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diff --git a/30567-h/30567-h.htm b/30567-h/30567-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1b9ab0 --- /dev/null +++ b/30567-h/30567-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11260 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> +<head> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bondboy, by George W. (George Washington) Ogden</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[*/ +body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + +p {margin-top: 0.1em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.1em;} +div.text { } +div.text p { margin-top: 1ex; text-indent: 0; } +div.text p + p { margin-top: 0; text-indent: 1em; } +div.bquote { font-size:0.9em; margin: 5px 5%; } +div.text div.bquote p { text-indent:0em; margin-bottom:3px; } +p.center {text-align: center;} +p.caption {font-size:smaller;} +p.tp {font-size:1em; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:center;} +div.header {} +h1,h2,h3 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal;} +h1 {font-size:1.6em;} +h1.pg {text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size: 190%;} +h2 {font-size:1.4em;} +h3 {font-size:1.4em;} +h3.pg {text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size: 110%;} +a {text-decoration: none;} +div.figcenter p {text-align: center;} +div.figcenter {text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +span.h2fs {font-size:smaller;} + +table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} +td.c1 {text-align: right; padding-right:10px; vertical-align: top} +td.c2 {text-align: left; padding-right:40px; vertical-align: top} +td.c3 {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + +hr.pb {border: none; page-break-after: always; margin-top: 4em;} +.pagenum {display: none;} +.pncolor {color: inherit;} +#img000 { width:482px } + +@media screen { +#img000 { width:22em; } +hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;} +.pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; text-indent: 0; + position: absolute; right: 2%; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; + background-color: inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} +.pncolor {color: silver;} +} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} +/*]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Bondboy, by George W. (George Washington) +Ogden</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Bondboy</p> +<p>Author: George W. (George Washington) Ogden</p> +<p>Release Date: November 30, 2009 [eBook #30567]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BONDBOY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE BONDBOY</h1> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<p class='tp' style=''> +</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''><i>By G. W. Ogden</i> +</p> + +<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; height: 1px; width: 5em; text-align: center; margin: 10px auto;' /> + +<p class='tp' style=''>Trail’s End</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>Claim Number One</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>The Land of Last Chance</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>The Rustler of Wind River</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>The Duke of Chimney Butte</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>The Flockmaster of Poison Creek</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''> +</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<div style='text-align:center;'><img alt='book cover' id="img000" src='images/illus-cvr.jpg' /> +</div> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<p class='tp' style=''> +</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>Copyright</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>A. C. McClurg & Co.</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>1922</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>Published October, 1922</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>Copyrighted in Great Britain</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''>Printed in the United States of America</p> + +<p class='tp' style=''> +</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<table summary='TOC'> +<tr> +<td colspan='3' style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em;'>CONTENTS</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>I.</td> +<td class='c2'>Delivered Into Bondage</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_1'>1</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>II.</td> +<td class='c2'>A Dry-Salt Man</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_2'>21</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>III.</td> +<td class='c2'>The Spark in the Clod</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_3'>47</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>IV.</td> +<td class='c2'>A Stranger at the Gate</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_4'>66</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>V.</td> +<td class='c2'>The Secret of the Clover</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_5'>84</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>VI.</td> +<td class='c2'>Blood</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_6'>99</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>VII.</td> +<td class='c2'>Deliverance</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_7'>114</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>VIII.</td> +<td class='c2'>Will He Tell?</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_8'>126</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>IX.</td> +<td class='c2'>The Sealed Envelope</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_9'>152</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>X.</td> +<td class='c2'>Let Him Hang</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_10'>166</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XI.</td> +<td class='c2'>Peter’s Son</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_11'>171</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XII.</td> +<td class='c2'>The Sunbeam on the Wall</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_12'>188</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XIII.</td> +<td class='c2'>Until the Day Break</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_13'>210</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XIV.</td> +<td class='c2'>Deserted</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_14'>228</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XV.</td> +<td class='c2'>The State vs. Newbolt</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_15'>241</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XVI.</td> +<td class='c2'>“She Cometh Not” He Said</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_16'>249</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XVII.</td> +<td class='c2'>The Blow of a Friend</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_17'>259</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XVIII.</td> +<td class='c2'>A Name and a Message</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_18'>276</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XIX.</td> +<td class='c2'>The Shadow of a Dream</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_19'>304</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XX.</td> +<td class='c2'>“The Penalty Is Death!”</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_20'>311</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XXI.</td> +<td class='c2'>Ollie Speaks</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_21'>325</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XXII.</td> +<td class='c2'>A Summons of the Night</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_22'>341</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='c1'>XXIII.</td> +<td class='c2'>Lest I Forget</td> +<td class='c3'><a href='#link_23'>359</a> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<p class='tp' style='font-size:2.0em;'><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1'></a>1</span>The Bondboy</p> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_1'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER I<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>DELIVERED INTO BONDAGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Sarah Newbolt enjoyed in her saturnine, brooding way the warmth of April sunshine and the stirring greenery of +awakening life now beginning to soften the brown austerity of the dead winter earth. Beside her kitchen wall the pink +cones of rhubarb were showing, and the fat buds of the lilacs, which clustered coppicelike in her dooryard, were ready +to unlock and flare forth leaves. On the porch with its southern exposure she sat in her low, splint-bottomed rocker, +leaning forward, her elbows on her knees.</p> + +<p>The sun tickled her shoulders through her linsey dress, and pictured her, grotesquely foreshortened, upon the +nail-drawn, warped, and beaten floor. Her hands, nursing her cheeks, chin pivoted in their palms, were large and +toil-distorted, great-jointed like a man’s, and all the feminine softness with which nature had endowed her +seemed to have been overcome by the masculine cast of frame and face which the hardships of her life had developed.</p> + +<p>She did not seem, crouched there like an old cat warming herself in the first keen fires of spring, conscious of +anything about her; of the low house, with its battered eaves, the sprawling rail-fence in front of it, out of which +the gate was gone, like a tooth; of the wild bramble of roses, or the generations of honeysuckle which had grown, layer +upon <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2'></a>2</span> layer–the under stratum all dead and +brown–over the decaying arbor which led up to the cracked front door. She did not seem conscious that time and +poverty had wasted the beauties of that place; that shingles were gone from the outreaching eaves, torn away by March +winds; that stones had fallen from the chimney, squatting broad-shouldered at the weathered gable; that panes were +missing from the windows, their places supplied by boards and tacked-on cloth, or that pillows crowded into them, +making it seem a house that stopped its ears against the unfriendly things which passengers upon the highway might +speak of it.</p> + +<p>Time and poverty were pressing upon Sarah Newbolt also, relaxing there that bright hour in the sun, straying away +from her troubles and her vexations like an autumn butterfly among the golden leaves, unmindful of the frost which soon +must cut short its day. For, poor as she was in all that governments put imposts upon, and men list in tax returns and +carry to steel vaults to hoard away, Sarah Newbolt had her dreams. She had no golden past; there was no golden future +ready before her feet. There was no review for her in those visions of happy days and tender memories, over which a +woman half closes her eyes and smiles, or over the incense of which a man’s heart softens. Behind her stretched a +wake of turbulence and strife; ahead of her lay the banked clouds of an unsettled and insecure future.</p> + +<p>But she had her dreams, in which even the poorest of us may indulge when our taskmaster in the great brickworks of +this hot and heavy world is not hard by and pressing us forward with his lash. She had her dreams of what never was and +never could be; of old longings, old heart-hungers, old hopes, and loves which never had come near for one +moment’s caress of her toil-hardened hand. Dreams which roved the world and soothed the ache in her heart by +their very extravagance, which even her frugal conscience <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3'></a>3</span> +could not chide; dreams which drew hot tears upon her cheeks, to trickle down among her knotted fingers and tincture +the bitterness of things unrealized.</p> + +<p>The crunch of wheels in the road now startled her from her profitless excursions among the mist of visions and +dreams. She lifted her head like a cow startled from her peaceful grazing, for the vehicle had stopped at the gap in +the fence where the gate should have stood warder between its leaning posts.</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s come,” said she with the resignation of one who finds the long expected and dreaded at +hand.</p> + +<p>A man got out of the buggy and hitched his horse to one of the old gate-posts, first trying it to satisfy himself +that it was trustworthy, for stability in even a post on those premises, where everything was going to decay, seemed +unreasonable to expect. He turned up the path, bordered by blue flags, thrusting their swordpoints through the ground, +and strode toward the house, with that uncouth giving at the knees which marks a man who long has followed the plow +across furrowed fields.</p> + +<p>The visitor was tall and bony, brown, dry-faced, and frowning of aspect. There was severity in every line of his +long, loose body; in the hard wrinkles of his forehead, in his ill-nurtured gray beard, which was so harsh that it +rasped like wire upon his coat as he turned his head in quick appraisement of his surroundings. His feet were +bunion-distorted and lumpy in his great coarse shoes; coarse black hair grew down upon his broad, thick-jointed hands; +a thicket of eyebrows presented, like a <i>chevaux-de-frise</i>, bristling when he drew them down in his peering +squint.</p> + +<p>Sarah Newbolt rose to meet him, tall in the vigor of her pioneer stock. In her face there was a malarial smokiness +of color, although it still held a trace of a past brightness, and her meagerness of feature gave her mouth a set of +determination <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4'></a>4</span> which stood like a false index at the beginning +of a book or a misleading sign upon a door. Her eyes were black, her brows small and delicate. Back from her narrow +forehead she had drawn her plentiful dark hair in rigid unloveliness; over it she wore a knitted shawl.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Chase, you’ve come to put us out, I reckon?” said she, a little tremor in her chin, +although her voice was steady and her eyes met his with an appeal which lay too near the soul for words.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase drew up to the steps and placed one knotted foot upon them, standing thus in silence a little while, as +if thinking it over. The dust of the highroad was on his broad black hat, and gray upon his grizzly beard. In the +attitude of his lean frame, in the posture of his foot upon the step, he seemed to be asserting a mastery over the +place which he had invaded to the sad dispersion of Sarah Newbolt’s dreams.</p> + +<p>“I hate to do it,” he declared, speaking hurriedly, as if he held words but frail vehicles in a world +where deeds counted with so much greater weight, “but I’ve been easy on you, ma’am; no man can say +that I haven’t been easy.”</p> + +<p>“I know your money’s long past due,” she sighed, “but if you was to give Joe another chance, +Mr. Chase, we could pay you off in time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, another chance, another chance!” said he impatiently. “What could you do with all the chances +in the world, you and him–what did your husband ever do with his chances? He had as many of ’em as I ever +did, and what did he ever do but scheme away his time on fool things that didn’t pan out when he ought +’a’ been in the field! No, you and Joe couldn’t pay back that loan, ma’am, not if I was to give +you forty years to do it in.”</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe not,” said she, drawing a sigh from the well of her sad old heart. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5'></a>5</span></p> + +<p>“The interest ain’t been paid since Peter died, and that’s more than two years now,” said +Chase. “I can’t sleep on my rights that way, ma’am; I’ve got to foreclose to save +myself.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you’ve been easy, even if we did give you up our last cow on that there inter-est,” she +allowed. “You’ve been as kind and easy over it, I reckon, Mr. Chase, as a body could be. Well, I reckon me +and Joe we’ll have to leave the old place now.”</p> + +<p>“Lord knows, I don’t see what there is to stay for!” said Chase feelingly, sweeping his eyes +around the wired-up, gone-to-the-devil-looking place.</p> + +<p>“When a body’s bore children in a place,” she said earnestly, “and nussed ’em, and +seen ’em fade away and die; and when a body’s lived in a house for upward of forty years, and thought +things in it, and everything––”</p> + +<p>“Bosh!” said Isom Chase, kicking the rotting step.</p> + +<p>“I know it’s all shacklety now,” said she apologetically, “but it’s home to me and +Joe!”</p> + +<p>Her voice trembled over the words, and she wiped her eyes with the corner of her head-shawl; but her face remained +as immobile as features cast in metal. When one has wept out of the heart for years, as Sarah Newbolt had wept, the +face is no longer a barometer over the tempests of the soul.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase was silent. He stood as if reflecting his coming words, trying the loose boards of the siding with his +blunt thumb.</p> + +<p>“Peter and I, we came here from Kentucky,” said she, looking at him with a sidelong appeal, as if for +permission to speak the profitless sentiments of her heart, “and people was scarce in this part of Missouri then. +I rode all the way a-horseback, and I came here, to this very house, a bride.” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6'></a>6</span></p> + +<p>“I didn’t take a mortgage on sentiment–I took it on the land,” said Chase, out of humor with +this reminiscent history.</p> + +<p>“You can’t understand how I feel, Mr. Chase,” said she, dropping her arms at her sides hopelessly. +“Peter–he planted them laylocks and them roses.”</p> + +<p>“Better ’a’ planted corn–and tended to it!” grunted Chase. “Well, you can grub +’em all up and take ’em away with you, if you want ’em. They don’t pay interest–I suppose +you’ve found that out.”</p> + +<p>“Not on money,” said she, reaching out her hand toward a giant lilac with a caressing, tender air.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” said he in voice of command, planting himself upon the porch, his back against a post, +“and let’s you and I have a little talk. Where do you expect to go when you leave here; what plans have you +got for the future?”</p> + +<p>“Lord, there’s not a clap-board in this world that I can poke my head under and lay claim to its +shelter!” said she, sitting again in her low rocker, shaking her head sadly.</p> + +<p>“Your boy Joe, he’ll not be able to command man’s wages for three or four years yet,” said +Chase, studying her averted face as if to take possession of even her thoughts. “He’ll not be able to do +much toward supportin’ you, even if he could light on to a steady, all-the-year job, which he can’t, the +way times is.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t reckon he could,” said she.</p> + +<p>“And if I was to let you two stay on here I wouldn’t be any nearer bein’ paid back that four +hundred dollar loan in two or three years than I am now. It’s nearly five hundred now, with the interest +pilin’ up, and it’ll be a thousand before you know it. It’d take that boy a lifetime to pay it +off.”</p> + +<p>“Peter failed,” she nodded; “it was a burden on him that <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_7'></a>7</span> hackled him to the grave. Yes, I reckon you’re right. But there’s no tellin’ +how Joe he’ll turn out, Mr. Chase. He may turn out to be a better manager than his pap was.”