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An Illusion in Red and White · The Monster and Other Stories

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  Section eight of The Monster and Other Stories by Stephen Crane. This LibriVox recordings
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  in the public Domain read by Ben Tucker, An illusion in red and white.
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  Nights on the Cuban Blockade were long, at times exciting, often dull.
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  The men on the small, leaping despatch boats became as intimate as if
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  they had all been buried in the same coffin. Correspondents who in New York
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  had passed as fairly good fellows sometimes turned out to be perfect rogues of vanity
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  and selfishness. But still more often the conceited chumps of park Row became the
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  kindly and thoughtful men of the Cuban Blockade. Also, each correspondent told all
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  he knew, and sometimes more. For this gentle tale, I am indebted
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  to one of the brightening stars of New York journalism. Now this is how
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  I imagine it happened. I don't say it happened this way, but this
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  is how I imagine it happened. And it always struck me as being a
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  very interesting story. I hadn't been on the paper very long, but just
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  about long enough to get a good show, when the city editor suddenly gave
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  me this sparkling murder assignment. It seems that up in one of the back
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  counties of New York State, a farmer had taken a dislike to his wife,
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  and so he went into the kitchen with an axe, and in the
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  presence of their four little children, he just casually wrapped his wife on the
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  nape of the neck with the head of this axe. It was early in
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  the morning, but he told the children they had better go to bed.
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  Then he took his wife's body out in the woods and buried it. This
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  farmer's name was Jones. The widower's eldest child was named Freddy. A week
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  after the murder, one of the long distance neighbors was rattling past the house
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  and his buck board when he saw Freddy playing in the road. He pulled
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  up and asked the boy about the welfare of the Jones family. Oh,
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  we're all right, said Freddie. Only ma, she ain't. She's dead.
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  Why when does she die? Cried the startled farmer. What did she
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  die of, oh, answered Freddie. Last week a man with red hair
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  and big white teeth and real white hands came in the kitchen and killed Mile
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  with an axe. The farmer was indignant with the boy for telling him this
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  strange, childish nonsense, and drove off much disgruntled, But he recited the
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  incident at a tavern that evening, and when people began to miss the familiar
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  figure of Missus Jones at the Methodist church on Sunday mornings, they ended by
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  having an investigation. The calm Jones was arrested for murder, and his wife's
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  body was lifted from its grave in the woods and buried by her own family.
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  The chief interest now centered upon the children. All four declared that they
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  were in the kitchen at the time of the crime, and that the murderer
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  had red hair, the hair of the virtuous Jones was gray. They said
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  that the murderer's teeth were large and white. Jones only had about eight teeth,
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  and these were small and brown. They said the murderer's hands were white.
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  Jones's hands were the color of black walnuts. They lifted their dazed,
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  innocent faces and crying, simply because the mysterious excitement in their new quarters frightened
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  them. They repeated their heroic legend without important deviation and without the parroity's sameness
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  which would excite suspicion. Women came to the jail and wept over them,
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  and made little frocks for the girls, and little breeches for the boys,
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  and idiotic detectives questioned them at length. Always they upheld the theory of the
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  murderer with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. Jones sat
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  in his cell, his chin sullenly on his first best button. He knew
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  nothing about any murder, he said. He thought his wife had gone on
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  a visit to some relatives. He had had a quarrel with her, and
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  she had said that she was going to leave him for a time so that
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  he might have proper opportunities for cooling down. Had he seen the blood on
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  the floor, Yes, he had seen the blood on the floor, But
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  he had been cleaning and skinning a rabbit at that spot on the day of
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  his wife's disappearance. He had thought nothing of it. What it is,
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  children said when he returned from the fields, They had told him that their
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  mother had been killed by an axe in the hands of a man with red
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  hair, big white teeth, and white hands. The questions as to why
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  he had not informed the police of the county, he answered that he had
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  not thought it a matter of sufficient importance. He had cordially hated his wife
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  anyhow, and he was glad to be rid of her. He had decided
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  afterward that she had run off, and he had never credited the fantastic tale
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  of the children. Of course, there was very little doubt in the minds
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  of the majority that Jones was guilty, But there was a fairly strong following
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  who insisted that Jones was a coarse and brutal man, and perhaps weaken his
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  head, yes, but not a murderer. They pointed to the children and
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  declared that children could never lie, and these kids, when asked, said
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  that the murder had been committed by a man with red hair, large white
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  teeth, and white hands. I myself had a number of interviews with the
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  children, and I was amazed at the convincing power of their little story.
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  Shining in the depths of limpid, upturned eyes, one could fairly see tiny
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  mirrored images of men with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands.
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  Now, I'll tell you how it happened, how I imagine it was
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  done. Some time after burying his wife in the woods, Jones strolled back
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  into the house. Seeing nobody, he called out in the familiar fashion mother.
