on every hand. People tried to get him to drink wine; to dance, to go to
theatres ; they even tried to buy his vote; but no, the memory of his
Sunday School saved him from all harm; he remembered the fate of the bad
little boy who used to try to get him to play on Sunday, and who grew up
and became a drunkard and was hanged. He remembered that, and was glad
he never yielded and played on Sunday.
“Well, at last, what do you think happened? Why the people gave him a
towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position. And what do
you think it was? What should you say it was, children? It was Senator
of the United States! That poor little boy that loved his Sunday School
became that man. That man stands before you! All that he is, he owes to
the Sunday School.
“My precious children, love your parents, love your teachers, love your
Sunday School, be pious, be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then
you will succeed in life and be honored of all men. Above all things,
my children, be honest. Above all things be pure-minded as the snow.
Let us join in prayer.”
When Senator Dilworthy departed from Cattleville, he left three dozen
boys behind him arranging a campaign of life whose objective point was
the United States Senate.
When be arrived at the State capital at midnight Mr. Noble came and held
a three-hours’ conference with him, and then as he was about leaving
said:
“I’ve worked hard, and I’ve got them at last. Six of them haven’t got
quite back-bone enough to slew around and come right out for you on the
first ballot to-morrow; but they’re going to vote against you on the
first for the sake of appearances, and then come out for you all in a
body on the second–I’ve fixed all that! By supper time to-morrow you’ll
be re-elected. You can go to bed and sleep easy on that.”
After Mr. Noble was gone, the Senator said:
“Well, to bring about a complexion of things like this was worth coming
West for.”
CHAPTER LIV.
The case of the State of New York against Laura Hawkins was finally set
down for trial on the 15th day of February, less than a year after the
shooting of George Selby.
If the public had almost forgotten the existence of Laura and her crime,
they were reminded of all the details of the murder by the newspapers,
which for some days had been announcing the approaching trial. But they
had not forgotten. The sex, the age, the beauty of the prisoner; her
high social position in Washington, the unparalled calmness with which
the crime was committed had all conspired to fix the event in the public
mind, although nearly three hundred and sixty-five subsequent murders had
occurred to vary the monotony of metropolitan life.
No, the public read from time to time of the lovely prisoner, languishing
in the city prison, the tortured victim of the law’s delay; and as the
months went by it was natural that the horror of her crime should become
a little indistinct in memory, while the heroine of it should be invested
with a sort of sentimental interest. Perhaps her counsel had calculated
on this. Perhaps it was by their advice that Laura had interested
herself in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement,
and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities
of some of the poor creatures. That she had done this, the public read
in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening
light upon her character.
The court room was crowded at an early hour, before the arrival of
judges, lawyers and prisoner. There is no enjoyment so keen to certain
minds as that of looking upon the slow torture of a human being on trial
for life, except it be an execution; there is no display of human
ingenuity, wit and power so fascinating as that made by trained lawyers
in the trial of an important case, nowhere else is exhibited such
subtlety, acumen, address, eloquence.