</p> + +<p>“How old is he?” asked Chase.</p> + +<p>“Most nineteen,” said she, some kind of a faraway hope, indefinable and hazy, lifting the cloud of +depression which had fallen over her, “and he’s uncommon big and stout for his age. Maybe if you’d +give Joe work he could pay it off, interest and all, by the time he’s twenty-one.”</p> + +<p>“Not much need for him,” said Chase, shaking his head, “but I might–well, I might figure +around so I could take him over, on certain conditions, you understand? It all depends on your plans. If you +haven’t anywhere to go when you leave this house, you’re bound to land on the county.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell me that, Mr. Chase–don’t tell me that!” she begged, pressing her battered +hands to her eyes, rocking and moaning in her chair.</p> + +<p>“What’s the use of puttin’ the truth back of you when you’re bound to come face up to it in +the end?” he asked. “I was talkin’ to Judge Little, of the county court, about you this morning. I +told him I’d have to foreclose and take possession of this forty to save myself.</p> + +<p>“‘It’ll throw her and that boy on the county,’ he says. ‘Yes, I reckon it will,’ +I told him, ‘but no man can say I’ve been hard on ’em.’”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you wouldn’t throw me on the county at the end of my days, Mr. Chase!” she appealed. +“Joe he’ll take care of me, if you’ll only give him a chance–if you’ll only give him a +chance, Mr. Chase!”</p> + +<p>“I meant to take that up with you,” said he, “on the conditions I spoke of a minute +ago.”</p> + +<p>He turned to her, as if for her consent to give expression to his mysterious terms. She nodded, and he went on:</p> + +<p>“In the winter time, ma’am, to tell you the plain truth, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_8'></a>8</span> Joe wouldn’t be worth wages to me, and in the summer not very much. A boy that size and age +eats his head off, you might say.</p> + +<p>“But I’ll make you this offer, out of consideration of my friendship for Peter, and your attachment for +the old place, and all of that stuff: I’ll take Joe over, under writing, till he’s twenty-one, at ten +dollars a month and all found, winter and summer through, and allow you to stay right on here in the house, with a +couple of acres for your chickens and garden patch and your posies and all the things you set store on and prize. +I’ll do this for you, Missis Newbolt, but I wouldn’t do it for any other human being alive.”</p> + +<p>She turned slowly to him, an expression of mingled amazement and fear on her face.</p> + +<p>“You mean that you want me to bind Joe out to you till he’s his own man?” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, some call it by that name,” nodded Chase, “but it’s nothing more than any +apprenticeship to any trade, except–oh, well, there ain’t no difference, except that there’s few +trades that equal the one the boy’ll learn under me, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>“You’re askin’ me to bind my little son–my only child left to me of all that I +bore–you want me to bind him out to you like a nigger slave!”</p> + +<p>Her voice fell away to a whisper, unable to bear the horror that grew into her words.</p> + +<p>“Better boys than him have been bound out in this neighborhood!” said Chase sharply. “If you +don’t want to do it, <i>don’t</i> do it. That’s all I’ve got to say. If you’d rather go +to the poorhouse than see your son in steady and honorable employment, in a good home, and learning a business under a +man that’s made some success of it, that’s your lookout, not mine. But that’s where you’ll land +the minute you set your foot out in that road. Then the county court’ll take your boy and bind him out to +somebody, and you’ll have no <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9'></a>9</span> word to say in the matter, +at all. But you can suit yourself.”</p> + +<p>“It–kind of–shook me,” she muttered, the mother-love, the honor and justice in her quailing +heart shrinking back before the threat of that terrible disgrace–the poorhouse.</p> + +<p>The shadow of the poorhouse had stood in her way for years. It had been the fear of Peter when he was there, and his +last word was one of thankfulness to the Almighty that he had been permitted to die in a freeman’s bed, under his +own humble roof. That consolation was to be denied her; the shadow of the poorhouse had advanced until it stood now at +her door. One step and it would envelop her; the taint of its blight would wither her heart.</p> + +<p>Sarah Newbolt had inherited that dread of publicly confessed poverty and dependence. It had come down to her through +a long line of pioneer forebears who feared neither hardship, strife nor death, so that it might come to them without a +master and under the free sky. Only the disgraced, the disowned, the failures, and the broken-minded made an end in the +poorhouse in those vigorous days. It was a disgrace from which a family never could hope to rise again. There, on the +old farm with Peter she had been poor, as poor as the poorest, but they had been free to come and go.</p> + +<p>“I know I’ve got the name of being a hard man and a money-grabber and a driver,” said Chase with +crabbed bitterness, “but who is it that gives that reputation to me? People that can’t beat me and take +advantage of me and work money out of me by their rascally schemes! I’m not a hard man by nature–my actions +with you prove that, don’t they?”</p> + +<p>“You’ve been as kind as a body could expect,” she answered. “It’s only right that you +should have your money back, and it ain’t been your fault that we couldn’t raise it. But we’ve done +the best we could.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span></p> + +<p>“And that best only led you up to the poorhouse door,” said he. “I’m offering you a way to +escape it, and spend the rest of your days in the place you’re attached to, but I don’t seem to get any +thanks for it.”</p> + +<p>“I am thankful to you for your offer–from the bottom of my heart I’m thankful, Mr. Chase,” +she hastened to declare.</p> + +<p>“Well, neither of us knows how Joe’s going to turn out,” said he. “Under my training he +might develop into a good, sober farmer, one that knows his business and can make it pay. If he does, I promise you +I’ll give him a chance on this place to redeem it. I’ll put him on it to farm on shares when he fills out +his time under me, my share of the crops to apply to the debt. Would that be fair?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody in this world couldn’t say it wasn’t generous and fair of you, and noble and kind, Mr. +Chase,” she declared, her face showing a little color, the courage coming back into her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Then you’d better take up my offer without any more foolishness,” he advised.</p> + +<p>“I’ll have to talk it over with Joe,” said she.</p> + +<p>“He’s got nothing to do with it, I tell you,” protested Chase, brushing that phase of it aside +with a sweep of his hairy hand. “You, and you alone, are responsible for him till he’s twenty-one, and +it’s your duty to keep him off the county and away from the disgrace of pauperism, and yourself as +well.”</p> + +<p>“I ought to see Joe about it first, Mr. Chase, I ought to talk it over with him. Let me think a +minute.”</p> + +<p>She settled down to her pensive attitude, elbows on knees, chin in hands, and looked over the homely scene of +riotous shrubbery, racked buildings, leaning well-curb, rotting fences. In one swift, painful moment she pictured what +that spot would be after Isom Chase had taken possession. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_11'></a>11</span></p> + +<p>He would uproot the lilacs; he would level the house and the chimney, stone by stone; he would fill up the well and +pull down the old barn that Peter built, and drive his plow over the hearthstone where she had suckled her babies in +the years of her youth and hope. He would obliterate the landmarks of her bridal days, and sow his grain in the spot +where Peter, fresh in the strong heat of youth, had anchored their ambitions.</p> + +<p>It was not so much for what it had been that her heart was tender to it, for the years had been heavy there and +toilsome, disappointing and full of pain; not so much for what it had been, indeed, as what she and young Peter, with +the thick black hair upon his brow, had planned to make it. It was for the romance unlived, the hope unrealized, that +it was dear. And then again it was poor and pitiful, wind-shaken and old, but it was home. The thought of the +desolation that waited it in the dread future struck her breast like the pangs of bereavement. Tears coursed down her +face; sobs rose in her aching throat.</p> + +<p>Joe, she thought, would do that much for her and the old home place; it would be but a little more than two years of +sacrifice for him, at the most, with the bright hope of independence and redemption at the end. Being bound out would +not be so disgraceful as going to the poorhouse. Joe would do it for her, she was sure of that. But it would be better +to wait until evening and ask him.</p> + +<p>“Joe, he’ll be along home from his work about dusk,” said she, “and we could let you know +tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>“Tomorrow,” said Isom Chase, rising stiffly, “I’ll have to send the sheriff here with the +papers. Tomorrow, ma’am, will be too late.”</p> + +<p>That dreadful picture swept across her inner vision once more–the chimney down, the house gone. She saw corn +growing over the spot where she sat that moment; she remembered <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_12'></a>12</span> that Isom Chase had plowed up a burying-ground once and seeded it to timothy.</p> + +<p>“What will I have to do to bind Joe over to you?” she asked, facing him in sudden resolution.</p> + +<p>“We’ll git in the buggy,” said he, with new friendliness, seeing that he had won, “and drive +over to Judge Little’s. He can make out the papers in a few minutes, and I’ll pay you a month’s wages +in advance. That will fix you up for groceries and garden seeds and everything, and you’ll be as snug and happy +as any woman in the county.”</p> + +<p>In less than two hours the transaction was completed, and Sarah Newbolt was back again in the home upon which she +had secured her slipping tenure at the sacrifice of her son’s liberty. As she began “stirring the pots for +supper,” as she called it, she also had time to stir the deep waters of reflection.</p> + +<p>She had secured herself from the threat of the county farm, and Joe had been the price; Joe, her last-born, the sole +remaining one of the six who had come to her and gone on again into the mists.</p> + +<p>She began to fear in her heart when she stood off and viewed the result of her desperate panic, the pangs of which +Isom Chase had adroitly magnified. If Joe could work for Isom Chase and thus keep her from the poorhouse, could he not +have worked for another, free to come and go as he liked, and with the same security for her?</p> + +<p>Chase said that he had not taken a mortgage on sentiment, but he had made capital out of it in the end, trading upon +her affection for the old home and its years-long associations. As the gloomy evening deepened and she stood in the +door watching for her son’s return, she saw through the scheme of Isom Chase. She never would have been thrown on +the county with Joe to depend on; the question of his ability to support both of them admitted of no debate. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span></p> + +<p>Joe’s industry spoke for that, and that was Isom Chase’s reason for wanting him. Isom wanted him because +he was strong and trustworthy, honest and faithful. And she had bargained him in selfishness and sold him in cowardice, +without a word from him, as she might have sold a cow to pay a pressing debt.</p> + +<p>The bargain was binding. Judge Little had pressed that understanding of it upon her. It was as irrevocable as a deed +signed and sealed. Joe could not break it; she could not set it aside. Isom Chase was empowered with all the authority +of absolute master.</p> + +<p>“If he does anything that deserves thrashing for, I’ve got a right to thrash him, do you understand +that?” Isom had said as he stood there in the presence of Judge Little, buttoning his coat over the document +which transferred Joe’s services to him.</p> + +<p>Her heart had contracted at the words, for the cruelty of Isom Chase was notorious. A bound boy had died in his +service not many years before, kicked by a mule, it was said. There had been mutterings at that time, and talk of an +investigation, which never came to a head because the bound lad was nobody, taken out of the county home. But the fear +in the widow’s heart that moment was not for her son; it was for Isom Chase.</p> + +<p>“Lord ’a’ mercy, Mr. Chase, you mustn’t never strike Joe!” she warned. “You +don’t know what kind of a boy he is, Mr. Chase. I’m afraid he might up and hurt you maybe, if you ever done +that.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll handle him in my own way,” with portentous significance; “but I want you to understand +my rights fully at the start.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” she answered meekly.</p> + +<p>Joe was coming now, pitchfork over his shoulder, from the field where he had been burning corn-stalks, making ready +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14'></a>14</span> for the plow. She hastened to set out a basin of water on +the bench beside the kitchen door, and turned then into the room to light the lamp and place it on the waiting +table.</p> + +<p>Joe appeared at the door, drying his hands on the dangling towel. He was a tall, gaunt-faced boy, big-boned, +raw-jointed, the framework for prodigious strength. His shoulders all but filled the narrow doorway, his crown came +within an inch of its lintel. His face was glowing from the scrubbing which he had given it with home-made lye soap, +his drenched hair fell in heavy locks down his deep forehead.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, what’s happened?” he asked, noting her uneasiness as she sat waiting him at the +table, the steaming coffee-pot at her hand.</p> + +<p>“Sit down and start your supper, son, and we’ll talk as we go along,” said she.</p> + +<p>Joe gave his hair a “lick and a promise” with the comb, and took his place at the table. Mrs. Newbolt +bent her head and pronounced the thanksgiving which that humble board never lacked, and she drew it out to an amazing +and uncomfortable length that evening, as Joe’s impatient stomach could bear clamorous witness.</p> + +<p>Sarah Newbolt had a wide fame as a religious woman, and a woman who could get more hell-fire into her belief and +more melancholy pleasure out of it than any hard-shell preacher in the land. It was a doleful religion, with little +promise or hope in it, and a great deal of blood and suffering between the world and its doubtful reward; but Sarah +Newbolt lived according to its stern inflexibility, and sang its sorrowful hymns by day, as she moved about the house, +in a voice that carried a mile. But for all the grimness in her creed, there was not a being alive with a softer heart. +She would have divided her last square of corn-bread with the wayfarer at her door, without question of his worth or +unworthiness, his dissension, or his faith. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span></p> + +<p>“Mr. Chase was here this afternoon, Joe,” said she as the lad began his supper.</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose he’s going to put us out?”</p> + +<p>Joe paused in the mixing of gravy and corn-bread–designed to be conveyed to his mouth on the blade of his +knife–and lifted inquiring eyes to his mother’s troubled face.</p> + +<p>“No, son; we fixed it up,” said she.</p> + +<p>“You fixed it up?” he repeated, his eyes beaming with pleasure. “Is he going to give us another +chance?”</p> + +<p>“You go on and eat your supper, Joe; we’ll talk it over when you’re through. Lands, you must be +tired and hungry after workin’ so hard all afternoon!”</p> + +<p>He was too hungry, perhaps, to be greatly troubled by her air of uneasiness and distraction. He bent over his plate, +not noting that she sipped her coffee with a spoon, touching no food. At last he pushed back with a sigh of repletion, +and smiled across at his mother.</p> + +<p>“So you fixed it up with him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I went into a dishonorable deal with Isom Chase,” said she, “and I don’t know what +you’ll say when you hear what’s to be told to you, Joe.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by ‘dishonorable deal’?” he asked, his face growing white.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you’ll say, Joe, I don’t know what you’ll say!” moaned she, +shaking her head sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, I can’t make out what you mean,” said he, baffled and mystified by her strange +behavior.</p> + +<p>“Wait–I’ll show you.”</p> + +<p>She rose from the table and reached down a folded paper from among the soda packages and tins on the shelf. Saying +no more, she handed it to him. Joe took it, wonder in his face, spread his elbows, and unfolded the document with its +notarial seal.</p> + +<p>Joe was ready at printed matter. He read fast and understandingly, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_16'></a>16</span> and his face grew paler as his eyes ran on from line to line. When he came to the end, where +his mother’s wavering signature stood above that of Isom Chase, his head dropped a little lower, his hands lay +listlessly, as if paralyzed, on the paper under his eyes. A sudden dejection seemed to settle over him, blighting his +youth and buoyancy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt was making out to be busy over the stove. She lifted the lid of the kettle, and put it down with a +clatter; she opened the stove and rammed the fire with needless severity with the poker, and it snapped back at her, +shooting sparks against her hand.</p> + +<p>“Mother, you’ve bound me out!” said he, his voice unsteady in its accusing note.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, her hands starting out in a little movement of appeal. He turned from the table and sat very +straight and stern in his chair, his gaunt face hollowed in shadows, his wild hair falling across his brow.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I sold you! I sold you!” she wailed.</p> + +<p>She sat again in her place at the table, spiritless and afraid, her hands limp in her lap.</p> + +<p>“You’ve bound me out!” Joe repeated harshly, his voice rasping in his throat.</p> + +<p>“I never meant to do it, Joe,” she pleaded in weak defense; “but Isom, he said nothing else would +save us from the county farm. I wanted to wait and ask you, Joe, and I told him I wanted to ask you, but he said it +would be too late!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. What else did he say?” asked Joe, his hands clenched, his eyes peering straight ahead at the +wall.</p> + +<p>She related the circumstances of Chase’s visit, his threat of eviction, his declaration that she would become +a county charge the moment that she set foot in the road.</p> + +<p>“The old liar!” said Joe.</p> + +<p>There seemed to be nothing more for her to say. She could make no defense of an act which stood before her in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span> all its ugly selfishness. Joe sat still, staring at the +wall beyond the stove; she crouched forward in her chair, as if to shrink out of his sight.