§ 14 What Aunt Myra Desired
They brought a darky out of the jail in a North Carolina town with intent to hang him for murder. This was in the day when capital punishment was publicly inflicted. As a special mark of attention the widow of the murderer’s victim was permitted to witness the event from a position of vantage directly facing the gallows. She had had a sort of small grandstand rigged up and she had decorated it with bunting, and when the march to the scaffold started, there she sat in a white mother-hubbard wrapper, gently agitating a palmleaf fan, flanked and surrounded by relatives, invited friends and sister members of her lodge.
When the condemned had been properly trussed up, with the noose dangling about his neck, the sheriff, holding the black cap in his hand, edged up to him and said:
“Well, Jim, we’re about ready. If you’ve got anything to say, I reckon this would be a mighty good time to say it.”
“Yas, suh,” said the doomed, “I has got sump’n to say. I jest wants to say dat I is fully repented fur whut I done. I taken it to de Lawd in prayer an’ I knows it’s all right wid Him. I ast de jedge w’ich tried me an’ de persecutin’ attorney an’ de foreman of de jury ef they bore me any gredge, w’ich, one an’ all, they said they did not. An’ now I kin go right straight to Hebben an’ nestle in de bosom of Father Abraham ef only I kin git de fergiveness of dat nigger lady sittin’ yonder—de wife of de man I kil’t.”
He lifted his voice, addressing the white-clad figure in front of him:
“Lady,” he entreated, “does you fergive me fur shootin’ yore husband six times wid a fo-ty-fo’ caliver revolover?”
Excepting that her under lip jutted out a trifle farther there was no sign she had heard him. She calmly fanned on.
The darky on the scaffold tried again:
“Lady,” he pleaded, “for de secont time I axes you, ain’t you please ma’am, gwine fergive me?”
Still from her there was no response. It was as though she had not heard him. The sympathetic sheriff felt moved to add his intercession:
“Aunt Myra,” he called, “Jim, here, will be goin’ away from us in a minute and we don’t expect him back. Surely you don’t entertain any hard feelin’s against him now? Won’t you speak to him and let him go in peace?”
This time the obdurate widow shook her head in an emphatic negative. Yet still she uttered no sound. The sheriff turned to the condemned.
“Jim,” he said, “you see how it is; that old woman is set in her ways. What’s the use of wastin’ any more time on her? Besides, it’s hot as the devil out here and I ought to be gettin’ on home to dinner. Just hold still a second and we can have this all over.”
“Mr. Lucas,” sobbed Jim, “lemme see ef I still can’t sof’en dat nigger woman’s stony heart. Lady,” he cried out, “wid mouty nigh my dyin’ bre’f I begs you fur jest a word. I ain’t hopin’ no mo’ dat you’ll fergive me, but won’t you please, ma’am, jest speak to me?”
And now she did speak. She motioned with her fan as though it had been a baton of authority, and in impatient tones she said:
“Go on, nigger, git hung—git hung!”