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  Then the kids came out whimpering, where is your mother? Said Jones.
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  The children looked at him blankly. Why, Pa, said Freddy.
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  You came in here and hit ma with the axe, and then you sent
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  us to bed. Me, cried Jones. I haven't been near the house
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  since breakfast time. The children did not know how to reply. Their meager
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  little sense informed them that their father had been the man with the axe,
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  but he denied it, and to their minds everything was a mere great puzzle
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  with no meaning whatever save that it was mysteriously sad and made them cry.
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  What kind of a lookin man was it? Said Jones. Freddy hesitated.
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  Now he looked a good deal like you, Pa, like me, said
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  Jones. Why I thought you said he had red hair? No I didn't,
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  replied Freddie. I thought he had gray hair like yours. Well,
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  said Jones. I saw a man with kind of red hair going along the
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  road up yonder, and I thought maybe that might have been him. Little
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  Lucy, the second child here, piped up with intense conviction. His hair
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  was a little teeny bit red. I saw it, no, said Jones.
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  The man I saw had very red hair, and what did his teeth
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  look like. Were they big and white? Yes, answered Lucy, they
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  were even Freddy seemed too incline to think it. His teeth may have been
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  big and white, Jones said little more at that time. Later he intimated
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  to the children that their mother had gone off on a visit. And although
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  they were full of wonder and sometimes wept because of the oppression of an incomprehensible
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  feeling in the air, they said nothing. Jones did his chores. Everything
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  was smooth. The morning after the day of the murder, Jones and his
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  children had a breakfast of homony and milk. Well this man with red hair
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  and big white teeth, Lucy said Jones. Did you notice anything else about
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  him? Lucy straightened in her chair and showed the childish desire to come out
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  with brilliant information which would gain her father's approval. He had white hands,
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  hands all white. How about you? Ready? I didn't look at them
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  much, but I think they were white, answered the boy. And what
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  did little Martha notice, cried the tender parent. Did she see the big
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  bad man? Martha, age four, replied solemnly. His hair was all
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  yet and his hand was white, all white. That's the man I saw
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  up the road, said Jones to Freddy. Yes, sir, it seems
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  like it must have been him, said the boy, his brain now completely
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  muddled again, Jones allowed the subject of his wife's murder to lapse. The
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  children did not know that it was a murder. Of course, adults were
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  always performing in a way to make children's head swim. For instance, what
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  could be more incomprehensible than that a man with two horses dragging a queer thing
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  should walk all day, making the grass turn down and the earth turn up?
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  And why did they cut the long grass and put it in a barn?
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  And what was a cow for? Did the water and the well like
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  to be there? All these actions and things were grand because they were a
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  sociated with a high estate of grown up people. But they were deeply mysterious.
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  If, then, a man with red hair, big white teeth,
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  and white hands should hit their mother on the nape of the neck with an
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  axe, it was merely a phenomenon of grown up life. Little Henry the
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  baby, when he had a wont howled and pounded the table with his spoon.
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  That was all of life to him. He was not concerned with the
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  fact that his mother had been murdered. One day, Jones said to his
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  children, suddenly, look here, I wonder if you could have made a
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  mistake. Are you absolutely sure that the man you saw had red hair,
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  big white teeth, and white hands. The children were indignant with their father.
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  Why, of course, Pa, we ain't made no mistake. We
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  saw him as plain as day. Later, young Freddie's mind began to work
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  like ketchup. His nights were haunted with terrible memories of the man with the
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  red hair, big white teeth, and white hands, and the prolonged absence
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  of his mother made him wonder and wonder. Presently, he gratuitously developed the
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  theory that his mother was dead. He knew about death. He had once
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  seen a dead dog, also dead chickens, rabbits, and mice. Once
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  he asked his father, pa is ma ever coming back? Jones said,
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  well, no, I don't think she is. This answer confirmed the boy
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  in his theory. He knew that dead people did not come back. The
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  attitude of Jones towards this descriptive legend of the man with the axe was very
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  peculiar. He came to be in opposition to it. He protested against the
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  convictions of the children but he could not move them. It was the one
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  thing in their lives of which they were stonily and absolutely positive. Now that
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  really ends the story, but I will continue for your amusement. The jury
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  hung Jones as high as they could, and they were quite right, because
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  Jones confessed before he died. Freddie is now a highly respected driver of a
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  grocery wagon in Ogdensburg. When I was up there a good many years afterwards,
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  people told me that whenever he spoke of the tragedy at all, he
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  was certain to denounce the alleged confession as a lie. He considered his father
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  a victim to the stupidity of juries, and some day he hopes to meet
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  the man with the red hair, big white teeth, and white hands,
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  whose image still remains so distinct in his memory that he could pick him out
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  in a crowd of ten thousand. End of section eight An illusion in Red
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  and White. End of the Monster and other stories by Stephen Crane