</p> + +<p>Between them the little glass lamp stood, a droning, slow-winged brown beetle blundering against its chimney. +Outside, the distant chant of newly wakened frogs sounded; through the open door the warm air of the April night came +straying, bearing the incense of the fields and woodlands, where fires smoldered like sleepers sending forth their +dreams.</p> + +<p>His silence was to her the heaviest rebuke that he could have administered. Her remorse gathered under it, her +contrition broke its bounds.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I sold you, my own flesh and blood!” she cried, springing to her feet, lifting her long arms above +her head.</p> + +<p>“You knew what he was, Mother; you knew what it meant to be bound out to him for two long years and more. It +wasn’t as if you didn’t know.”</p> + +<p>“I knew, I knew! But I done it, son, I done it! And I done it to save my own mis’able self. I +ain’t got no excuse, Joe, I ain’t got no excuse at all.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, you’ll be safe here, anyhow, and I can stand it,” said Joe, brightening a little, +the tense severity of his face softening. “Never mind; I can stand it, I guess.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll never let you go to him–I didn’t mean to do it–it wasn’t fair the way he +drove me into it!” said she.</p> + +<p>She laid her hand, almost timidly, on her son’s shoulder, and looked into his face. “I know you could +take care of me and keep off of the county, even if Isom did put us out like he said he’d do, but I went and done +it, anyhow. Isom led me into it, Joe; he wasn’t fair.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and you bound me out for about half what I’m worth to any man and could demand for my services +anywhere, Mother,” said Joe, the bitterness which he had fought down but a moment past surging up in him again. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span></p> + +<p>“Lord forgive me!” she supplicated piteously. She turned suddenly to the table and snatched the paper. +“It wasn’t fair–he fooled me into it!” she repeated. “I’ll tear it up, I’ll +burn it, and we’ll leave this place and let him have it, and he can go on and do whatever he wants to with +it–tear it down, burn it, knock it to pieces–for anything I care now!”</p> + +<p>Joe restrained her as she went toward the stove, the document in her hand.</p> + +<p>“Wait, Mother; it’s a bargain. We’re bound in honor to it, we can’t back down +now.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll never let you do it!” she declared, her voice rising beyond her control. “I’ll +walk the roads and beg my bread first! I’ll hoe in the fields, I’ll wash folks’ clothes for ’em +like a nigger slave, I’ll lay down my life, Joe, before I let you go into that murderin’ man’s +hands!”</p> + +<p>He took the paper from her hands gently.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been thinking it over, Mother,” said he, “and it might be worse–it might be a +good deal worse. It gives me steady work, for one thing, and you can save most of my wages, counting on the eggs +you’ll sell, and the few turkeys and things. After a while you can get a cow and make butter, and we’ll be +better off, all around. We couldn’t get out of it, anyway, Mother. He’s paid you money, and you’ve +signed your name to the contract along with Isom. If we were to pull out and leave here, Isom could send the sheriff +after me and bring me back, I guess. Even if he couldn’t do that, he could sue you, Mother, and make no end of +trouble. But we wouldn’t leave if we could. It wouldn’t be quite honorable, or like Newbolts at all, to +break our contract that way.”</p> + +<p>“But he’ll drive you to the grave, Joe!”</p> + +<p>A slow smile spread over his face. “I don’t think Isom would find me a good driving horse,” said +he. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span></p> + +<p>“He said if you done well,” she told him, brightening as she clutched at that small stay of +justification, “he’d let you work this place on shares till you paid off the loan. That was one +reason––”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Joe, a cheerfulness in his voice which his pale cheeks did not sustain, “that +was one thing I had in mind when I spoke. It’ll all come out right. You’ve done the wisest thing there was +to be done, Mother, and I’ll fulfill your agreement to the last day.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a brave boy, Joe; you’re a credit to the memory of your pap,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go over to Isom’s early in the morning,” said Joe, quite sprightly, as if the +arrangement had indeed solved all their troubles. He stretched his arms with a prodigious yawn. “You don’t +need to bother about getting up and fixing breakfast for me, for I’ll get some over there.”</p> + +<p>“I hope he’ll give you enough,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry over me,” he counseled kindly, “for I’ll be all right at +Isom’s. Sunday I’ll come home and see you. Now, you take a good sleep in the morning and don’t +bother.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be up before you leave,” said she, her eyes overflowing with tears. “Do you reckon I +could lie and sleep and slumber when my last and only livin’ one’s goin’ away to become a servant in +the house of bondage? And I sold you to it, Joe, my own flesh and blood!”</p> + +<p>There had been little tenderness between them all their days, for in such lives of striving, poverty too often +starves affection until it quits the board. But there was a certain nobility of loyalty which outlived the narrowness +of their lot, and certain traditions of chivalry in the Newbolt heritage which now guided Joe’s hand to his +mother’s head as she sat weeping and moaning with her arms flung upon the disordered table. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span></p> + +<p>“It’ll be all right, Mother,” he cheered her, “and the time will soon pass away. What are +two years to me? Not much more than a month or two to an old man like Isom. I tell you, this plan’s the finest +thing in the world for you and me, Mother–don’t you grieve over it that way.”</p> + +<p>She was feeling the comfort of his cheerfulness when he left her to go to bed, although she was sore in conscience +and spirit, sore in mind and heart.</p> + +<p>“The Lord never gave any woman a son like him,” said she as the sound of Joe’s steps fell quiet +overhead, “and I’ve sold him into slavery and bondage, just to save my own unworthy, coward’y, +sneakin’ self!”</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_2'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span> +<h2>CHAPTER II<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>A DRY-SALT MAN</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Joe was afoot early. His mother came to the place in the fence where the gate once stood to give him a last word of +comfort, and to bewail again her selfishness in sending him away to serve as bondboy under the hard hand of Isom Chase. +Joe cheered her with hopeful pictures of the future, when the old home should be redeemed and the long-dwelling shadow +of their debt to Isom cleared away and paid. From the rise in the road which gave him the last sight of the house Joe +looked back and saw her with her head bowed to the topmost rail of the fence, a figure of dejection and woe in the +security which she had purchased for herself at such a heavy price.</p> + +<p>Although Joe moved briskly along his way, his feet as light as if they carried him to some destination of certain +felicity, there was a cloud upon his heart. This arrangement which his mother had made in an hour of panic had +disordered his plans and troubled the bright waters of his dreams. Plans and dreams were all his riches. They were the +sole patrimony of value handed down from Peter Newbolt, the Kentucky gentleman, who had married below his state and +carried his young mountain wife away to the Missouri woods to escape the censure of family and criticism of +friends.</p> + +<p>That was the only legacy, indeed, that Joe was conscious of, but everybody else was aware that old Peter had left +him something even more dangerous than dreams. That was nothing less than a bridling, high-minded, hot-blooded +pride–a thing laughable, the neighbors said, in one so bitterly and hopelessly poor. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span></p> + +<p>“The pore folks,” the neighbors called the Newbolts in speaking of them one to another, for in that +community of fairly prosperous people there was none so poor as they. The neighbors had magnified their misfortune into +a reproach, and the “pore folks” was a term in which they found much to compensate their small souls for +the slights which old Peter, in his conscious superiority, unwittingly put upon them.</p> + +<p>To the end of his days Peter never had been wise enough to forget that nature had endowed him, in many ways, above +the level of the world to which Fate had chained his feet, and his neighbors never had been kind enough to forget that +he was poor.</p> + +<p>Even after Peter was dead Joe suffered for the family pride. He was still spoken of, far and near in that community, +as the “pore folks’s boy.” Those who could not rise to his lofty level despised him because he +respected the gerund, and also said <i>were</i> where they said <i>was</i>, and <i>there are</i>, where usage made it +<i>they is</i>. It was old Peter’s big-headedness and pride, they said. What business had the pore folks’s +boy with the speech of a school-teacher or minister in his mouth? His “coming” and his “going,” +indeed! Huh, it made ’em sick.</p> + +<p>Joe had lived a lonely, isolated life on account of the family poverty and pride. He was as sensitive as a poet to +the boorish brutality, and his poor, unlettered, garrulous mother made it worse for him by her boasting of his parts. +She never failed to let it be known that he had read the Bible through, “from back to back,” and the +<i>Cottage Encyclopedia</i>, and the <i>Imitation of Christ</i>, the three books in the Newbolt library.</p> + +<p>People had stood by and watched Peter Newbolt at his schemes and dreams for many a year, and all the time they had +seen him growing poorer and poorer, and marveled that <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span> he +never appeared to realize it himself. Just as a great many men spend their lives following the delusion that they can +paint or write, and waste their energies and resources on that false and destructive idea, Peter had held the dream +that he was singled out to revolutionize industry by his inventions.</p> + +<p>He had invented a self-winding clock which, outside his own shop and in the hands of another, would not wind; a +self-binding reaper that, in his neighbor’s field, would not perform its part; and a lamp that was designed to +manufacture the gas that it burned from the water in its bowl, but which dismally and ignobly failed. He had contrived +and patented a machine for milking cows, which might have done all that was claimed for it if anybody–cows +included–could have been induced to give it a trial, and he had fiddled around with perpetual motion until the +place was a litter of broken springs and rusty wheels.</p> + +<p>Nothing had come of all this pother but rustic entertainment, although he demonstrated the truth of his calculations +by geometry, and applied Greek names to the things which he had done and hoped to do. All this had eaten up his +energies, and his fields had gone but half tilled. Perhaps back of all Peter’s futile strivings there had lain +the germ of some useful thing which, if properly directed, might have grown into the fortune of his dreams. But he had +plodded in small ways, and had died at last, in debt and hopeless, leaving nothing but a name of reproach which lived +after him, and even hung upon his son that cool April morning as he went forward to assume the penance that his +mother’s act had set for him to bear.</p> + +<p>And the future was clouded to Joe Newbolt now, like a window-pane with frost upon it, where all had been so clear in +his calculations but a day before. In his heart he feared the ordeal for Isom Chase was a man of evil repute. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span></p> + +<p>Long ago Chase’s first wife had died, without issue, cursed to her grave because she had borne him no sons to +labor in his fields. Lately he had married another, a woman of twenty, although he was well along the road to +sixty-five himself. His second wife was a stranger in that community, the daughter of a farmer named Harrison, who +dwelt beyond the county-seat.</p> + +<p>Chase’s homestead was a place pleasant enough for the abode of happiness, in spite of its grim history and +sordid reputation. The mark of thrift was about it, orchards bloomed upon its fair slopes, its hedges graced the +highways like cool, green walls, not a leaf in excess upon them, not a protruding bramble. How Isom Chase got all the +work done was a matter of unceasing wonder, for nothing tumbled to ruin there, nothing went to waste. The secret of it +was, perhaps, that when Chase <i>did</i> hire a man he got three times as much work out of him as a laborer ordinarily +performed.</p> + +<p>There were stories abroad that Chase was as hard and cruel to his young wife as he had been to his old, but there +was no better warrant for them than his general reputation. It was the custom in those days for a woman to suffer +greater indignities and cruelties than now without public complaint. There never had been a separation of man and wife +in that community, there never had been a suit for divorce. Doubtless there were as many unhappy women to the square +mile there as in other places, but custom ruled that they must conceal their sorrows in their breasts.</p> + +<p>To all of these things concerning Isom Chase, Joe Newbolt was no stranger. He knew, very well indeed, the life that +lay ahead of him as the bondboy of that old man as he went forward along the dew-moist road that morning.</p> + +<p>Early as it was, Isom Chase had been out of bed two hours or more when Joe arrived. The scents of frying food +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span> came out of the kitchen, and Isom himself was making a +splash in a basin of water–one thing that he could afford to be liberal with three times a day–on the porch +near the open door.</p> + +<p>Joe had walked three miles, the consuming fires of his growing body were demanding food. The odors of breakfast +struck him with keen relish as he waited at the steps of the porch, unseen by Isom Chase, who had lifted his face from +the basin with much snorting, and was now drying it on a coarse brown towel.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’re here,” said he, seeing Joe as he turned to hang up the towel. “Well, come on in +and eat your breakfast. We ought to ’a’ been in the field nearly an hour ago.”</p> + +<p>Hungry as he was, Joe did not advance to accept the invitation, which was not warmed by hospitality, indeed, but +sounded rather like a command. He stood where he had stopped, and pushed his flap-brimmed hat back from his forehead, +in nervous movement of decision. Chase turned, half-way to the door, looking back at his bound boy with impatience.</p> + +<p>“No need for you to be bashful. This is home for a good while to come,” said he.</p> + +<p>“I’m not so very bashful,” Joe disclaimed, placing the little roll which contained his one extra +shirt on the wash-bench near the door, taking off his hat, then, and standing serious and solemn before his new +master.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t want to stand here waitin’ on you and dribble away the day, for I’ve got work +to do!” said Isom sourly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Joe, yielding the point respectfully, but standing his ground; “but before I go +across your doorstep, and sit at your table and break bread with you, I want you to understand my position in this +matter.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span></p> + +<p>“It’s all settled between your mother and me,” said Chase impatiently, drawing down his bayoneted +eyebrows in a frown, “there’s no understanding to come to between me and you–you’ve got nothing +to say in the transaction. You’re bound out to me for two years and three months at ten dollars a month and all +found, and that settles it.”</p> + +<p>“No, it don’t settle it,” said Joe with rising heat; “it only begins it. Before I put a bite +in my mouth in this house, or set my hand to any work on this place, I’m going to lay down the law to you, Mr. +Chase, and you’re going to listen to it, too!”</p> + +<p>“Now, Joe, you’ve got too much sense to try to stir up a row and rouse hard feelin’s between us at +the start,” said Isom, coming forward with his soft-soap of flattery and crafty conciliation.</p> + +<p>“If I hadn’t ’a’ known that you was the smartest boy of your age anywhere around here, do +you suppose I’d have taken you in this way?”</p> + +<p>“You scared mother into it; you didn’t give me a chance to say anything, and you took an underhanded +hold,” charged Joe, his voice trembling with scarce-controlled anger. “It wasn’t right, Isom, it +wasn’t fair. You know I could hire out any day for more than ten dollars a month, and you know I’d never +let mother go on the county as long as I was able to lift a hand.”</p> + +<p>“Winter and summer through, Joe–you must consider that,” argued Isom, giving his head a twist +which was meant to be illustrative of deep wisdom.</p> + +<p>“You knew she was afraid of being thrown on the county,” said Joe, “you sneaked in when I +wasn’t around and scared her up so she’d do most anything.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you don’t need to talk so loud,” cautioned Isom, turning an uneasy, cross look toward the +door, from which the sound of a light step fled. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27'></a>27</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll talk loud enough for you to hear me, and understand what I mean,” said Joe. “I could +run off and leave you, Isom, if I wanted to, but that’s not my way. Mother made the bargain, I intend to live up +to it, and let her have what little benefit there is to be got out of it. But I want you to know what I think of you at +the start, and the way I feel about it. I’m here to work for mother, and keep that old roof over her head +that’s dearer to her than life, but I’m not your slave nor your servant in any sense of the +word.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all the same to me,” said Isom, dropping his sham front of placation, lifting his finger to +accent his words, “but you’ll work, understand that–you’ll <i>work</i>!”</p> + +<p>“Mother told me,” said Joe not in the least disturbed by this glimpse of Isom in his true guise, +“that you had that notion in your mind, Isom. She said you told her you could thrash me if you wanted to do it, +but I want to tell you––”</p> + +<p>“It’s the law,” cut in Isom. “I can do it if I see fit.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t ever try it,” said Joe, drawing a long breath. “That was the main thing I +wanted to say to you, Isom–don’t ever try that!”</p> + +<p>“I never intended to take a swingle-tree to you, Joe,” said Isom, forcing his dry face into a grin. +“I don’t see that there ever need be any big differences between me and you. You do what’s right by +me and I’ll do the same by you.”