An Eye for an Eye by Clarence Darrow — Read

"That whiskey makes me feel better. I've been takin' a good deal tonight and I s'pose I'll take more in the mornin'. That's one reason why I'm drinkin' so much now. First I thought I wouldn't take any tomorrow-or-I guess it's today, ain't it? It don't seem possible; but I s'pose it is. I thought I'd show the newspapers and people that's been tellin' what a coward I was to kill a woman! but now I think I'll take all I possibly can. I guess that's the best way. It don't make no difference-if I take it they'll say I'm a coward and if I don't, it's only bravado. Most people takes so much that they almost have to be carried up, and they don't hardly know. I guess that's the best way. Some people take somethin' to have a tooth pulled, and I don't see why they shouldn't for a thing like this. Mebbe the whiskey makes me talk more'n I meant to, and tell you a lot of things that hain't nothin' to do with the case, but it's pretty hard for me to tell what has and what hain't.

"After I got her laid out and the floor cleaned, I set down a minute to think what I'd do next. First I thought I'd go in and get the kid and take him away, and leave her there, and I guess now that would have been the best way, and they wouldn't found it out so quick. But then I thought the people next door, or the postman, or milkman, or somebody, would come along in the mornin' and find her there, and I couldn't get far with the kid. Besides I only had about ten dollars and I knew that wouldn't last long. Then I thought I'd just go out and jump onto one of the freight trains they was makin' up in the yards, and leave her and the kid both; then I couldn't bear to think of him wakin' up and comin' out into the settin' room and findin' her there. He wouldn't know what it meant and would be scart to death and ‘twouldn't be right. Then so long as I couldn't do either one, I had to get her out, but I didn't know how to do it, and what was I goin' to do with her when I got her out.