth in
front of him. Now and then the pick would encounter a stone or some
other hard substance. In the last few days they had come upon frequent
pieces of old brick. Detroit Jim had rejoiced over these signs. For
the old man every falling clod of earth seemed to bring him nearer to
freedom. They also took his mind off Slattery.

So he chopped away, how long he did not know. Suddenly his pick struck
an obstacle again. He hacked at it. It gave slightly. A third time he
struck it, and it seemed to recede. An odour of mouldy air filled his
nostrils. In that little aperture his pick touched nothing now! He
heard something fall! Then he knew! There was a hollow place in front
of them! The abandoned conduit? He stifled a shout.

From somewhere, muffled at first, but ultimately faintly strident,
rose a prolonged wail that seemed to issue from the very earth. The
sound rose, and fell, and rose again. Frantically the pick of Old Man
Anderson hacked away at the dirt, and then at whatever was in front of
him. Detroit Jim snapped the feeble flashlight then. It was a
wall--the conduit wall!

Meantime, the prison siren shrieked out to the countryside the news of
an escape.

What time it was--whether night or day or what day, neither Jim nor
Old Man Anderson knew. They had slept, of course, and Jim had
forgotten to wind his watch. Had one week or two weeks passed? If two
weeks had slipped by and if the prison officers ran true to form they
would by now have ceased searching inside the prison walls.

Old Man Anderson and Detroit Jim huddled close to each other in the
darkness of the conduit. A hundred times they had crawled from one end
to the other of their vaultlike trap! In their desperate and fruitless
search for an outlet to the conduit they had burned many matches and
several candles. Besides, Old Man Anderson had required light in which
to fight off his attacks of nerves, and the last of the candles had
gone for that. Now total darkness enveloped them.

The conduit was blocked! By earth at one end, and by a brick wall at
the other! All along the winding hundred feet of vault they had hacked
out brick after brick only to encounter solid earth behind. Only a few
tins of food remained and the water was wholly gone; the liquid from
the food cans only served to increase their thirst.

Old Man Anderson had grown to loathe Detroit Jim. Every word he
murmured, every movement he made, intensified the loathing. He had
made up his mind that Jim was planning to desert him the next time he
should fall asleep; perhaps would kill him and leave him there--in the
dark. The two had practically ceased speaking to each other. In his
mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with
satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall
asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall,
pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out,
and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be
shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he
was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie down on
account of the things that were forever crawling through the place!
His contemplation of his plan was broken in upon by his companion
clutching him spasmodically by the arm. The old man's cry died in his
throat.

Footsteps! Dull and distant they were, and somewhere above
them--momentarily more distinct--receding--gone!

Detroit Jim pulled Andersen's head toward him, and whispered:

"Sidewalk! People going by! We've never sat right here before! We
wouldn't hear them if they weren't walking on stone, or slate, or
something hard!"

The old man's heart pounded like a trip-hammer. Detroit Jim seized the
pick and began to pry the bricks loose from the arched roof of the
conduit. They worked like mad, picking, hacking, pulling, piling the
bricks softly down on the conduit floor.

Once, for an instant, Jim stopped working. "How far from the hole we
came in through, do you think we are?" he whispered.

"'Bout a hundred feet, I guess," answered the old man. "Why?"

Without replying Detroit Jim resumed his picking, picking, at the
bricks. A hundred feet from where they had entered would not be under
the sidewalk. Finally, he understood. This conduit wound around a good
deal; it would take a hundred winding feet to cover thirty
straightaway.

Finally, also, Detroit Jim turned the pick over to the old man, who,
feeling in the blackness with his hands, discovered the span as wide
as his outstretched arms, from which Detroit Jim had removed the
bricks. It was a span of yielding earth into which the old man now dug
his pick. As he worked, the loosened dirt fell upon him, upon his
head, into his eyes and nose and ears....

Abruptly the old man's pick struck the flagging above them! Detroit
Jim mounted upon the pile of bricks and shoved Anderson aside.

Jim felt along the edges of the stone clear around. It seemed to
measure about three feet by two, and to be of slate, and probably held
in place only by its contact with other stones, or by cement between
the stones. No light appeared through the crevices. Detroit Jim took
from his pocket a huge pocket-knife and with the longest blade poked
up between the main stone and the one adjoining. The blade met
resistance.

Ultimately, and abruptly, however, the blade shot through to the hilt
of the knife. Jim drew it back instantly. No light came through the
crevice.

"I smell good air," he whispered, "but I can't see a thing. It must be
night!"

They knew now what to do. The flagging must be removed at once, before
any one should go by! The hole would be big enough to let them out!
Old Man Andersen's heart leaped. It was over. They had won. Trust him
to go where they'd never get him for the Slattery business! As for
Detroit Jim, he already knew the next big trick that he would pull
off--out in Cleveland!

Ultimately, as Detroit Jim worked upon it, the stone began to sag. An
edge caught upon the adjacent flagging. The two men, perched upon the
wobbly bricks, manipulated the stone, working it loose, until,
finally, it came crashing down.

The stone had made noise enough, it seemed, to wake the dead; yet
above them there was no sound. Swiftly they raised the flagging and
set it securely upon the heap of bricks. When Detroit Jim stood upon
this improvised platform his head was level with the aperture they had
made. He could see no sky, no stars, could feel no wind, discover no
light such as pervades even the darkest night.

"Good God!" he breathed. His fingers went out over the flagging. His
knife dropped. The tinkle echoed dully down the conduit. He stooped to
where Old Man Anderson stood, breathing hard.

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