</p> + +<p>Isom spoke with lowered voice, a turning of the eyes toward the kitchen door, as if troubled lest this defiance of +his authority might have been heard within, and the seeds of insubordination sown in another bond-slave’s +breast.</p> + +<p>“I’ll carry out mother’s agreement with you to the best of my ability,” said Joe, moving +forward as if ready now to begin.</p> + +<p>“Then come on in and eat your breakfast,” said Isom. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_28'></a>28</span></p> + +<p>Isom led the way into the smoky kitchen, inwardly more gratified than displeased over this display of spirit. +According to the agreement between them, he had taken under bond-service the Widow Newbolt’s “minor male +child,” but it looked to him as if some mistake had been made in the delivery.</p> + +<p>“He’s a man!” exulted Isom in his heart, pleased beyond measure that he had bargained better than +he had known.</p> + +<p>Joe put his lean brown hand into the bosom of his shirt and brought out a queer, fat little book, leather-bound and +worn of the corners. This he placed on top of his bundle, then followed Chase into the kitchen where the table was +spread for breakfast.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chase was busy straining milk. She did not turn her head, nor give the slightest indication of friendliness or +interest in Joe as he took the place pointed out by Chase. Chase said no word of introduction. He turned his plate over +with a businesslike flip, took up the platter which contained two fried eggs and a few pieces of bacon, scraped off his +portion, and handed the rest to Joe.</p> + +<p>In addition to the one egg each, and the fragments of bacon, there were sodden biscuits and a broken-nosed pitcher +holding molasses. A cup of roiled coffee stood ready poured beside each plate, and that was the breakfast upon which +Joe cast his curious eyes. It seemed absurdly inadequate to the needs of two strong men, accustomed as Joe was to four +eggs at a meal, with the stays of life which went with them in proportion.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chase did not sit at the table with them, nor replenish the empty platter, although Joe looked expectantly and +hungrily for her to do so. She was carrying pans of milk into the cellar, and did not turn her head once in their +direction during the meal. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29'></a>29</span></p> + +<p>Joe rose from the table hungry, and in that uneasy state of body began his first day’s labor on Isom +Chase’s farm. He hoped that dinner might repair the shortcomings of breakfast, and went to the table eagerly when +that hour came.</p> + +<p>For dinner there was hog-jowl and beans, bitter with salt, yellow with salt, but apparently greatly to the liking of +Isom, whose natural food seemed to be the very essence of salt.</p> + +<p>“Help yourself, eat plenty,” he invited Joe.</p> + +<p>Jowls and beans were cheap; he could afford to be liberal with that meal. Generosity in regard to that five-year-old +jowl cost him scarcely a pang.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Joe politely. “I’m doing very well.”</p> + +<p>A place was laid for Mrs. Chase, as at breakfast, but she did not join them at the table. She was scalding milk +crocks and pans, her face was red from the steam. As she bent over the sink the uprising vapor moved her hair upon her +temples like a wind.</p> + +<p>“Ain’t you goin’ to eat your dinner, Ollie?” inquired Isom with considerable lightness, +perhaps inspired by the hope that she was not.</p> + +<p>“I don’t feel hungry right now,” she answered, bending over her steaming pan of crocks.</p> + +<p>Isom did not press her on the matter. He filled up his plate again with beans and jowl, whacking the grinning +jawbone with his knife to free the clinging shreds of meat.</p> + +<p>Accustomed as he had been all his life to salt fare, that meal was beyond anything in that particular of seasoning +that Joe ever had tasted. The fiery demand of his stomach for liquid dilution of his saline repast made an early drain +on his coffee; when he had swallowed the last bean that he was able to force down, his cup was empty. He cast his eyes +about inquiringly for more. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30'></a>30</span></p> + +<p>“We only drink one cup of coffee at a meal here,” explained Isom, a rebuke in his words for the +extravagance of those whose loose habits carried them beyond that abstemious limit.</p> + +<p>“All right; I guess I can make out on that,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>There was a pitcher of water at his hand, upon which he drew heavily, with the entire good-will and approbation of +Isom. Then he took his hat from the floor at his feet and went out, leaving Isom hammering again at the jowl, this time +with the handle of his fork, in the hope of dislodging a bit of gristle which clung to one end.</p> + +<p>Joe’s hope leaped ahead to supper, unjustified as the flight was by the day’s developments. Human +creatures could not subsist longer than a meal or two on such fare as that, he argued; there must be a change very +soon, of course.</p> + +<p>It was a heavy afternoon for Joe. He was weary from the absolute lack of nourishment when the last of the chores was +done long after dusk, and Isom announced that they would go to the house for supper.</p> + +<p>The supper began with soup, made from the left-over beans and the hog’s jaw of dinner. There it swam, that +fleshless, long-toothed, salt-reddened bone, the most hateful piece of animal anatomy that Joe ever fixed his hungry +eyes upon. And supper ended as it began; with soup. There was nothing else behind it, save some hard bread to soak in +it, and its only savor was salt.</p> + +<p>Isom seemed to be satisfied with, even cheered by, his liquid refreshment. His wife came to her place at the table +when they were almost through, and sat stirring a bowl of the mixture of bread and thin soup, her eyes set in +abstracted stare in the middle of the table, far beyond the work of her hands. She did not speak to Joe; he did not +undertake any friendly approaches.</p> + +<p>Joe never had seen Mrs. Chase before that day, neighbors <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span> +though they had been for months. She appeared unusually handsome to Joe, with her fair skin, and hair colored like ripe +oats straw. She wore a plait of it as big as his wrist coiled and wound around her head.</p> + +<p>For a little while after finishing his unsatisfying meal, Joe sat watching her small hand turning the spoon in her +soup. He noted the thinness of her young cheeks, in which there was no marvel, seeing the fare upon which she was +forced to live. She seemed to be unconscious of him and Isom. She did not raise her eyes.</p> + +<p>Joe got up in a little while and left them, going to the porch to look for his bundle and his book. They were gone. +He came back, standing hesitatingly in the door.</p> + +<p>“They’re in your room upstairs,” said Mrs. Chase without turning her head to look at him, still +leaning forward over her bowl.</p> + +<p>“I’ll show you where it is,” Isom offered.</p> + +<p>He led the way up the stairs which opened from the kitchen, carrying a small lamp in his hand.</p> + +<p>Joe’s room was over the kitchen. It was bleak and bare, its black rafters hung with spiderwebs, plastered with +the nests of wasps. A dormer window jutted toward the east like a hollow eye, designed, no doubt, and built by Isom +Chase himself, to catch the first gleam of morning and throw it in the eyes of the sleeping hired-hand, whose bed stood +under it.</p> + +<p>Isom came down directly, took his lantern, and went to the barn to look after a new-born calf. Where there was +profit, such as he counted it, in gentleness, Isom Chase could be as tender as a mother. Kind words and caresses, +according to his experience, did not result in any more work out of a wife so he spared them the young woman at the +table, as he had denied them the old one in her grave.</p> + +<p>As Isom hurried out into the soft night, with a word <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span> +about the calf, Ollie made a bitter comparison between her lot and that of the animals in the barn. Less than six +months before that gloomy night she had come to that house a bride, won by the prospect of ease and independence which +Chase had held out to her in the brief season of his adroit courtship. The meanest men sometimes turn out to be the +nimblest cock-pheasants during that interesting period, and, like those vain birds of the jungles, they strut and dance +and cut dazzling capers before the eyes of the ladies when they want to strike up a matrimonial bargain.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase had done that. He had been a surprising lover for a dry man of his years, spurring around many a younger +man in the contest for Ollie’s hand. Together with parental encouragement and her own vain dreams, she had not +found it hard to say the word that made her his wife. But the gay feathers had fallen from him very shortly after their +wedding day, revealing the worm which they had hidden; the bright colors of his courtship parade had faded like the +fustian decorations of a carnival in the rain.</p> + +<p>Isom was a man of bone and dry skin, whose greed and penury had starved his own soul. He had brought her there and +put burdens upon her, with the assurance that it would be only for a little while, until somebody could be hired to +take the work off her hands. Then he had advanced the plea of hard times, when the first excuse had worn out; now he +had dropped all pretenses. She was serving, as he had married her to serve, as he had brought her there in +unrecompensed bondage to serve, and hope was gone from her horizon, and her tears were undried upon her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Isom had profited by a good day’s work from Joe, and he had not been obliged to drive him to obtain it. So he +was in great spirits when he came back from the barn, where he had found the calf coming on sturdily and with great +promise. He put out the lantern and turned the lamp down a shade <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_33'></a>33</span> seeing that it was consuming a twentieth more oil than necessary to light Ollie about her work. +Then he sat down beside the table, stretching his long legs with a sigh.</p> + +<p>Ollie was washing the few dishes which had served for supper, moving between table and sink with quick competence, +making a neat figure in the somber room. It was a time when a natural man would have filled his pipe and brought out +the weekly paper, or sat and gossiped a comfortable hour with his wife. But Isom never had cheered his atrophied nerves +with a whiff of tobacco, and as for the county paper, or any paper whatever except mortgages and deeds, Isom held all +of them to be frauds and extravagances which a man was better off without.</p> + +<p>“Well, what do you think of the new hand?” asked Isom, following her with his eyes.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t pay any particular notice to him,” said she, her back toward him as she stood scraping a +pan at the sink.</p> + +<p>“Did you hear what he said to me this morning when he was standin’ there by the steps?”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t hear,” listlessly, indifferently.</p> + +<p>“H’m–I thought you was listening.”</p> + +<p>“I just looked out to see who it was.”</p> + +<p>“No difference if you did hear, Ollie,” he allowed generously–for Isom. “A man’s wife +ought to share his business secrets, according to my way of lookin’ at it; she’s got a right to know +what’s going on. Well, I tell you that chap talked up to me like a man!”</p> + +<p>Isom smacked his lips over the recollection. The promise of it was sweet to his taste.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s heart stirred a little. She wondered if someone had entered that house at last who would be able to +set at defiance its stern decrees. She hoped that, if so, this breach in the grim wall might let some sunlight in time +into her own <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span> bleak heart. But she said nothing to Isom, and +he talked on.</p> + +<p>“I made a good pick when I lit on that boy,” said he, with that old wise twist of the head; “the +best pick in this county, by a long shot. I choose a man like I pick a horse, for the blood he shows. A blooded horse +will endure where a plug will fall down, and it’s the same way with a man. Ollie, don’t you know that +boy’s got as good a strain in him as you’ll find in this part of the country?”</p> + +<p>“I never saw him before today, I don’t know his folks,” said she, apparently little interested in +her husband’s find.</p> + +<p>Isom sat silent for a while, looking at the worn floor.</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s bound out to me for two years and more,” said he, the comfort of it in his hard, plain +face. “I’ll have a steady hand that I can depend on now. That’s a boy that’ll do his duty; no +doubt in my mind about that. It may go against the grain once in a while, Ollie, like our duty does for all of us +sometimes; but, no matter how it tastes to him, that boy Joe, he’ll face it.</p> + +<p>“He’s not one of the kind that’ll shirk on me when my back’s turned, or steal from me if he +gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He’s as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but +he’s as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He’s got Kentucky blood in him, and the best of it, +too.”</p> + +<p>“He brought a funny little Bible with him,” said Ollie in low voice, as if communing with herself.</p> + +<p>“Funny?” said Isom. “Is that so?”</p> + +<p>“So little and fat,” she explained. “I never saw one like it before. It was there on the bench +this morning with his bundle. I put it up by his bed.”</p> + +<p>“Hum-m,” said Isom reflectively, as if considering it deeply. Then: “Well, I guess it’s all +right.”</p> + +<p>Isom sat a good while, fingering his stiff beard. He gave no surface indication of the thoughts which were working +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span> within him, for he was unlike those sentimental, plump, +thin-skinned people who cannot conceal their emotions from the world. Isom might have been dreaming of gain, or he +might have been contemplating the day of loss and panic, for all that his face revealed. Sun and shadow alike passed +over it, as rain and blast and summer sun pass over and beat upon a stone, leaving no mark behind save in that slow and +painful wear which one must live a century to note. He looked up at his wife at length, his hand still in his beard, +and studied her silently.</p> + +<p>“I’m not a hard man, Ollie, like some people give me the name of being,” he complained, with more +gentleness in his voice than she had heard since he was courting her. He still studied her, as if he expected her to +uphold common report and protest that he was hard and cruel-driving in his way. She said nothing; Isom proceeded to +give himself the good rating which the world denied.</p> + +<p>“I’m not half as mean as some envious people would make out, if they could find anybody to take stock in +what they say. If I’m not as honey-mouthed as some, that’s because I’ve got more sense than to +diddle-daddle my time away in words when there’s so much to do. I’ll show you that I’m as kind at +heart, Ollie, as any man in this county, if you’ll stand by me and do your part of what’s to be done +without black looks and grumbles and growls.</p> + +<p>“I’m a good many years older than you, and maybe I’m not as light-footed and light-headed as +you’d like a husband to be, but I’ve got weight to me where it counts. I could buy out two-thirds of the +young fellers in this county, Ollie, all in a bunch.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Isom, I guess you could,” she allowed, a weary drag in her voice.</p> + +<p>“I’ll put a woman in to do the work here in the fall, when I make a turn of my crops and money comes a +little <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span> freer than it does right now,” he promised. +“Interest on my loans is behind in a good many cases, and there’s no use crowdin’ ’em to pay +till they sell their wheat and hogs. If I had the ready money in hand to pay wages, Ollie, I’d put a nigger woman +in here tomorrow and leave you nothing to do but oversee. You’ll have a fine easy time of it this fall, Ollie, +when I turn my crops.”</p> + +<p>Ollie drained the dishpan and wrung out the cloths. These she hung on a line to dry. Isom watched her with approval, +pleased to see her so housewifely and neat.</p> + +<p>“Ollie, you’ve come on wonderful since I married you,” said he. “When you come here–do +you recollect?–you couldn’t hardly make a mess of biscuits that was fit to eat, and you knew next to +nothing about milk and butter for all that you was brought up on a farm.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve learned my lesson,” said she, with a bitterness which passed over Isom’s +head.</p> + +<p>Her back was turned to him, she was reaching to hang a utensil on the wall, so high above her head that she stood on +tiptoe. Isom was not insensible to the pretty lines of her back, the curve of her plump hips, the whiteness of her +naked arms. He smiled.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s worth money to you to know all these things,” said he, “and I don’t know +but it’s just as well for you to go on and do the work this summer for the benefit of what’s to be got out +of it; you’ll be all the better able to oversee a nigger woman when I put one in, and all the better qualified to +take things into your own hands when I’m done and in the grave. For I’ll have to go, in fifteen or twenty +years more,” he sighed.</p> + +<p>Ollie made no reply. She was standing with her back still turned toward him, stripping down her sleeves. But the +sigh which she gave breath to sounded loud in Isom’s ears. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_37'></a>37</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps he thought she was contemplating with concern the day when he must give over his strivings and hoardings, +and leave her widowed and alone. That may have moved him to his next excess of generosity.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to let Joe help you around the house a good deal, Ollie,” said he. “He’ll +make it a lot easier for you this summer. He’ll carry the swill down to the hogs, and water ’em, and take +care of the calves. That’ll save you a good many steps in the course of the day.”</p> + +<p>Ollie maintained her ungrateful silence. She had heard promises before, and she had come to that point of +hopelessness where she no longer seemed to care. Isom was accustomed to her silences, also; it appeared to make little +difference to him whether she spoke or held her peace.</p> + +<p>He sat there reflectively a little while; then got up, stretching his arms, yawning with a noise like a dog.</p> + +<p>“Guess I’ll go to bed,” said he.</p> + +<p>He looked for a splinter on a stick of stove-wood, which he lit at the stove and carried to his lamp. At the door he +paused, turned, and looked at Ollie, his hand, hovering like a grub curved beside the chimney, shading the light from +his eyes.</p> + +<p>“So he brought a Bible, did he?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s welcome to it,” said Isom. “I don’t care what anybody that works for me +reads–just so long as he <i>works</i>!”