"I was sent to prison. My hair was clipped, and I was put in stripes and steel shackles. All hell was packed in me. Instead of being conquered, as most convicts are, I kept swearing that I was innocent. I'd lie awake at night in my cell concocting lie after lie to bolster up my case and stir up sympathy. I wrote letters to my home papers. While I was clanking along by my fellow-prisoners who were taking their medicine like men I was hating the whole of creation and studying devilish ways to fight.
"I got to writing to the Governor of the State. I had heard he was kind-hearted, and I thought I might make him believe I was innocent, so I wrote letter after letter to him. I used every pretext I could think of. Once I told him that I hoped God would strike me dead in my tracks and damn me eternally if I had not been falsely imprisoned. Now and then he would answer, in a kind sort of way, and that made me think I might convince him if I kept up my letters.
"I was that sort of a fiend for a year. Then a strange thing happened. A little, mild-mannered man was put in for murder. He had the cell adjoining mine. He wasn't like any other prisoner I'd ever seen. He had a sad, patient face, and didn't look at all strong. I took to him because he used to pass his tobacco through to me--said he had quit using it. Well, what do you think? One night as I lay with my ear close to the partition I heard him praying. And the strangest part of it was that he wasn't praying like a guilty man. He was begging the Lord to be good to the other prisoners, and open their eyes to the spiritual light, which he declared was even then shining in his cell.
"Well, do you know, I listened to him night after night, and got so I could sleep better after I'd heard him pray. And in the daytime I loved to find myself by his side in any work we had to do. I never shall forget the thing I'm going to tell you. We were carrying brick to repair a wall where an attempt was made by some fellows to get out. It was out in the sunlight, and I hadn't seen the sun many times for a year past. I don't know how it come up, but somehow he happened to remark that he was innocent of the charge against him. Circumstantial evidence had landed him where he was. He wasn't the one that did the killing at all. I remember as I looked at him that I was convinced he was telling the truth. He was innocent and I was guilty. I had an odd feeling after that that I had no right to be near him.