“Well, at last, what do you think happened?
Why the people gave him a towering, illustrious position,
a grand, imposing position. And what do you
think it was? What should you say it was, children?
It was Senator of the United States! That poor
little boy that loved his Sunday School became that
man. That man stands before you! All that
he is, he owes to the Sunday School.
“My precious children, love your parents, love
your teachers, love your Sunday School, be pious,
be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then you
will succeed in life and be honored of all men.
Above all things, my children, be honest. Above
all things be pure-minded as the snow. Let us
join in prayer.”
When Senator Dilworthy departed from Cattleville,
he left three dozen boys behind him arranging a campaign
of life whose objective point was the United States
Senate.
When be arrived at the State capital at midnight Mr.
Noble came and held a three-hours’ conference
with him, and then as he was about leaving said:
“I’ve worked hard, and I’ve got
them at last. Six of them haven’t got
quite back-bone enough to slew around and come right
out for you on the first ballot to-morrow; but they’re
going to vote against you on the first for the sake
of appearances, and then come out for you all in a
body on the second—I’ve fixed all
that! By supper time to-morrow you’ll
be re-elected. You can go to bed and sleep easy
on that.”
After Mr. Noble was gone, the Senator said:
“Well, to bring about a complexion of things
like this was worth coming West for.”
The case of the State of New York against Laura Hawkins
was finally set down for trial on the 15th day of
February, less than a year after the shooting of George
Selby.
If the public had almost forgotten the existence of
Laura and her crime, they were reminded of all the
details of the murder by the newspapers, which for
some days had been announcing the approaching trial.
But they had not forgotten. The sex, the age,
the beauty of the prisoner; her high social position
in Washington, the unparalleled calmness with which
the crime was committed had all conspired to fix the
event in the public mind, although nearly three hundred
and sixty-five subsequent murders had occurred to
vary the monotony of metropolitan life.
No, the public read from time to time of the lovely
prisoner, languishing in the city prison, the tortured
victim of the law’s delay; and as the months
went by it was natural that the horror of her crime
should become a little indistinct in memory, while
the heroine of it should be invested with a sort of
sentimental interest. Perhaps her counsel had
calculated on this. Perhaps it was by their
advice that Laura had interested herself in the unfortunate
criminals who shared her prison confinement, and had
done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the
necessities of some of the poor creatures. That
she had done this, the public read in the journals
of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening
light upon her character.
