§ 56 In Fact, a Positive Fad
Not long ago a very wise literary critic suggested in my presence the attractiveness of the idea of compiling a funny book about hangings. He pointed out that there were scores of yarns, all dealing more or less humorously with the unhumorous subject of hangings, legal and otherwise. He thought that a suitable beginning for the volume might be found in the ancient anecdote of the shipwrecked mariner who, after drifting for days on an improvised raft, was carried by a friendly current within sight of a strange land. As he drew nearer he saw some men on the shore erecting a gallows, and, falling upon his knees, cried out: “Thank Heaven, I have reached a Christian country!”
I do not know whether my friend will carry out his threat of compiling such a work, but if he ever does I claim the collection will be incomplete unless in his pages he includes the narrative pertaining to that colored person who was condemned to death on the scaffold, and who was unable to readjust himself to the prospect. The nearer the date of execution came the greater became the reluctance on his part, until toward the end it amounted with him to what might be called a positive diffidence.
On the night before the fatal day a clergyman sat with the prisoner striving by counsel and admonition to prepare him for the ordeal.
“My brother, my poor brother,” said the minister, soothingly, “try to face the fate which confronts you on the morrow with courage and resolution. Remember that thousands and thousands before you all through the ages, some justly condemned and some unjustly, have suffered this same punishment with fortitude. Even the early Christian martyrs died much as you must die.”
“Yas, suh, I knows,” quavered the condemned, “but—but it wuz a hobby wid them.”