Shadow, A Christmas Story - Harry Stillwell Edwards

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Shado, a Christmas story by Harry Stillwell Edwards.

A Negro convict awake, lay on his back in the log barracks.

Wearied forms stretched out in slumber

in long lines to the right and left of him.

A chain ran from his shackles, as from theirs,

to a stout beam holding him prisoner.

He was only a boy when the shackles were riveted on his ankles,

his crime and error, born of ignorance

and lack of moral training.

Six years had passed since, days, and terrified,

he had been led from the courthouse, and at 20,

he still owed the state of Alabama 14 years of servitude.

Life for him had been fierce and full of agony.

Down in the black darkness of coal mines,

he had labored until accident made him useless

and gave him back to daylight and the great green world above.

Life then settled into the dull routine of the camp

and a hustler's duties, the darkness behind him a nightmare,

the days of his lost freedom, a dream.

The freedom to come was too far away

for his imagination to compass.

From the right and left of him came the deep breathing

of tired men.

Sleep with the convict is rest in the full and perfect significance

of the word, and he plunges into it after his course evening meal

as into a tide.

That which kept the boy awake was necessarily something novel.

It was not pain had he not felt the lash and the crush of falling

coal, nor sorrow for behind him, among the far away Georgia hills,

as a cabin about which as a child he had played as all children play,

and the sad undying memory of it shut out all other sorrows.

Nor was it a mere yearning for freedom that had long since given place

to dull unlifting despair.

All these sorrow, pain and despair had been the companions of his solitude

in many a night of gloom, keeping watch as he slept.

The strange new companion of his solitude, from whose divine presence this night

all others withdrew, was hope.

As he lay, the darkness fell away beyond the radiance of his visitor,

and three faces shown out as clearly as the white cloudlets in the blue

summer skies.

Sunshine, moonbeam and starlight stood by his side.

Sunshine, moonbeam and starlight.

When all the branches and departments of the state government refugied into

the Highlands away from the fever and beyond the vexations of quarantine,

the convicts came to Watumpka, and on days when the prison commissioner came

to inspect the camp, with him were the three, each less than a dozen years

of age, and Sunshine was the youngest of them all.

Take care of them shadow, he said to the hostler convict, and the black boy,

with the memory of his own white folks, far away, filling his heart with joy,

took care of them proudly and gratefully.

Six years had passed since he had looked on childhood.

Take care of them?

I, if necessary, he would lay down his life for them.

Instead he rigged up swings of plow lines, marked off hopscotch diagrams for their little

feet, and taught them how to ride on the back of a superannuated mule.

He filled their hours with excitement and pleasure, and when they were worried of exercise,

lying in the shade of a great oak, he touched their hearts with the story of his misfortunes.

He drew for them graphic pictures of his terrible life in the coal mines, of the men who

work where eternal darkness reigns, and the accidents in which lives go out like the

light of snuffed candles.

And looking over the hills, he told two of that cabin where he was born, of his mommy

at the wash tub singing hymns that linger now, as the voices of dead slaves on old plantations,

and of the little mists and her child-friends who came down to the big white house in the

summer, and then to the gin-house to play in the heaped-up cotton.

Not a line of it all was gone from his memory, not a picture was blurred.

And sunshine, moonbeam and starlight, touched by the divine pity which is eloquent in the

hearts of women, old and young, looked into the sad black face of their friend.

The by-shadow, they said, when the quarantine was lifted, and they had come for the last

time, goodbye, we are going to get you out by Christmas, only you must promise to be

good always, will you?

And shadow with tears on his cheeks from eyes long dry, pledged himself before the good

God looking down on them, his messengers, to be perfect forever and forever.

And the memory of it all filled the darkness with a flood of beauty as though sunshine, moonbeam

and starlight were indeed by his side.

Not for a moment had he doubted them, so hope forled her wings above him on Christmas Eve,

and he lay waiting with wide-opened eyes.

Sunshine, moonbeam and starlight, where were they?

