Life — November 18, 1915 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LIFES SHORT STORY @HTES The contest closed on October 4th. So many thousands of manuscripts have been received, each one necessitating a careful reading, that our friends are invited to exercise all due patience. We shall continue to publish the stories accepted each week in this department until all the manuscripts have been passed upon; and as soon thereafter as possible the prizes will be awarded. The Recoil of the Gun By Marion Parker ES, I will tell you why I did it. I can talk to you, because you are a gentleman. You will understand, Those others were horrible men, policemen. They hustled me, they took me by the arm—me! Did you ever see a prison cell before? I never did. It’s a queer place to receive you in, but that isn’t my fault. They won't let me out. You wish to know why I killed my husband? It does sound rather dread- ful, doesn’t it? Though, you know, a woman might get angry—might throw something at a man. But I wasn’t angry. It’s not really hard to kill people. Why, even now, here, alone with you—but they haven't left anything handy. May you call in your friend from the corridor? Yes, of course. About my husband, He was a very good man, very fond of me; a little tiresome, but I wouldn’t have killed him for that. People won't understand that I did it from the highest motives. This is the reason. It's very reason- able. J did it for the children, Now you know. He began to follow me about. He be- gan to watch me. Even when I was alone he watched me. He was suspicious. That's a very bad sign. I know what it meant. It was dreadful to know, but everything proved it. He was going in- sane. But no one else knew. If I waited people would find out. I had to think of the children—my little girls. No one would have married them. It's heredi- tary, you know. So I shot him. Your friend's a lawyer? He will get me off? They won't hang me? I knew they wouldn't if I explained. What's that you said? I heard! To plead insanity. For mef But he mustn't do that! The girls—don’t you see? Why, you're crazy! No one would marry them! And I did it for them! I did it for them! Two Letters, a Telegram and a Finale By H. S. Haskins “New York, September 10. EAREST MARIAN: “Is it not time to break silence? Three months have passed since we quarreled on the eve of your departure for the mountains. I wrote twice dur- ing the first week. You did not answer. Pride forbade my risking another re- buff. Frequently I have been so desperate that it has consoled me to run into needless danger. Often, during the sum- mer, I have swum out beyond the break- ers when there was a heavy undertow. I have taken automobile tours by my- self, speeding at seventy miles an hour over narrow roads along mountainsides. These foolhardy adventures were backed by what must seem to you an unaccountable desire for revenge. I pictured your face as you read an ac- count of my death; gloated over the horror in your eyes when they scanned the ghastly details. IT invented such news items as these: ‘Blake's body was cast up on the beach, horribly gashed by the rocks’; or, ‘The automobile leaped into a chasm. Blake, clinging to the wheel, was crushed into an unrecognizable mass when the car turned turtle.” This desire to punish you for your neglect seems a barbarous instinct or a childish whim, as you choose. But, ashamed of it as I may be, and struggle against it as I will, such a thought is often with me. Take this morning, for instance: Alighting from the train at Jersey City, I stopped to admire the huge locomotive which has been lately put on the morn- ing express. I laid my hand on one bulky cylinder. ‘What if this monster should explode with me standing here!’ I thought. ‘ What if one side of my face BS cc and my right arm were blown off! What would she say, my little Princess of In- difference, far away in her mountain fastness?’ I gave imagination its head. It soon seemed as if the horrible thing had really happened. They picked me up. conscious and suffering frightfully. Be- fore I slipped into merciful obliv awful truth was apparent to me—my right arm was gone and the right side of my face was terribly scalded by the blinding steam. Weeks grew into months. The day before the bandages were to be removed from my face I escaped from the hos- pital. I took a night express to Mont- real, From Montreal I plunged into the wilderness, anywhere to get away from the sight of man, where, slowly and painfully, with my untrained left arm, I built a hut on the side of a mountain. Besides the rough furniture I installed a typewriter and a framed photograph of you. Just these two things with which to start life over again. Here I learned with difficulty to type- write with one hand, At first it baffled me to devise some way of depressing the shift key. Then I attached a rough contrivance for working the shift key with my foot. Finally I became fairly expert, and began to submit magazine stories, with some success. Often I dreamed of a footstep outside my cabin, of the swish of skirts, of a cry, and somebody rushing across the floor. Two hands, unmistakably yours, pressed my eyes—my good eye on the good side of my face and my useless eye on the useless side of my face. Then I seemed to play a gruesome hide-and- seek, twisting, turning, dodging—ever Striving to keep the undamaged side of my face toward you, concealing the stricken side from your eyes. That's enough of such _ rubbish. Fancies, made morbid by your long silence, have run away with me. For- give me. But have mercy, and write! I have stopped running risks in the water. I observe the legal rate of speed in my car. But I have not given up an equally hazardous adventure—loving you. Forever and ever yours, Joun.” “Paul Smith's, Adirondacks, N. Y September 14 My Ows Sitty Joun: Your letter gave me the shivers. For- give me. I have been thoughtless and brutal. Your letter was so graphic, your comicbooks.com