Susan Keating Glaspell

“ The Governor made no reply, and Frank Morton stood there twirling his hat in his hand. "It's a strange world," he said, taking a few steps toward the door. "We think things out, we lay down laws, we have it all fixed—theoretically. And then we meet the actual—confront conditions, and the first thing we do with our theories is to break them."
He went away then—forgetful of the commission, and the Governor resumed his work; but for a long time that soft little smile continued to play about the chief executive's mouth. ”

“ When half way between the basement and the first floor, he stopped the elevator. He must have time to think. If he took that man up to the Senate Chamber, he would simply strike the death-blow to reform! And so he knelt and pretended to be fixing something, and he thought fast and hard.
"Something broke?" said an anxious voice.
Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face, and he saw that the eminent lobbyist was nervous.
"Yes," he said calmly. "It's acting queer. Something's all out of whack." ”

“ Governor, just suppose that the person dearest to you in all the world was dying, and that you were shut up somewhere and they wouldn't let you out to take care of her—to bathe her head, Governor, when it ached so hard, to hold her when she coughed, to love her and—and make it easier for her. ”

“ And then, within ten feet of the top of the shaft, and within a foot of the top floor of the whole great building, that elevator came to a rickety stop. It wabbled back and forth; it did strange and terrible things.
"She's falling!" panted Freckles. "Climb!"
And Henry Ludlow climbed. He got the door of the cage open, and he clambered up. No sooner had the man's feet touched solid floor than Freckles reached up and slammed the door of the cage. Why he did that, he was not sure at the time. Later he felt that instinct had told him not to give the man's voice a full sweep down the shaft. ”

“ The Governor had told the newspaper man that he would be glad to talk with him at two o'clock.
Frank Morton was an entirely unique personality in that State. He was unquestionably the State's most powerful private citizen. Seven years before he had taken the editorship of the Record, at a time when it was without prestige or power. He had come from somewhere in the West, and was unknown and unbacked. But nevertheless within three months the reading population of the State was rubbing its eyes and asking where this man had come from and what he intended to do. ”

“ He thought of stories he had read of lonely turrets in which men were beheaded, and otherwise made away with. It seemed he would never come to the top, and when at last he did it was to find two of the most awful-looking eyes he had ever seen peering down upon him. ”

“ IT was a very cutting editorial, and a very strong one. The Governor read it through twice, and then he spread it out on the desk before him, and sat there looking at it.
"In one respect Governor Henderson is proving a disappointment," it ran. "He is buying his personal comfort at the expense of justice. He finds it more pleasant to say yes than to say no; it is easier for him to grant the requests of sorrowing wives, mothers, daughters and sisters than it is to refuse them, and so it has become a matter of personalities with him rather than of justice. ”

“ But there are only two instances which justify an exercise of the pardon power: when it can be shown justice was not done in the trial, or where there are such extenuating circumstances to make the crime less great in reality than shown to be under the technical construction of the law." He paused, and some way he could feel that the face of the newspaper man had grown red. "I do not find," he went on, his voice trying to take the sting from the words, "that your husband's case falls under either of these."
The woman pulled her chair close to the Governor's desk, and put out a shaking hand. ”

“ Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify some one, or do something about it?"
"Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs," said Freckles. "I never dreamed he'd wait to trust the elevator after the way it had acted."
"The door was locked," snarled the eminent lobbyist.
"Well, now, you see, I didn't know that," explained Freckles expansively. "Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test the car—and there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I supposed, of course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the Senate along with everybody else." ”

“ Freckles turned his car back to the basement. Somehow he wanted to be all alone for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was he Freckles McGraw, who had won this great victory for reform. It was he, Freckles McGraw, who had assured the Governor's future! Why, perhaps he had that afternoon made for himself a name which would be handed down in the histories!
Freckles was a kind little boy. and he knew that an elegant gentleman could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which to spend the afternoon. So he decided to go up and get Mr. Ludlow. It took courage ”

“ Don't you see what an awful, awful thing it would be to die alone? To be alone—think of it!—all alone—when you were in pain and dying. Oh!—I can't tell it right; it's hard to talk—but—" and then, in sheer weakness, her voice broke, and again the Governor attempted to raise her, but she clung tightly to the desk, and after a minute went on more quietly:—
"My father has given me some money. ”

“ In just an hour Freckles tried it again. He sent the car to within three feet of the attic floor. and then peered through the grating, his face tied in a knot of interrogation. The eminent lobbyist stood there gulping down wrath and pride, knowing well enough what was expected of him.
"Oh—all right," he muttered at last, and with that much of an understanding Freckles sent the car up, opened the door, and Henry Ludlow stepped in. No word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon which the Senate Chamber was situated came in view. ”

“ The really hard part of it was that the Governor was forced to concede that upon this, as upon other subjects, the Record's editorial was well balanced, far-seeing and fair. But he did not believe Morton appreciated how hard he had struggled, in many instances, against his so-called buying of his personal comfort.
A card was handed the Governor at that moment, and he looked at it, and frowned. Mrs. Frank Payne was a woman he did not care, at this time of all others, to see. ”

“ Ludlow, possibly deep in something else, had simply knit together his brows and had given no sign of having heard. After that, Henry Ludlow, lobbyist, and Freckles McGraw, elevator boy, were enemies.
II.
A little before noon, one day near the end of the session, a member of the Senate and a member of the House rode down together in the elevator.
"There's no use waiting any longer," the Senator was saying as they got in. "We're as strong now as we're going to be. It's a matter of Stacy's vote, and that's a matter of who sees him last." ”