The floor vibrated under the convict's head, a lantern flashed and a guard stood over

him, one word broke the silence, one word, his own name, shadow.

It was the day before Christmas and nothing had been accomplished for shadow, freeing a convict

was not the trivial matter imagined.

The commissioner, besieged and wearyed out of discretion, after many laughing refusals

referred the little petitioners to the governor.

They knew the governor.

Almost daily they saw him pass on their block, and sometimes he laid a hand on a curly head

in passing, but he never transacted business outside his office he said, never.

And always he smiled and passed along.

They must come and see him, he said, but the governor was never in when they called, timidly,

at least he was never in sight.

Then their last day of grace arrived, and they charged Capitol Hill once more.

Terrace and portico fell quickly before their assault.

The historic spot where Jefferson Davis delivered his inaugural over the cradle of the great

Confederacy and launched the war, which was to end in freedom for all the black people,

was simply space to be crossed, and they crossed it.

They carried their advance into the governor's room.

They came without ceremony, and with the red of their country's flag on their cheeks,

it's blue within their eager eyes, and within their parted lips it's gleaming white.

They stormed his great chair, planted their victorious arms about him, and demanded an

unconditional surrender.

The governor seemed to yield.

They made a transient summer in the still cold room, and awoke a youth that long had

slept within his heart, a youth full of romance and of love.

Love!

Are not these born ever under the sunshine and moonbeams and starlight?

The governor seemed to yield.

He stroked each curly head and learned each name.

He remembered when their respected parents were married.

He knew more about them than did the little ones themselves.

Then the crash came.

Pardon a convict?

The man had not surrendered, the smiling face faded into a grave cold face.

The governor they knew had vanished, and a new governor, grave, courteous, and firm,

but not nearly so nice, had taken his place.

But in the sunshine the ice is melted at last, and in the moonbeams and the light of the

stars, love finds a way.

The man was powerless, refusal impotent.

The illogical trinity sat on his knees, and the arms of his chair, and admitted all that

he urged to be true.

They agreed with him in his conception of a governor's duty.

They even recognized the claims of good public policy to be against them.

And when he had finished they put their arms about him, and asked mercy for their friend

Shadow.

It would not be so bad, said sunshine, if we hadn't promised.

And the governor laughed.

How potent is innocence, how weak at times is wisdom.

Driven from his positions, one by one, the beleaguered governor took refuge behind the

Judicial Urban.

Shadow had been placed in prison by the judge.

The judge was really the man to be seen.

It would never do for the governor arbitrarily to reverse the action of the judge.

And then he sighed a great sigh of relief.

Why had he not thought of that before?

Give us a letter to the judge then, said sunshine stirdally, and she handed him his pen,

point reversed.

Good, said the governor.

Yes, he is the man you should see.

Do you know the judge?

Yes, they knew the judge, almost daily they saw him pass on their block, and sometimes

he too laid a hand on their heads in passing.

But they had never thought of asking his help and getting Shadow out.

If the judge says you may let him go, said sunshine with a tremulous little note in her voice,

will you do it?

Ah-ha exclaimed the governor with apparent irrelevancy, and yet it was pertinent and relevant.

It meant this little ah-ha spoken to himself and the thoughts within him that the logic

of the situation had him to him in.

He must say yes or admit that he had been insincere.

Even he remembered that a great murder trial was on, and approaching its close, and that

even a telephone message could hardly make its way into the courthouse, so dense was the

crowd.

Yes, he answered guardedly, if the judge says I may, I shall have to do something for Shadow.

But he added, pitting their situation, you cannot see the judge today, he is engaged in

trying a man for his life, and hopes to get through before Christmas.

The three answered not, serenely they went forth.

A friendly Irishman in a police uniform was at the foot of the steps, dreaming daydreams,

perhaps of the children at home.

His smiling face was an invitation, and they asked him the way to the courthouse.

Courthouse, he said, courthouse, and why should the likes of ye babies that ye are behunting

for the courthouse?

