was.

The Senator from Johnson shuddered: they had taken from a living
creature the things of life, and all because in the crucial hour there
had been no one to say a staying word. Man had cheated him of the
things that were man's, and then shut him away from the world that
was God's. They had made for him a life barren of compensations.

There swept over the Senator a great feeling of self-pity. As
representative of Johnson County, it was he who must deny this boy
the whole great world without, the people who wanted to help him,
and what the Senator from Maxwell called "his chance." If Johnson
County carried the day, there would be something unpleasant for him
to consider all the remainder of his life. As he grew to be an older
man he would think of it more and more--what the boy would have done
for himself in the world if the Senator from Johnson had not been
more logical and more powerful than the Senator from Maxwell.

Senator Dorman was nearing the end of his argument. "In spite of the
undying prejudice of the people of Johnson County," he was saying,
"I can stand before you today and say that after an unsparing
investigation of this case I do not believe I am asking you to do
anything in violation of justice when I beg of you to give this boy
his chance."

It was going to a vote at once, and the Senator from Johnson County
looked out at the budding things and wondered whether the boy down
at the penitentiary knew the Senate was considering his case that
afternoon. It was without vanity he wondered whether what he had
been trained to think of as an all-wise providence would not have