</p> + +<p>Isom’s jubilation over his bondboy set his young wife’s curiosity astir. She had not noted any romantic +or noble parts about the youth in the casual, uninterested view which she had given him that day. To her then he had +appeared only a sprangling, long-bodied, long-legged, bony-shouldered, unformed lad whose hollow frame indicated a +great capacity for food. Her only thought in connection with him had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_38'></a>38</span> been that it meant another mouth to dole Isom’s slender allowance out to, more scheming +on her part to make the rations go round. It meant another one to wash for, another bed to make.</p> + +<p>She had thought of those things wearily that morning when she heard the new voice at the kitchen door, and she had +gone there for a moment to look him over; for strange faces, even those of loutish farm-hands, were refreshing in her +isolated life. She had not heard what the lad was saying to Isom, for the kitchen was large and the stove far away from +the door, but she had the passing thought that there was a good deal of earnestness or passion in the harangue for a +farm-hand to be laying on his early morning talk.</p> + +<p>When she found the Bible lying there on top of Joe’s hickory shirt, she had concluded that he had been talking +religion. She hoped that he would not preach at his meals. The only religion that Ollie knew anything of, and not much +of that, was a glum and melancholy kind, with frenzied shoutings of the preacher in it, and portentous shaking of the +beard in the shudderful pictures of the anguish of unrepentant death. So she hoped that he would not preach at his +meals, for the house was sad enough, and terrible and gloomily hopeless enough, without the kind of religion that made +the night deeper and the day longer in its dread.</p> + +<p>Now Isom’s talk about the lad’s blood, and his expression of high confidence in his fealty, gave her a +pleasant topic of speculation. Did good blood make men different from those who came of mongrel strain, in other points +than that of endurance alone? Did it give men nobility and sympathy and loftiness, or was it something prized by those +who hired them, as Isom seemed to value it in Joe, because it lent strength to the arms?</p> + +<p>Ollie sat on the kitchen steps and turned all this over in her thoughts after Isom had gone to bed. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps in the new bondboy, who had come there to serve with her, she would find one with whom she might talk and +sometimes ease her heart. She hoped that it might be so, for she needed chatter and laughter and the common sympathies +of youth, as a caged bird requires the seed of its wild life. There was hope in the new farm-hand which swept into her +heart like a refreshing breeze. She would look him over and sound him when he worked, choring between kitchen and +barn.</p> + +<p>Ollie had been a poor man’s child. Isom had chosen her as he would have selected a breeding-cow, because +nature, in addition to giving her a form of singular grace and beauty, had combined therein the utilitarian indications +of ability to plentifully reproduce her kind. Isom wanted her because she was alert and quick of foot, and strong to +bear the burdens of motherhood; for even in the shadow of his decline he still held to the hope of his youth–that +he might leave a son behind him to guard his acres and bring down his name.</p> + +<p>Ollie was no deeper than her opportunities of life had made her. She had no qualities of self-development, and while +she had graduated from a high school and still had the ornate diploma among her simple treasures, learning had passed +through her pretty ears like water through a funnel. It had swirled and choked there a little while, just long enough +for her to make her “points” required for passing, then it had sped on and left her unencumbered and +free.</p> + +<p>Her mother had always held Ollie’s beauty a greater asset than mental graces, and this early appraisement of +it at its trading value had made Ollie a bit vain and ambitious to mate above her family. Isom Chase had held out to +her all the allurements of which she had dreamed, and she had married him for his money. She had as well taken a stone +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span> to her soft bosom in the hope of warming it into yielding a +flower.</p> + +<p>Isom was up at four o’clock next morning. A few minutes after him Ollie stumbled down the stairs, heavy with +the pain of broken sleep. Joe was snoring above-stairs; the sound penetrated to the kitchen down the doorless +casement.</p> + +<p>“Listen to that feller sawin’ gourds!” said Isom crabbedly.</p> + +<p>The gloom of night was still in the kitchen; in the corner where the stove stood it was so dark that Ollie had to +grope her way, yawning heavily, feeling that she would willingly trade the last year of her life for one more hour of +sleep that moist spring morning.</p> + +<p>Isom mounted the kitchen stairs and roused Joe, lumbering down again straightway and stringing the milk-pails on his +arms without waiting to see the result of his summons.</p> + +<p>“Send him on down to the barn when he’s ready,” directed Isom, jangling away in the pale light of +early day.</p> + +<p>Ollie fumbled around in her dark corner for kindling, and started a fire in the kitchen stove with a great rattling +of lids. Perhaps there was more alarm than necessary in this primitive and homely task, sounded with the friendly +intention of carrying a warning to Joe, who was making no move to obey his master’s call.</p> + +<p>Ollie went softly to the staircase and listened. Joe’s snore was rumbling again, as if he traveled a heavy +road in the land of dreams. She did not feel that she could go and shake him out of his sleep and warn him of the +penalty of such remission, but she called softly from where she stood:</p> + +<p>“Joe! You must get up, Joe!”</p> + +<p>But her voice was not loud enough to wake a bird. Joe slept on, like a heavy-headed boor, and she went back to the +stove to put the kettle on to boil. The issue of his recalcitration must be left between him and Isom. If he had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span> good blood in him, perhaps he would fight when Isom lifted +his hand and beat him out of his sleep, she reflected, hoping simply that it would turn out that way.</p> + +<p>Isom came back to the house in frothing wrath a quarter of an hour later. There was no need to ask about Joe, for +the bound boy’s nostrils sounded his own betrayal.</p> + +<p>Isom did not look at Ollie as he took the steep stairs four treads at a step. In a moment she heard the +sleeper’s bed squeaking in its rickety old joints as her husband shook him and cut short his snore in the middle +of a long flourish.</p> + +<p>“Turn out of here!” shouted Isom in his most terrible voice–which was to Ollie’s ears indeed +a dreadful sound–“turn out and git into your duds!”</p> + +<p>Ollie heard the old bed give an extra loud groan, as if the sleeper had drawn himself up in it with suddenness; +following that came the quick scuffling of bare feet on the floor.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you touch me! Don’t you lay hands on me!” she heard the bound boy warn, his voice +still husky with sleep.</p> + +<p>“I’ll skin you alive!” threatened Isom. “You’ve come here to work, not to trifle your +days away sleepin’. A good dose of strap-oil’s what you need, and I’m the man to give it to you, +too!”</p> + +<p>Isom’s foot was heavy on the floor over her head, moving about as if in search of something to use in the +flagellation. Ollie stood with hands to her tumultuous bosom, pity welling in her heart for the lad who was to feel the +vigor of Isom’s unsparing arm.</p> + +<p>There was a lighter step upon the floor, moving across the room like a sudden wind. The bound boy’s voice +sounded again, clear now and steady, near the top of the stairs where Isom stood.</p> + +<p>“Put that down! Put that down, I tell you!” he commanded. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_42'></a>42</span> “I warned you never to lift your hand against me. If you hit me with that I’ll kill +you in your tracks!”</p> + +<p>Ollie’s heart leaped at the words; hot blood came into her face with a surge. She clasped her hands to her +breast in new fervor, and lifted her face as one speeding a thankful prayer. She had heard Isom Chase threatened and +defied in his own house, and the knowledge that one lived with the courage to do what she had longed to do, lifted her +heart and made it glad.</p> + +<p>She heard Isom growl something in his throat, muffled and low, which she could not separate into words.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I’ll let it pass–this time,” said Joe. “But don’t you ever do it +any more. I’m a heavy sleeper sometimes, and this is an hour or two earlier than I am used to getting up; but if +you’ll call me loud enough, and talk like you were calling a man and not a dog, you’ll have no trouble with +me. Now get out of here!”</p> + +<p>Ollie could have shouted in the triumph of that moment. She shared the bound boy’s victory and exulted in his +high independence. Isom had swallowed it like a coward; now he was coming down the stairs, snarling in his beard, but +his knotted fist had not enforced discipline; his coarse, distorted foot had not been lifted against his new slave. She +felt that the dawn was breaking over that house, that one had come into it who would ease her of its terrors.</p> + +<p>Joe came along after Isom in a little while, slipping his suspenders over his lank shoulders as he went out of the +kitchen door. He did not turn to Ollie with the morning’s greetings, but held his face from her and hurried on, +she thought, as if ashamed.</p> + +<p>Ollie ran to the door on her nimble toes, the dawn of a smile on her face, now rosy with its new light, and looked +after him as he hurried away in the brightening day. She <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span> +stood with her hands clasped in attitude of pleasure, again lifting her face as if to speed a prayer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank God for a <i>man</i>!” said she.</p> + +<p>Isom was in a crabbed way at breakfast, sulky and silent. But his evil humor did not appear to weigh with any shadow +of trouble on Joe, who ate what was set before him like a hungry horse and looked around for more.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s interest in Joe was acutely sharpened by the incident of rising. There must be something uncommon, +indeed, in a lad of Joe’s years, she thought, to enable him to meet and pass off such a serious thing in that +untroubled way. As she served the table, there being griddle-cakes of cornmeal that morning to flank the one egg and +fragments of rusty bacon each, she studied the boy’s face carefully. She noted the high, clear forehead, the +large nose, the fineness of the heavy, black hair which lay shaggy upon his temples. She studied the long hands, the +grave line of his mouth, and caught a quick glimpse now and then of his large, serious gray eyes.</p> + +<p>Here was an uncommon boy, with the man in him half showing; Isom was right about that. Let it be blood or what it +might, she liked him. Hope of the cheer that he surely would bring into that dark house quickened her cheek to a color +which had grown strange to it in those heavy months.</p> + +<p>Joe’s efforts in the field must have been highly satisfactory to Isom that forenoon, for the master of the +house came to the table at dinner-time in quite a lively mood. The morning’s unpleasantness seemed to have been +forgotten. Ollie noticed her husband more than once during the meal measuring Joe’s capabilities for future +strength with calculating, satisfied eyes. She sat at the table with them, taking minute note of Joe at closer range, +studying him curiously, awed a little by the austerity of his young face, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_44'></a>44</span> and the melancholy of his eyes, in which there seemed to lie the concentrated sorrow of many +forebears who had suffered and died with burdens upon their hearts.</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t you manage to pick us a mess of dandelion for supper, Ollie?” asked Isom. “I +notice it’s comin’ up thick in the yard.”</p> + +<p>“I might, if I could find the time,” said Ollie.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I guess you’ll have time enough,” said Isom, severely.</p> + +<p>Her face grew pale; she lowered her head as if to hide her fear from Joe.</p> + +<p>“Cook it with a jowl,” ordered Isom; “they go fine together, and it’s good for the +blood.”</p> + +<p>Joe was beginning to yearn forward to Sunday, when he could go home to his mother for a satisfying meal, of which he +was sharply feeling the need. It was a mystery to him how Isom kept up on that fare, so scant and unsatisfying, but he +reasoned that it must be on account of there being so little of him but gristle and bone.</p> + +<p>Joe looked ahead now to the term of his bondage under Isom; the prospect gave him an uneasy concern. He was afraid +that the hard fare and harder work would result in stunting his growth, like a young tree that has come to a period of +drought green and promising, and stands checked and blighted, never again to regain the hardy qualities which it needs +to raise it up into the beauty of maturity.</p> + +<p>The work gave him little concern; he knew that he could live and put on strength through that if he had the proper +food. So there would have to be a change in the fare, concluded Joe, as he sat there while Isom discussed the merits of +dandelion and jowl. It would have to come very early in his term of servitude, too. The law protected the bondman in +that, no matter how far it disregarded his rights and human necessities in other ways. So thinking, he pushed away from +the table and left the room. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span></p> + +<p>Isom drank a glass of water, smacked his dry lips over its excellencies, the greatest of them in his mind being its +cheapness, and followed it by another.</p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord for water, anyhow!” said he.</p> + +<p>“Yes, there’s plenty of that,” said Ollie meaningly.</p> + +<p>Isom was as thick-skinned as he was sapless. Believing that his penurious code was just, and his frugality the first +virtue of his life, he was not ashamed of his table, and the outcast scraps upon it. But he looked at his young wife +with a sharp drawing down of his spiked brows as he lingered there a moment, his cracked brown hands on the edge of the +table, which he had clutched as he pushed his chair back. He seemed about to speak a rebuke for her extravagance of +desire. The frown on his face foreshadowed it, but presently it lifted, and he nodded shrewdly after Joe.</p> + +<p>“Give him a couple of eggs mornings after this,” said he, “they’ve fell off to next to +nothing in price, anyhow. And eat one yourself once in a while, Ollie. I ain’t one of these men that believe a +woman don’t need the same fare as a man, once on a while, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>His generous outburst did not appear to move his wife’s gratitude. She did not thank him by word or sign. Isom +drank another glass of water, rubbed his mustache and beard back from his lips in quick, grinding twists of his doubled +hand.</p> + +<p>“The pie-plant’s comin’ out fast,” said he, “and I suppose we might as well eat +it–nothing else but humans will eat it–for there’s no sale for it over in town. Seems like +everybody’s got a patch of it nowadays.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s fillin’, as the old woman said when she swallowed her thimble, and that boy Joe +he’s going to be a drain on me to feed, I can see that now. I’ll have to fill him up on something or other, +and I guess pie-plant’s about as good as anything. It’s cheap.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_46'></a>46</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, but it takes sugar,” ventured Ollie, rolling some crumbs between her fingers.</p> + +<p>“You can use them molasses in the blue barrel,” instructed Isom.</p> + +<p>“It’s about gone,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, put some water in the barrel and slosh it around–it’ll come out sweet enough for a mess or +two.”</p> + +<p>Isom got up from the table as he gave these economic directions, and stood a moment looking down at his wife.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry over feedin’ that feller, Ollie,” he advised. “I’ll manage +that. I aim to keep him stout–I never saw a stouter feller for his age than Joe–for I’m goin’ +to git a pile of work out of him the next two years. I saw you lookin’ him over this morning,” said he, +approvingly, as he might have sanctioned her criticism of a new horse, “and I could see you was lightin’ on +his points. Don’t you think he’s all I said he was?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered, a look of abstraction in her eyes, her fingers busy with the crumbs on the cloth, +“all you said of him–<i>and more</i>!”</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_3'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span> +<h2>CHAPTER III<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE SPARK IN THE CLOD</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>It did not cost Isom so many pangs to minister to the gross appetite of his bound boy as the spring weeks marched +into summer, for gooseberries followed rhubarb, then came green peas and potatoes from the garden that Ollie had +planted and tilled under her husband’s orders.</p> + +<p>Along in early summer the wormy codlings which fell from the apple-trees had to be gathered up and fed to the hogs +by Ollie, and it was such a season of blighted fruit that the beasts could not eat them all. So there was apple sauce, +sweetened with molasses from the new barrel that Isom broached.</p> + +<p>If it had not been so niggardly unnecessary, the faculty that Isom had for turning the waste ends of the farm into +profit would have been admirable. But the suffering attendant upon this economy fell only upon the human creatures +around him. Isom’s beasts wallowed in plenty and grew fat in the liberality of his hand. For himself, it looked +as if he had the ability to extract his living from the bare surface of a rock.</p> + +<p>All of this green truck was filling, as Isom had said, but far from satisfying to a lad in the process of building +on such generous plans as Joe. Isom knew that too much skim-milk would make a pot-bellied calf, but he was too stubborn +in his rule of life to admit the cause when he saw that Joe began to lag at his work, and grow surly and sour.</p> + +<p>Isom came in for quick and startling enlightenment in the middle of a lurid July morning, while he and Joe were at +work with one-horse cultivators, “laying by” the corn. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_48'></a>48</span> Joe threw his plow down in the furrow, cast the lines from his shoulders, and declared that he +was starving. He vowed that he would not cultivate another row unless assured, then and there, that Isom would make an +immediate enlargement in the bill-of-fare.</p> + +<p>Isom stood beside the handles of his own cultivator, there being the space of ten rows between him and Joe, and took +the lines from around his shoulders, with the deliberate, stern movement of a man who is preparing for a fight.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by this kind of capers?