They are trying a man for his life, said sunshine, getting her logic mixed, and we have a message

to the judge from the governor.

The Irishman glanced at the official envelope and whistled.

And as it is important, he said, it may get a man out of prison, said sunshine, if we

can get there in time.

It's get there in time, ye will, said the Irishman.

If I have to carry the last darling of ye in me arms and on me ed, come along with me.

Every corridor, every foot of courtroom space, was occupied with excited men, and the way

was blocked.

Over the murmur of their voices rang the voice of the defendant's attorney, as he pleaded

for his client's life.

A whisper ran through the crowd.

The Irishman started it.

They looked with wonder on the three dainty messengers and opened a path for them.

Message from the governor?

What could it mean?

The tension was at its highest pitch.

The sheriff, lifting his hand at the entrance to the bar, waited until the judge's gavel

fell, and repeated the whisper aloud, a message from the governor, your honor.

And up the aisle trudged the children, while a strange silence settled over the great

throng, and in open contempt of court, they climbed up to the judge and presented their

credentials, all talking while the bewildered official read the message.

A smile dawned on his stern face, which echoed in silence from the crowd, if such things

can be, while he wiped his glasses.

Suspend for five minutes, he said to the lawyer who had been speaking.

The lawyer suspended willingly, and his unchanging gaze, fixed on the children, kept the eyes

of every juror riveted there.

With the children by his side, the judge examined a record handed up by the clerk.

And did the governor send you to me with the note he asked as he turned the pages?

Yes, sir, said sunshine, and he laughed, too.

Oh, he laughed, did he?

The judge laughed, too.

I see, I see.

And then he read from the record, twenty years for robbery, and he was a boy when it occurred.

He shook his head.

Yes, the sentence was too severe, too severe when his youth is considered.

Suspend swept across the governor's note a few times, he smiled grimly, a path opened

up through the throng, and sunshine, moonbeam, and starlight, fading from the scene, left

justice at work in the chill and gloom.

The state lost its case when the council for the defense resumed with the words, children

like those my friends await their father's homecoming this Christmas Eve.

But they knew nothing of this.

Thirty minutes after leaving the governor's room, they entered stormily, gleefully, and

planted their victorious colors over the citadel and his vanquished custodian.

He learned their story in amazement and looked with comet gravity on their flushed faces.

The Republican form of government is a failure, he said at length.

The infantry has usurped the executive and suspended the judiciary.

And may we tell Shadow he is free?

Asked sunshine?

Yes, let freedom be his Christmas present.

The child's eyes swam in softer light.

Write down for me, please.

Again she handed him the pen, this time point foremost, the little hand trembling with

excitement.

And, taking his pen, the chief executive wrote this, the strangest, sweetest, gentlest

public document that ever issued from Alabama's capital.

Dear sunshine, I have looked into the case of your friend Shadow from Grinjal County

and am inclined to think that his sentence is too severe.

His term is twenty years from September 23, 1893.

I have about made up my mind to cut his sentence to less than one-third.

You can let Shadow know this and save this letter to show if needed.

He had three mighty nice girls to beg for him, and you see I am giving him off more than

four years for each girl.

Your friend, the governor.

Late that night, sunshine's father succeeded in getting connection by telephone with Vitamka

and Shadow was brought into the superintendent's office.

Do you know who this is, Shadow?

The child's voice annihilated space as it annihilated opposition.

Miss sunshine!

Well Shadow, the governor says you will be free in the morning, and I am so glad.

Back over the wires came a great voice shouting, it was the wordless expression of a soul

whose chains had been broken asunder, and to whom the whole beautiful world came back

as a Christmas gift.

Was there ever such a gift?

One other sound came to the listening child, the sound of a falling telephone receiver.

Sunshine turned away with her eyes full of tears, the city clock rang out clearly through

the night upon the first stroke of twelve.

Wrapping her hands, she cried aloud, it is Christmas, Shadow is free.

End of Shadow, a Christmas story by Harry Stillwell Edwards.