The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder

in the air and tie them together at the same time. There were my legs pointing to the ceiling and me lying on my shoulderblades, floundering around like a crayfish. When he got my feet tied he flipped me over and tied my hands behind me. We were all yelling and Captain Mayhew was yelling the loudest: ‘Shoot Ashley! Shoot Ashley!’ But how would we know which was Ashley, tell me that? And then they gagged up our mouths and dragged us along the aisle and laid us out like sacks of potatoes. Believe me, they weren’t from around Coaltown. They were from Chicago or New York. They’d done it before. They’d practiced it. You could tell that. I’ll never forget it. The blinds were down, but there was a faint light coming from somewhere and they was hopping over the backs of them seats like monkeys.”
    The mystery of the performance baffled the finest intelligences—from Colonel Stotz in Springfield, the newspapermen from the cities, the Sheriff playing cards with his deputies, the ladies sewing garments for the heathen in Africa, the nightly circle of great thinkers in the Illinois Tavern’s saloon, down to the loungers chewing their tobacco in Mr. Kinch’s livery stable and blacksmith shop. Not the least amazed by it was Beata Ashley.
    There was much thereafter to stimulate the most sluggish imagination. How does an escaped convict, with four thousand dollars on his shaven head, find his way out of the country? How would such a man send messages and finally money to his penniless wife and children when every message sent to the house was intercepted by the police and every visitor closely questioned? What was he thinking? What was she thinking? What was Eustacia Lansing thinking? Questions of money played a large part in the citizens’ speculations. Everyone knew how small Ashley’s salary was. They had known his butcher’s bills for years. The banker’s wife had confided to her best friends the meager amount of his savings. The prudent and self-righteous were in ecstasy: John Ashley, for seventeen years, had been breaking one of the most implacable laws of civilization. He had saved no money. The trial had been unduly prolonged. Soon after it began Ashley courteously dismissed his lawyer and threw himself upon the defense provided by the court. The town had seen a “second-hand man” arrive from Summerville. His van had carted away furniture, crockery, window curtains and linen, the grandfather’s clock from the hall, the square piano that had accompanied so many Virginia reels—even Roger’s banjo. They were still eating at “The Elms”; they had their henhouse, their cow, and their garden, but there were no butcher’s bills. On the last night before Ashley was put on the train for Joliet he sent his son his gold watch—the family’s last convertible asset.
    During the trial and the weeks following Ashley’s disappearance the town watched “The Elms” with covert but breathless interest. There were few callers: Dr. Gillies; Miss Thoms, who was now temporarily carrying the whole administration on her shoulders; Miss Doubkov (Olga Sergeievna), the dressmaker; some representatives of Colonel Stotz’s office who arrived from time to time to torment Mrs. Ashley. Dr. Benson, the family’s minister, did not call. He had visited the prisoner in jail, but Ashley had not shown a penitent spirit. Dr. Benson was relieved of all obligation to call again. A group of ladies from the church, after long consultation and with no encouragement from their pastor, set out to call on their friend Mrs. Ashley. They lost heart, however, twenty yards from the house. She had sewn with them in the Missionary Society; she had decorated the church with them at Easter and Christmas; she had invited their children to croquet and supper at “The Elms.” But over all these years she had not addressed one of them by her Christian name. She