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“I mean that you can’t go on starving me like you’ve been doing, and that’s all there is to +it!” said Joe. “The law don’t give you the right to do that.”</p> + +<p>“Law! Well, I’ll law you,” said Isom, coming forward, his hard body crouched a little, his lean +and guttered neck stretched as if he gathered himself for a run and jump at the fence. “I’ll feed you what +comes to my hand to feed you, you onery whelp! You’re workin’ for me, you belong to me!”</p> + +<p>“I’m working for mother–I told you that before,” said Joe. “I don’t owe you +anything, Isom, and you’ve got to feed me better, or I’ll walk away and leave you, that’s what +I’ll do!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I see you walkin’ away!” said Isom, plucking at his already turned-up sleeve. +“I’m goin’ to give you a tannin’ right now, and one you’ll not forget to your dyin’ +day!”</p> + +<p>At that moment Isom doubtless intended to carry out his threat. Here was a piece of his own property, as much his +property as his own wedded wife, defying him, facing him with extravagant demands, threatening to stop work unless more +bountifully fed! Truly, it was a state of insurrection such as no upright citizen like Isom Chase could <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span> allow to go by unreproved and unquieted by castigation of his hand.</p> + +<p>“You’d better stop where you are,” advised Joe.</p> + +<p>He reached down and righted his plow. Isom could see the straining of the leaders in his lean wrist as he stood +gripping the handle, and the thought passed through him that Joe intended to wrench it off and use it as a weapon +against him.</p> + +<p>Isom had come but a few steps from his plow. He stopped, looking down at the furrow as if struggling to hold himself +within bounds. Still looking at the earth, he went back to his implement.</p> + +<p>“I’ll put you where the dogs won’t bite you if you ever threaten my life ag’in!” said +he.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t threaten your life, Isom, I didn’t say a word,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“A motion’s a threat,” said Isom.</p> + +<p>“But I’ll tell you now,” said Joe, quietly, lowering his voice and leaning forward a little, +“you’d better think a long time before you ever start to lay hands on me again, Isom. This is twice. The +next time––”</p> + +<p>Joe set his plow in the furrow with a push that sent the swingle-tree knocking against the horse’s heels. The +animal started out of the doze into which it had fallen while the quarrel went on. Joe grinned, thinking how even +Isom’s dumb creatures took every advantage of him that opportunity offered. But he left his warning unfinished as +for words.</p> + +<p>There was no need to say more, for Isom was cowed. He was quaking down to the tap-root of his salt-hardened soul, +but he tried to put a different face on it as he took up his plow.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to cripple you, and lay you up,” he said. “If I was to begin on you once I +don’t know where I’d leave <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span> off. Git back to +your work, and don’t give me any more of your sass!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go back to work when you give me your word that I’m to have meat and eggs, butter and milk, +and plenty of it,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“I orto tie you up to a tree and lash you!” said Isom, jerking angrily at his horse. “I +don’t know what ever made me pity your mother and keep her out of the poorhouse by takin’ in a loafer like +you!”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you’re sick of the bargain go and tell mother. Maybe she is, too,” Joe suggested.</p> + +<p>“No, you’ll not git out of it now, you’ll stick right here and put in your time, after all the +trouble and expense I’ve been put to teachin’ you what little you know about farmin’,” Isom +declared.</p> + +<p>He took up his plow and jerked his horse around into the row. Joe stood watching him, with folded arms, plainly with +no intention of following. Isom looked back over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Git to work!” he yelled.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t promise me what I asked,” said Joe, quietly.</p> + +<p>“No, and that ain’t all!” returned Isom.</p> + +<p>The tall corn swallowed Isom and his horse as the sea swallowed Pharaoh and his host. When he returned to the end of +the field where the rebellion had broken out, he found Joe sitting on the beam of his plow and the well-pleased horse +asleep in the sun.</p> + +<p>Isom said nothing, but plunged away into the tall corn. When he came back next time Joe was unhitching his +horse.</p> + +<p>“Now, look a-here, Joe,” Isom began, in quite a changed tone, “don’t you fly up and leave an +old man in the lurch that way.”</p> + +<p>“You know what I said,” Joe told him.</p> + +<p>“I’ll give in to you, Joe; I’ll give you everything you ask <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_51'></a>51</span> for, and more,” yielded Isom, seeing that Joe intended to leave. “I’ll put it +in writing if you want me to Joe–I’ll do anything to keep you, son. You’re the only man I ever had on +this place I wouldn’t rather see goin’ than comin’.”</p> + +<p>Isom’s word was satisfactory to Joe, and he returned to work.</p> + +<p>That turned out a day to be remembered in the household of Isom Chase. If he had come into the kitchen at noon with +all the hoarded savings of his years and thrown them down before her eyes, Ollie could not have been more surprised and +mystified than she was when he appeared from the smokehouse carrying a large ham.</p> + +<p>After his crafty way in a tight pinch Isom turned necessity into profit by making out that the act was free and +voluntary, with the pleasure and comfort of his pretty little wife underlying and prompting it all. He grinned as if he +would break his beard when he put the ham down on the table and cut it in two at the middle joint as deftly as a +butcher.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been savin’ that ham up for you, Ollie. I think it’s just about right now,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“That was nice of you, Isom,” said she, moved out of her settled taciturnity by his little show of +thought for her, “I’ve been just dying for a piece of ham!”</p> + +<p>“Well, fry us a big skilletful of it, and some eggs along with it, and fetch up a crock of sweet milk, and +stir it up cream and all,” directed Isom.</p> + +<p>Poor Ollie, overwhelmed by the suddenness and freedom of this generosity, stood staring at him, her eyes round, her +lips open. Isom could not have studied a more astounding surprise. If he had hung diamonds on her neck, rubies on her +wrists, and garnets in her hair, she could quicker have found her tongue.</p> + +<p>“It’s all right, Ollie, it’s all right,” said Isom pettishly. “We’re going to +have these things from now on. Might as <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span> well eat ’em, +and git some of the good of what we produce, as let them city people fatten off ’em.”</p> + +<p>Isom went out with that, and Ollie attacked the ham with the butcher knife in a most savage and barbarous +fashion.</p> + +<p>Isom’s old wife must have shifted in her grave at sight of the prodigal repast which Ollie soon spread on the +kitchen table. Granting, of course, that people in their graves are cognizant of such things, which, according to this +old standard of comparison in human amazement, they must be.</p> + +<p>But whether the old wife turned over or lay quiescent in the place where they put her when they folded her tired old +hands upon her shrunken breast, it is indisputable that the new one eased the pangs of many a hungry day in that +bountiful meal. And Joe’s face glowed from the fires of it, and his eyes sparkled in the satisfaction of his +long-abused stomach.</p> + +<p>Next day a more startling thing happened. Twice each week there passed through the country, from farm to farm, a +butcher’s wagon from Shelbyville, the county-seat, a few miles away. Isom Chase never had been a customer of the +fresh meat purveyor, and the traveling merchant, knowing from the old man’s notoriety that he never could expect +him to become one, did not waste time in stopping at his house. His surprise was almost apoplectic when Isom stopped +him and bought a soup-bone, and it almost became fatal when the order was made a standing one. It was such a remarkable +event that the meat man told about it at every stop. It went round the country like the news of a wedding or a +death.</p> + +<p>Isom seemed to be satisfied with the new dietary regulations, for hams were cheap that summer, anyhow, and the +season was late. Besides that, the more that Joe ate the harder he worked. It seemed a kind of spontaneous effort on +the lad’s part, as if it was necessary to burn up the energy in surplus of the demand of his growing bone and +muscle. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span></p> + +<p>Ollie had picked up and brightened under the influence of ham and milk also, although it was all a foolish yielding +to appetite, as Isom very well knew. He had beaten that weakness in himself to death with the club of abstinence; for +himself he could live happily on what he had been accustomed to eating for thirty years and more. But as long as the +investment of ham and milk paid interest in kitchen as well as field, Isom was grudgingly willing to see them +consumed.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s brightening was only physical. In her heart she was as gloomily hopeless as before. After his first +flash of fire she had not found much comfort or hope of comradeship in the boy, Joe Newbolt. He was so respectful in +her presence, and so bashful, it seemed, that it almost made her uncomfortable to have him around.</p> + +<p>Man that he was in stature, he appeared no more than a timid boy in understanding, and her little advances of +friendliness, her little appeals for sympathy, all glanced from the unconscious armor of his youthful innocence and +reserve. She was forced to put him down after many weeks as merely stupid, and she sighed when she saw the hope of +comradeship in her hard lot fade out and give way to a feeling bordering upon contempt.</p> + +<p>On Sunday evenings, after he came back from visiting his mother, Ollie frequently saw Joe reading the little brown +Bible which he had carried with him when he came. She had taken it up one day while making Joe’s bed. It brought +back to her the recollection of her Sunday-school days, when she was all giggles and frills; but there was no +association of religious training to respond to its appeal. She wondered what Joe saw in it as she put it back on the +box beside his bed.</p> + +<p>It chanced that she met Joe the next morning after she had made that short incursion between the brown covers of his +book, as she was returning from the well and he was setting <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span> +out for the hog-lot between two pails of sour swill. He stood out of the path to let her pass without stepping into the +long, dewy grass. She put her bucket down with a gasp of weariness, and looked up into his eyes with a smile.</p> + +<p>The buckets were heavy in Joe’s hands; he stood them down, meeting her friendly advances with one of his rare +smiles, which came as seldom to his face, thought she, as a hummingbird to the honeysuckle on the kitchen porch.</p> + +<p>“Whew, this is going to be a scorcher!” said she.</p> + +<p>“I believe it is,” he agreed.</p> + +<p>From the opposite sides of the path their eyes met. Both smiled again, and felt better for it.</p> + +<p>“My, but you’re a mighty religious boy, aren’t you?” she asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Religious?” said he, looking at her in serious surprise.</p> + +<p>She nodded girlishly. The sun, long slanting through the cherry-trees, fell on her hair, loosely gathered up after +her sleep, one free strand on her cheek.</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not religious.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you read the Bible all the time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well!” said he, stooping as if to lift his pails.</p> + +<p>“Why?” she wanted to know.</p> + +<p>Joe straightened his long back without his pails. Beyond the orchard the hogs were clamoring shrilly for their +morning draught; from the barn there came the sound of Isom’s voice, speaking harshly to the beasts.</p> + +<p>“Well, because I like it, for one thing,” said he, “and because it’s the only book +I’ve got here, for another.”</p> + +<p>“My, I think it’s awful slow!” said she.</p> + +<p>“Do you?” he inquired, as if interested in her likes and dislikes at last.</p> + +<p>“I’d think you’d like other books better–detective stories and that kind,” she +ventured. “Didn’t you ever read any other book?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_55'></a>55</span></p> + +<p>“Some few,” he replied, a reflection as of amusement in his eyes, which she thought made them look old +and understanding and wise. “But I’ve always read the Bible. It’s one of the books that never seems +to get old to you.”</p> + +<p>“Did you ever read <i>True as Steel</i>?”</p> + +<p>“No, I never did.”</p> + +<p>“Or <i>Tempest and Sunshine</i>?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Oh-h,” said she, fairly lifting herself by the long breath which she drew, like the inhalation of a +pleasant recollection, “you don’t know what you’ve missed! They are lovely!”</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe I’d like them, too.”</p> + +<p>He stooped again, and this time came up with his pails.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you’re not religious, anyhow,” she sighed, as if heaving a trouble off her +heart.</p> + +<p>“Are you?” he asked, turning to her wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“Yes; religious people are so glum,” she explained. “I never saw one of them laugh.”</p> + +<p>“There are some that way,” said Joe. “They seem to be afraid they’ll go to hell if they let +the Almighty hear them laugh. Mother used to be that way when she first got <i>her</i> religion, but she’s +outgrowing it now.”</p> + +<p>“The preachers used to scare me to death,” she declared. “If I could hear some comfortable +religion I might take up with it, but it seems to me that everybody’s so sad after they get it. I don’t +know why.”</p> + +<p>Joe put down the pails again. Early as the day was, it was hot, and he was sweating. He pushed his hat back from his +forehead. It was like lifting a shadow from his serious young face. She smiled.</p> + +<p>“A person generally gets the kind of religion that he hears preached,” said he, “and most of it +you hear is kind of heavy, like bread without rising. I’ve never seen a laughing preacher yet.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56'></a>56</span></p> + +<p>“There must be some, though,” she reflected.</p> + +<p>“I hope so,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“I’m <i>glad</i> you’re not full of that kind of religion,” said she. “For a long time +I thought you were.”</p> + +<p>“You did? Why?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, because–” said she.</p> + +<p>Her cheek was toward him; he saw that it was red, like the first tint of a cherry. She snatched up her bucket then +and sped along the path.</p> + +<p>Joe walked on a little way, stopped, turned, and looked after her. He saw the flick of her skirt as her nimble heels +flew up the three steps of the kitchen porch, and he wondered why she was glad that he was not religious, and why she +had gone away like that, so fast. The pigs were clamoring, shriller, louder. It was no hour for a youth who had not yet +wetted his feet in manhood’s stream to stand looking after a pair of heels and try to figure out a thing like +that.</p> + +<p>As Joe had said, he was not religious, according to catechisms and creeds. He could not have qualified in the least +exacting of the many faiths. All the religion that he had was of his own making, for his mother’s was altogether +too ferocious in its punishments and too dun and foggy in its rewards for him.</p> + +<p>He read the Bible, and he believed most of it. There was as much religion, said he, in the Commandments as a man +needed; a man could get on with that much very well. Beyond that he did not trouble.</p> + +<p>He read the adventures of David and the lamentations of Jeremiah, and the lofty exhortations of Isaiah for the +sonority of the phrasing, the poetry and beauty. For he had not been sated by many tales nor blunted by many books. If +he could manage to live according to the Commandments, he sometimes told his mother, he would not feel uneasy over a +better way to die. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span></p> + +<p>But he was not giving this matter much thought as he emptied the swill-pails to the chortling hogs. He was thinking +about the red in Ollie’s cheeks, like the breast of a bright bird seen through the leaves, and of her quick +flight up the path. It was a new Ollie that he had discovered that morning, one unknown and unspoken to before that +day. But why had her face grown red that way, he wondered? Why had she run away?</p> + +<p>And Ollie, over her smoking pan on the kitchen stove, was thinking that something might be established in the way of +comradeship between herself and the bound boy, after all. It took him a long time to get acquainted, she thought; but +his friendship might be all the more stable for that. There was comfort in it; as she worked she smiled.</p> + +<p>There was no question of the need in which Ollie stood of friendship, sympathy, and kind words. Joe had been in that +house six months, and in that time he had witnessed more pain than he believed one small woman’s heart could +bear. While he was not sure that Isom ever struck his wife, he knew that he tortured her in endless combinations of +cruelty, and pierced her heart with a thousand studied pangs. Often, when the house was still and Isom was asleep, he +heard her moaning and sobbing, her head on the kitchen table.</p> + +<p>These bursts of anguish were not the sudden gusts of a pettish woman’s passion, but the settled sorrow of one +who suffered without hope. Many a time Joe tiptoed to the bottom of the staircase in his bare feet and looked at her, +the moonlight dim in the cheerless kitchen, her head a dark blotch upon the whiteness of her arms, bowed there in her +grief. Often he longed to go to her with words of comfort and let her know that there was one at least who pitied her +hard fate and sad disillusionment.</p> + +<p>In those times of tribulation Joe felt that they could be of mutual help and comfort if they could bring themselves +to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span> speak, for he suffered also the pangs of imprisonment +and the longings for liberty in that cruel house of bondage. Yet he always turned and went softly, almost breathlessly, +back to his bed, leaving her to sob and cry alone in the struggle of her hopeless sorrow.</p> + +<p>It was a harder matter to keep his hands from the gristly throat of grim old Isom Chase, slumbering unfeelingly in +his bed while his young wife shredded her heart between the burr-stones of his cruel mill. Joe had many an hour of +struggle with himself, lying awake, his hot temples streaming sweat, his eyes staring at the ribs of the roof.</p> + +<p>During those months Joe had set and hardened. The muscles had thickened over his chest and arms; his neck was losing +the long scragginess of youth; his fingers were firm-jointed in his broadening hands. He knew that Isom Chase was no +match for him, man to man.