y
release.

Surely little blame can attach to the confession that out of the tumult
came a hot-hearted and vindictive determination to live for a single
purpose; to work and strive and endure so that I might be the sooner free
to square my account with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. I need make no
secret now of the depth of this hatred. At times, when the obsession was
strongest upon me, the fear that one or both of them might die before my
chance should come was almost maddening. They were both old men, and in
the nature of things there was always a possibility that death might
forestall me.

So it was this motive at first that made me jealous of my good-conduct
marks; made me study the prison regulations and live up to them with a
rigidity that knew no lapses. I am not defending the motive; I
cheerfully admit that it was unworthy. None the less, I owe it
something: it sustained me and kept me sane and cool-headed at a time
when, without some such stimulus, I might have lost my reason.

Of the three succeeding years and what they brought or failed to bring
the least said will be, perhaps, the soonest mended. I am glad to be
able to write it down that my native State had, and still has, a fairly
enlightened prison system; or at least it is less brutalizing than many
others. During my period of incarceration the warden-in-office was an
upright and impartial man, just to his charges and even kindly and
fatherly when the circumstances would warrant. After my steady
determination to earn an early release became apparent, I was made a
"trusty," and for two of the three years I was the prison bookkeeper.

Study as I might, I could never determine how the prison life affected my
associates; but for me it held few real hardships beyond the confinement,
the disgrace, and the fear that before I could outlive it I should become
a criminal in fact. Fight the idea as we may, environment, association,
and suggestion have a great deal to say to the human atom. I was treated
as a criminal, was believed to be a criminal, and mingled daily with
criminals. Put yourself in my place and try to imagine what it would
make of you in three changes of the calendar.

During the three years I received but one letter from home, and wrote but
one. Almost as soon as my sentence period began I had a heart-broken
letter from my sister. She and my mother had returned from Canada, only
to find me dead and buried to the world. I answere