Capital punishment -- Fiction; Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Criminals -- Fiction; Prisoners -- Fiction
little bit less than the hand-bill made it, and that if I’d walked from
Chicago that would account for the difference. Then he looked over my
clothes, but he couldn’t find any marks on ‘em.
“Then he sent down for the barber and told him to shave me. I objected
to that and told him he hadn’t any right to do it; that I wasn’t charged
with any crime, and he said it didn’t make no difference, he was goin’
to do it anyway. So I knew it wa’n’t no use, and I set down and let the
barber shave me. Of course I knew it would all be up as soon as I got
shaved. But I didn’t care so very much if it was; it wa’n’t any worse
than runnin’ all the time and bein’ ‘fraid of ever’-one you met and
knowin’ you’d be ketched at last.
“Well, after the barber got through shavin’ me, the marshal took the
picture and held it up ‘side of my face, and anyone could see ‘twas me.
He was so glad he almost shouted. And he told the police judge that he’d
got one of the most dangerous criminals in the whole United States, and
he was entitled to one thousand dollars reward. I never see a boy feel
so good over anythin’ as he did over ketchin’ me. He said that now he
could pay off the mortgage on his house and get his girl piano lessons,
and run for sheriff next fall. When he told me I was Jackson, I denied
it and said I never knew anything about Chicago, and was never there in
my life. He didn’t pay any attention to this, but wired to Chicago,
givin’ a full description of me. Of course, it wa’n’t long before he got
back word that I was Jackson, and to hold me till they sent someone
down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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