</p> + +<p>But, for all his big body and great strength, he was only a boy in his sense of justice, in his hot, primitive +desire to lunge out quickly and set the maladjustments of that household straight. He did not know that there was a +thing as old as the desires of men at the bottom of Ollie’s sorrow, nor understand the futility of chastisement +in the case of Isom Chase.</p> + +<p>Isom was as far as ever from his hope of a son or heir of any description–although he could not conceive the +possibility of fathering a female child–and his bitter reproaches fell on Ollie, as they had fallen upon and +blasted the woman who had trudged that somber course before her into the grateful shelter of the grave. It was a thing +which Ollie could not discuss with young Joe, a thing which only a sympathetic mother might have lightened the +humiliation of or eased with tender counsel.</p> + +<p>Isom, seeing that the book of his family must close with him, expelled the small grain of tenderness that his dry +heart <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span> had held for his wife at the beginning, and counted +her now nothing but another back to bear his burdens. He multiplied her tasks, and snarled and snapped, and more than +once in those work-crowded autumn days, when she had lagged in her weariness, he had lifted his hand to strike. The day +would come when that threatened blow would fall; of that Ollie had no consoling doubt. She did not feel that she would +resent it, save in an addition to her accumulated hate, for hard labor by day and tears by night break the spirit until +the flints of cruelty no longer wake its fire.</p> + +<p>Day after day, as he worked by the side of Isom in the fields, Joe had it foremost in his mind to speak to him of +his unjust treatment of his wife. Yet he hung back out of the Oriental conception which he held, due to his Scriptural +reading, of that relationship between woman and man. A man’s wife was his property in a certain, broad sense. It +would seem unwarranted by any measure of excess short of murder for another to interfere between them. Joe held his +peace, therefore, but with internal ferment and unrest.</p> + +<p>It was in those days of Joe’s disquietude that Ollie first spoke to him of Isom’s oppressions. The +opportunity fell a short time after their early morning meeting in the path. Isom had gone to town with a load of +produce, and Joe and Ollie had the dinner alone for the first time since he had been under that roof.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s eyes were red and swollen from recent weeping, her face was mottled from her tears. Much trouble had +made her careless of late of her prettiness, and now she was disheveled, her apron awry around her waist, her hair +mussed, her whole aspect one of slovenly disregard. Her depression was so great that Joe was moved to comfort her.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got a hard time of it,” said he. “If there’s anything I can do to help you I +wish you’d let me know.”</p> + +<p>Ollie slung a dish carelessly upon the table, and followed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_60'></a>60</span> it with Joe’s coffee, which she slopped half out into the saucer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I feel just like I don’t care any more!” said she, her lips trembling, tears starting again +in her irritated eyes. “I get treatment here that no decent man would give a dog!”</p> + +<p>Joe felt small and young in Ollie’s presence, due to the fact that she was older by a year at least than +himself.</p> + +<p>That feeling of littleness had been one of his peculiarities as long as he could remember when there were others +about older than himself, and supposed from that reason to be graver and wiser. It probably had its beginning in +Joe’s starting out rather spindling and undersized, and not growing much until he was ten or thereabout, when he +took a sudden shoot ahead, like a water-sprout on an apple-tree.</p> + +<p>And then he always had regarded matrimony as a state of gravity and maturity, into which the young and +unsophisticated did not venture. This feeling seemed to place between them in Joe’s mind a boundless gulf, across +which he could offer her only the sympathy and assistance of a boy. There was nothing in his mind of sympathy from an +equality of years and understanding, only the chivalric urging of succor to the oppressed.</p> + +<p>“It’s a low-down way for a man to treat a woman, especially his wife,” said Joe, his indignation +mounting at sight of her tears.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and he’d whip you, too, if he dared to do it,” said she, sitting in Isom’s place at +the end of the table, where she could look across into Joe’s face. “I can see that in him when he watches +you eat.”</p> + +<p>“I hope he’ll never try it,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“You’re not afraid of him?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe not,” admitted Joe.</p> + +<p>“Then why do you say you hope he’ll never try it?” she pressed. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, because I do,” said Joe, bending over his plate.</p> + +<p>“I’d think you’d be glad if he did try it, so you could pay him off for his meanness,” she +said.</p> + +<p>Joe looked across at her seriously.</p> + +<p>“Did he slap you this morning?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Ollie turned her head, making no reply.</p> + +<p>“I thought I heard you two scuffling around in the kitchen as I came to the porch with the milk,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell it around!” she appealed, her eyes big and terrified at the recollection of what had +passed. “No, he didn’t hit me, Joe; but he choked me. He grabbed me by the throat and shook me–his +old hand’s as hard as iron!”</p> + +<p>Joe had noticed that she wore a handkerchief pinned around her neck. As she spoke she put her hand to her throat, +and her tears gushed again.</p> + +<p>“That’s no way for a man to treat his wife,” said Joe indignantly.</p> + +<p>“If you knew everything–<i>if you knew everything</i>!” said she.</p> + +<p>Joe, being young, and feeling younger, could not see how she was straining to come to a common footing of +understanding with him, to reach a plane where his sympathy would be a balm. He could not realize that her orbit of +thought was similar to his own, that she was nearer a mate for him, indeed, than for hairy-limbed, big-jointed Isom +Chase, with his grizzled hair and beard.</p> + +<p>“It was all over a little piece of ribbon I bought yesterday when I took the eggs up to the store,” she +explained. “I got two cents a dozen more than I expected for them, and I put the extra money into a +ribbon–only half a yard. Here it is,” said she, taking it from the cupboard; “I wanted it to wear on +my neck.”</p> + +<p>She held it against her swathed throat with a little unconscious play of coquetry, a sad smile on her lips. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span></p> + +<p>“It’s nice, and becoming to you, too,” said Joe, speaking after the manner of the countryside +etiquette on such things.</p> + +<p>“Isom said I ought to have put the money into a package of soda, and when I wouldn’t fuss with him about +it, that made him madder and madder. And then he–he–did that!”</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t think Isom would mind ten cents,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“He’d mind one cent,” said she in bitter disdain. “One cent–<i>huh</i>! he’d +mind one egg! Some people might not believe it, but I tell you, Joe, that man counts the eggs every day, and he weighs +every pound of butter I churn. If I wanted to, even, I couldn’t hide away a pound of butter or a dozen of eggs +any more than I could hide away that stove.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t suppose Isom means to be hard on you or anybody,” said Joe. “It’s his way +to be close and stingy, and he may do better by you one of these days.”</p> + +<p>“No, he’ll never do any better,” she sighed. “If anything, he’ll do worse–if he +can do any worse. I look for him to strike me next!”</p> + +<p>“He’d better not try that when I’m around!” said Joe hotly.</p> + +<p>“What would you do to him, Joe?” she asked, her voice lowered almost to a whisper. She leaned eagerly +toward him as she spoke, a flush on her face.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’d stop him, I guess,” said Joe deliberately, as if he had considered his words. As he +spoke he reached down for his hat, which he always placed on the floor beside his chair when he took his meals.</p> + +<p>“If there was a soul in this world that cared for me–if I had anywhere to go, I’d leave him this +hour!” declared Ollie, her face burning with the hate of her oppressor.</p> + +<p>Joe got up from his chair and left the table; she rose with him and came around the side. He stopped on his way to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span> the door, looking at her with awkward bashfulness as she +stood there flushed and brilliant in her tossed state, scarcely a yard between them.</p> + +<p>“But there’s nobody in the world that cares for me,” she complained sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>Joe was lifting his hat to his head. Midway he stayed his hand, his face blank with surprise.</p> + +<p>“Why, you’ve got your mother, haven’t you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Mother!” she repeated scornfully. “She’d drive me back to him; she was crazy for me to +marry him, for she thinks I’ll get all his property and money when he dies.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he may die before long,” consoled Joe.</p> + +<p>“Die!” said she; and again, “Die! He’ll never die!”</p> + +<p>She leaned toward him suddenly, bringing her face within a few inches of his. Her hot breath struck him on the +cheek; it moved the clustered hair at his temple and played warm in the doorway of his ear.</p> + +<p>“He’ll never die,” she repeated in low, quick voice, which fell to a whisper in the end, +“unless somebody he’s tramped on and ground down and cursed and driven puts him out of the way!”</p> + +<p>Joe stood looking at her with big eyes, dead to that feminine shock which would have tingled a mature man to the +marrow, insensible to the strong effort she was making to wake him and draw him to her. He drew back from her, a little +frightened, a good deal ashamed, troubled, and mystified.</p> + +<p>“Why, you don’t suppose anybody would do that?” said he.</p> + +<p>Ollie turned from him, the fire sinking down in her face.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; I don’t suppose so,” she said, a little distant and cold in her manner.</p> + +<p>She began gathering up the dishes.</p> + +<p>Joe stood there for a little while, looking at her hands as <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_64'></a>64</span> they flew from plate to plate like white butterflies, as if something had stirred in him that +he did not understand. Presently he went his way to take up his work, no more words passing between them.</p> + +<p>Ollie, from under her half raised lids, watched him go, tiptoeing swiftly after him to the door as he went down the +path toward the well. Her breath was quick upon her lips; her breast was agitated. If that slow hunk could be warmed +with a man’s passions and desires; if she could wake him; if she could fling fire into his heart! He was only a +boy, the man in him just showing its strong face behind that mask of wild, long hair. It lay there waiting to move him +in ways yet strange to his experience. If she might send her whisper to that still slumbering force and charge it into +life a day before its time!</p> + +<p>She stood with hand upon the door, trailing him with her eyes as he passed on to the barn. She felt that she had all +but reached beyond the insulation of his adolescence in that burning moment when her breath was on his cheek; she knew +that the wood, even that hour, was warm under the fire. What might a whisper now, a smile then, a kindness, a word, a +hand laid softly upon his hair, work in the days to come?</p> + +<p>She turned back to her work, her mind stirred out of its sluggish rut, the swirl of her new thoughts quickening in +her blood. Isom Chase would not die; he would live on and on, harder, drier, stingier year by year, unless a bolt from +heaven withered him or the hand of man laid him low. What might come to him, he deserved, even the anguish of death +with a strangling cord about his neck; even the strong blow of an ax as he slept on his bed, snatching from him the +life that he had debased of all its beauty, without the saving chance of repentance in the end.</p> + +<p>She had thought of doing it with her own hand; a hundred ways she had planned and contrived it in her mind, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span> goaded on nearer and nearer to it by his inhuman +oppressions day by day. But her heart had recoiled from it as a task for the hand of a man. If a man could be raised up +to it, a man who had suffered servitude with her, a man who would strike for the double vengeance, and the love of her +in his heart!</p> + +<p>She went to the door again, gripping the stove-lid lifter in her little hand, as the jangle of harness came to her +when Joe passed with the team. He rode by toward the field, the sun on his broad back, slouching forward as his heavy +horses plodded onward. The man in him was asleep yet, yes; but there was a pit of fire as deep as a volcano’s +throat in his slumbering soul.</p> + +<p>If she could lift him up to it, if she could pluck the heart out of him and warm it in her own hot breast, then +there would stand the man for her need. For Isom Chase would not die. He would live on and on, like a worm in wood, +until some strong hand fed him to the flames.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_4'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span> +<h2>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>A STRANGER AT THE GATE</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Rain overtook Isom as he was driving home from town that evening, and rain was becoming one of the few things in +this world from which he would flee. It aggravated the rheumatism in his knotted toes and stabbed his knee-joints with +awl-piercing pains.</p> + +<p>For upward of forty-five years Isom had been taking the rains as they came wherever they might find him. It made him +growl to turn tail to them now, and trot to shelter from every shower like a hen.</p> + +<p>So he was in no sweet humor as he drew near his own barn-yard gate with the early autumn downpour already finding +its way through his coat. It came to him as he approached that portal of his domain that if he had a son the boy would +be there, with the gate flung wide, to help him. It was only one of the thousand useful offices which a proper boy +could fill around that place, thought he; but his wives had conspired in barrenness against him; no son ever would come +to cheer his declining days.</p> + +<p>Even if he had the kind of a wife that a man should have, reflected he, she would be watching; she would come +through rain and hail, thunder and wild blast, to open the gate and ease him through without that troublesome stop.</p> + +<p>Matrimony had been a profitless investment for him, said he in bitterness. His first wife had lived long and eaten +ravenously, and had worn out shoes and calico slips, and his second, a poor unwilling hand, was not worth her keep.</p> + +<p>So, with all this sour summing up of his wasted ventures in his mind, and the cold rain spitting through his +years-worn <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span> coat, Isom was in no humor to debate the way +with another man when it came to entering into his own property through his own wide gate.</p> + +<p>But there was another man in the road, blocking it with his top-buggy, one foot out on the step, his head thrust +around the side of the hood with inquiring look, as if he also felt that there should be somebody at hand to open the +gate and let him pass without muddying his feet.</p> + +<p>“Ho!” called Isom uncivilly, hailing the stranger as he pulled up his team, the end of his wagon-tongue +threatening the hood of the buggy; “what do you want here?”</p> + +<p>The stranger put his head out a bit farther and twisted his neck to look behind. He did not appear to know Isom, any +more than Isom knew him, but there was the surliness of authority, the inhospitality of ownership, in Isom’s +mien, and it was the business of the man in the buggy to know men at a glance. He saw that Isom was the landlord, and +he gave him a nod and smile.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to get shelter for my horse and buggy for the night, and lodging for myself,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you pay for it I reckon you can git it,” returned Isom. “Pile out there and open that +gate.”</p> + +<p>That was the way that Curtis Morgan, advance agent of the divine light of literature, scout of knowledge, +torch-bearer of enlightenment into the dark places of ignorance, made his way into the house of Isom Chase, and found +himself in due time at supper in the low-ceiled kitchen, with pretty Ollie, like a bright bead in a rusty purse, +bringing hot biscuits from the oven and looking him over with a smile.</p> + +<p>Curtis Morgan was a slim and limber man, with a small head and a big mouth, a most flexible and plastic organ. +Morgan wore a mustache which was cut back to stubs, giving his face a grubby look about the nose. His light hair was +short and thick, curling in little love-locks about his ears. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_68'></a>68</span></p> + +<p>Morgan sold books. He would put you in a set of twenty-seven volumes of the <i>History of the World</i> for +fifty-three dollars, or he would open his valise and sell you a ready-reckoner for six bits. He carried <i>Household +Compendiums of Useful Knowledge</i> and <i>Medical Advisers</i>; he had poultry guides and horse books, and books on +bees, and if he couldn’t sell you one thing he would sell you another, unless you were a worm, or a greased pig, +and able, by some extraordinary natural or artificial attribute, to slip out of his hands.</p> + +<p>As has been the case with many a greater man before him, Morgan’s most profitable business was done in his +smallest article of trade. In the country where men’s lives were counted too short for all the work they had to +do, they didn’t have any time for histories of the world and no interest in them, anyhow. The world was to them +no more than they could see of it, and the needs of their lives and their longings–save in some adventurer who +developed among them now and then–went no farther than the limit of their vision.</p> + +<p>The ready-reckoner was, therefore, the money-maker for Morgan, who seemed to carry an inexhaustible supply. It told +a farm-hand what his pay amounted to by days and hours down to the fraction of a cent; it told the farmer what the +interest on his note would be; it showed how to find out how many bushels of corn there were in a crib without +measuring the contents, and how many tons of hay a stack contained; it told how to draw up a will and write a deed, and +make liniment for the mumps.</p> + +<p>Isom drew all this information out of his guest at supper, and it did not require much effort to set the sap +flowing.</p> + +<p>Morgan talked to Isom and looked at Ollie; he asked Joe a question, and cocked his eye on Ollie’s face as if +he expected to find the answer there; he pronounced shallow platitudes of philosophy aiming them at Isom, but looking +at Ollie for approval or dissent. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span></p> + +<p>Isom appeared to take rather kindly to him, if his unusual volubility indicated the state of his feelings. He asked +Morgan a great deal about his business, and how he liked it, and whether he made any money at it. Morgan leaned back on +the hinder legs of his chair, having finished his supper, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his goose-quill pick. +He winked at Isom on the footing of one shrewd man to another as he applied the quill to his big white teeth.</p> + +<p>“Well, I pay my way,” said he.</p> + +<p>There was a great deal back of the simple words; there was an oily self-satisfaction, and there was a vast amount of +portentous reserve. Isom liked it; he nodded, a smile moving his beard. It did him good to meet a man who could get +behind the sham skin of the world, and take it by the heels, and turn it a stunning fall.</p> + +<p>Next morning, the sun being out again and the roads promising to dry speedily, Morgan hitched up and prepared to set +out on his flaming path of enlightenment. Before going he made a proposal to Isom to use that place as headquarters for +a week or two, while he covered the country lying about.</p> + +<p>Anything that meant profit to Isom looked good and fitting in his eyes. The feeding of another mouth would entail +little expense, and so the bargain was struck. Morgan was to have his breakfast and supper each day, and provender for +his horse, at the rate of four dollars a week, payable in advance.</p> + +<p>Morgan ran over his compendiums and horse books, but Isom was firm for cash; he suggested at least one +ready-reckoner on account, but Isom had no need of that. Isom could guess to a hundredweight the contents of a stack of +hay, and there never was a banker in this world that could outfigure him on interest. He had no more need for a +ready-reckoner than a centipede has of legs. Morgan, seeing that nothing but money would talk there, produced the +week’s <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span> charge on the spot, and drove off to his +day’s canvassing well satisfied.</p> + +<p>Morgan had not been a paying guest in that house two days before the somber domestic tragedy that it roofed was as +plain to him as if he had it printed and bound, and in his valise along with the compendiums of his valuable +assortment.</p> + +<p>He found it pleasant to return to the farm early of an afternoon and sit in the kitchen door with his pipe, and +watch Ollie’s face clear of clouds as he talked. Consolation and cheer were strangers to her heart; it required +no words from her to tell Morgan that.</p> + +<p>Her blushing gratitude for small offices of assistance, such as fetching a pail of water or a basket of garden +greens, repaid Morgan all that he missed in sales by cutting short his business day just for the pleasure of returning +and talking with her.</p> + +<p>Isom was too self-centered, and unconscious of his wife’s uncommon prettiness, to be jealous or suspicious of +Morgan’s late goings or early returns. If a man wanted to pay him four dollars a week for the pleasure of +carrying up water, cutting stove-wood or feeding the calves, the fool was welcome to do it as long as his money +held.</p> + +<p>So it was that old Isom, blind and deaf and money-mad, set with his own hand and kindled with his own breath, the +insidious spark which trustful fools before his day have seen leap into flame and strip them of honor before the eyes +of men.</p> + +<p>Morgan made a long stay of it in that section, owing to the density of the population, he claimed, and the proximity +of several villages which he could reach in a few miles’ drive. He was in his third week when Isom was summoned +on jury service to the county seat.</p> + +<p>Twelve dollars had passed from the book agent’s hands into Isom’s, and Isom grinned over it as the +easiest money <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span> that it ever had been his pleasure to +collect. He put it away with his savings, which never had earned interest for a banker, and turned the care of the farm +over to Joe.</p> + +<p>Jury service at the county seat was an uncertain thing. It might last a day, and then it might tie a man up for two +or three weeks, but Isom was able to leave home with a more comfortable feeling than ever before. He had a trustworthy +servant to leave behind him, one in whose hands everything would be safe, under whose energy and conscientious effort +nothing would drag or fall behind.</p> + +<p>Isom felt that he could very well afford to spread on a little soft-soap, as flattery was provincially called, and +invest Joe with a greater sense of his responsibility, if possible. When occasion required, Isom could rise to flattery +as deftly as the best of them. It was an art at which his tongue was wonderfully facile, considering the fact that he +mingled so seldom with men in the outside doings of life. His wits had no foil to whet against and grow sharp, save the +hard substance of his own inflexible nature, for he was born with that shrewd faculty for taking men “on the +blind side,” as they used to call that trick in Missouri.</p> + +<p>“I’m turnin’ the whole farm over to you to look after like it was your own while I’m +away,” said he, “and I’m doing it with the feeling that it’s in worthy hands. I know +you’re not the boy to shirk on me when my back’s turned, for you never tried to do it to my face. You stand +by me, Joe, and I’ll stand by you; you’ll never lose anything by it in the end.</p> + +<p>“I may be a crabbed old feller once in a while, and snarl around some, but my bark’s worse than my bite, +you know that by this time. So I’ll put everything in your hands, with a feeling that it’ll be looked after +just the same as if I was here.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do the best I can by you,” promised Joe, his generous heart warming to Isom a little in +spite of past indignities, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span> and the fact that Joe knew very +well the old man’s talk was artful pretense.</p> + +<p>“I know you will,” said Isom, patting his shoulder in fatherly approbation. “In case I’m +held over there a week, you keep your eye on that agent, and don’t let him stay here a day overtime without +another week’s board in advance.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll attend to him,” promised Joe.</p> + +<p>Isom’s hand had lingered a minute on Joe’s shoulder while he talked, and the old man’s +satisfaction over the depth of muscle that he felt beneath it was great. He stood looking Joe over with quick-shifting, +calculating eyes, measuring him in every part, from flank to hock, like a farrier. He was gratified to see how Joe had +filled out in the past six months. If he had paid for a colt and been delivered a draft-horse, his surprise would not +have been more pleasant.</p> + +<p>As it was, he had bargained for the services of a big-jointed, long-boned lad, and found himself possessed of a man. +The fine part of it was that he had nearly two years more of service at ten dollars a month coming from Joe, who was +worth twenty of any man’s money, and could command it, just as he stood. That was business, that was +bargaining.</p> + +<p>Isom’s starved soul distended over it; the feeling was warm in his veins, like a gill of home-made brandy. He +had him, bound body and limb, tied in a corner from which he could not escape, to send and call, to fetch and carry, +for the better part of two good, profitable years.</p> + +<p>As Isom rode away he rubbed his dry, hard hands above his saddle-horn, feeling more comfortable than he had felt for +many a day. He gloated over the excellent bargain that he had made with the Widow Newbolt; he grinned at the roots of +his old rusty beard. If ever a man poked himself in the ribs in the excess of self-felicitation, Isom Chase did it as +he rode along on his old buckskin horse that autumn morning, with the sun just lifting over the hill. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span></p> + +<p>It was an excellent thing, indeed, for a patriot to serve his country once in a while on a jury, thought Isom, +especially when that patriot had been shrewd in his dealings with the widow and orphan, and had thus secured himself +against loss at home while his country called him abroad. Jury duty was nothing but a pleasant season of relaxation in +such case.</p> + +<p>There would be mileage and <i>per diem</i>, and the state would bear the expense of lodging and meals in the event +of his being drawn out of the panel to serve in some long criminal case. Mileage and <i>per diem</i> would come in very +nicely, in addition to the four dollars a week that loose-handed book agent was paying. For the first time in his life +when called upon for jury service, Isom went to meet it with no sourness in his face. Mileage and <i>per diem</i>, but +best of all, a great strong man left at home in his place; one to be trusted in and depended upon; one who would do +both his master’s work and his own.</p> + +<p>Joe had no such pleasant cogitations to occupy his mind as he bent his long back to assume the double burden when +Isom went away. For many days he had been unquiet with a strange, indefinable unrest, like the yearn of a wild-fowl +when the season comes for it to wing away to southern seas. Curtis Morgan was behind that strong, wild feeling; he was +the urge of it, and the fuel of its fire.</p> + +<p>Why it was so, Joe did not know, although he struggled in his reason to make it clear. For many days, almost from +the first, Joe had felt that Morgan should not be in that house; that his pretext of lingering there on business was a +blind too thin to deceive anybody but Isom. Anybody could deceive Isom if he would work his scheme behind a dollar. It +was a shield beyond which Isom could not see, and had no wish to inquire.</p> + +<p>Joe did not like those late starts which Morgan made of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span> +a morning, long after he and Isom were in the field, nor the early homings, long before they came in to do the chores. +Joe left the house each morning with reluctance, after Isom’s departure, lingering over little things, finding +hitherto undiscovered tasks to keep him about in the presence of Ollie, and to throw him between her and the talkative +boarder, who seemed always hanging at her heels. Since their talk at dinner on the day that Morgan came, Joe had felt a +new and deep interest in Ollie, and held for her an unaccountable feeling of friendliness.</p> + +<p>This feeling had been fed, for a few days, by Ollie, who found odd minutes to talk with him as she had not talked +before, and by small attentions and kindnesses. She had greeted him in the morning with smiles, where her face once +wore the sad mask of misery; and she had touched his hand sometimes, with encouraging or commending caress.</p> + +<p>Joe had yielded to her immediately the unreserved loyalty of his unsophisticated soul. The lot of his bondage was +lightened by this new tie, the prospect of the unserved term under Isom was not so forbidding now. And now this fellow +Morgan had stepped between them, in some manner beyond his power to define. It was as one who beholds a shadow fall +across his threshold, which he can neither pick up nor cast away.</p> + +<p>Ollie had no more little attentions for Joe, but endless solicitude for Morgan’s comfort; no more full smiles +for him, but only the reflections of those which beamed for the chattering lounger who made a pretense of selling books +while he made love to another man’s wife.</p> + +<p>It was this dim groping after the truth, and his half-conception of it, that rendered Joe miserable. He did not +fully understand what Morgan was about, but it was plain to him that the man had no honest purpose there. He could not +repeat his fears to Isom, for Isom’s wrath and correction <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_75'></a>75</span> would fall on Ollie. Now he was left in charge of his master’s house, his lands, his +livestock, and <i>his honor</i>.</p> + +<p>The vicarious responsibility rested on him with serious weight. Knowing what he knew, and seeing what he saw, should +he allow things to proceed as they had been going? Would he be true to the trust that Isom had placed in him with his +parting word in standing aside and knowingly permitting this man to slip in and poison the heart of Isom’s +wife?</p> + +<p>She was lonely and oppressed, and hungry for kind words, but it was not this stranger’s office to make green +the barrenness of her life. He was there, the bondboy, responsible to his master for his acts. She might come to him +for sympathy, and go away with honor. But with this other, this man whose pale eyes shifted and darted like a botfly +around a horse’s ear, could she drink his counsel and remain undefiled?</p> + +<p>Joe thought it up and down as he worked in the field near the house that morning, and his face grew hot and his eyes +grew fevered, and his resentment against Morgan rose in his throat.</p> + +<p>He watched to see the man drive away on his canvassing round, but the sun passed nine o’clock and he did not +go. He had no right there, alone in the house with that woman, putting, who could say, what evil into her heart.</p> + +<p>Ten o’clock and the agent’s buggy had not left the barn. Joe could contain himself no longer. He was at +work in a little stony piece of late clover, so rough he did not like to risk the mower in it. For three hours he had +been laying the tumbled swaths in winding tracks across the field, and he had a very good excuse for going to the well, +indeed. Coupled with that was the need of a whet-rock, and behind it all the justification of his position. He was +there in his master’s place; he must watch and guard the honor of his house. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_76'></a>76</span></p> + +<p>Joe could not set out on that little trip without a good deal of moral cudgeling when it came to the point, although +he threw down his scythe with a muttered curse on his lips for the man who was playing such an underhanded game.</p> + +<p>It was on Ollie’s account he hesitated. Ollie would think that he suspected her, when there was nothing +farther from his mind. It was Morgan who would set the snare for her to trip into, and it was Morgan that he was going +to send about his business. But Ollie might take offense and turn against him, and make it as unpleasant as she had +shown that she could make it agreeable.</p> + +<p>But duty was stronger than friendship. It was stern and implacable, and there was no pleasant road to take around it +and come out with honor at the other end.</p> + +<p>Joe made as much noise as he could with his big feet–and that was no inconsiderable amount–as he +approached the house. But near the building the grass was long, and soft underfoot, and it bore Joe around to the +kitchen window silently. His lips were too dry to whistle; his heart was going too fast to carry a tune.</p> + +<p>He paused a little way beyond the window, which stood open with the sun falling through it, listening for the sound +of their voices. It was strangely silent for a time when the book-agent was around.</p> + +<p>Joe went on, his shadow breaking the sunbeam which whitened the kitchen floor. There was a little quick start as he +came suddenly to the kitchen door; a hurried stir of feet. As he stepped upon the porch he saw Morgan in the door, +Ollie not a yard behind him, their hands just breaking their clasp. Joe knew in his heart that Morgan had been holding +her in his arms.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s face was flushed, her hair was disturbed. Her bosom rose and fell like troubled water, her eyes were +brighter than Joe ever had seen them. Even Morgan was different, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_77'></a>77</span> sophisticated and brazen that he was. A flash of red showed on his cheekbones and under his +eyes; his thin nostrils were panting like gills.</p> + +<p>Joe stood there, one foot on the porch, the other on the ground, as blunt as honesty, as severe as honor. There was +nothing in his face that either of them could read to indicate what was surging in his breast. He had caught them, and +they wondered if he had sense enough to know.</p> + +<p>Joe pushed his hat back from his sweating forehead and looked inquiringly at Morgan.</p> + +<p>“Your horse sick, or something?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Morgan, turning his back on Joe with a little jerk of contempt in his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Well, I think he must be down, or something,” said Joe, “for I heard a racket in the +barn.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you go and see what was the matter?” demanded Morgan crossly, snatching his hat from +the table.</p> + +<p>Ollie was drowned in a confusion of blushes. She stood hanging her head, but Joe saw the quick turn of her eyes to +follow Morgan as he went away in long strides toward the barn.</p> + +<p>Joe went to the tool-chest which stood in a corner of the kitchen and busied himself clattering over its contents. +Presently he looked at Ollie, his hand on the open lid of the box.</p> + +<p>“Did you see that long whetstone lying around anywhere, Ollie?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She lifted her head with a little start. Joe never had called her familiarly by her name before. It always had been +“Missis Chase,” distant and respectful.</p> + +<p>“No, I haven’t seen it, Joe,” she answered, the color leaving her cheeks.</p> + +<p>“All right, Ollie,” said he, holding her eyes with steady gaze, until she shifted hers under the pain of +it, and the questioning reproach. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span></p> + +<p>Joe slammed down the lid of the tool-chest, as if with the intention of making as much noise as possible.</p> + +<p>There was something in the way he had spoken her name that was stranger than the circumstance itself. Perhaps she +felt the authority and the protection which Joe meant that his voice should assume; perhaps she understood that it was +the word of a man. She was afraid of him at that moment, as she never had been afraid of Isom in all their married +life.</p> + +<p>“I suppose Isom put it away somewhere around the barn,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Maybe he did, Joe.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go down there and see if I can find it,” he said.</p> + +<p>Ollie knew, as well as Joe himself, that he was making the whetstone the vehicle to carry his excuse for watching +Morgan away from the farm, but she was not certain whether this sudden shrewdness was the deep understanding of a man, +or the domineering spirit of a crude lad, jealous of his passing authority.</p> + +<p>The uncertainty troubled her. She watched him from the door and saw him approach Morgan, where he was backing his +horse into the shafts.</p> + +<p>“All right, is he?” asked Joe, stopping a moment.</p> + +<p>Morgan was distant.</p> + +<p>“I guess he’ll live another day, don’t worry about him,” said he, in surly voice.</p> + +<p>“What time do you aim to be back today?” pursued Joe, entirely unmoved by Morgan’s show of +temper.</p> + +<p>“Say, I’ll set up a bulletin board with my time-table on it if you’ve got to have it, Mr. +Overseer!” said Morgan, looking up from the buckling of a shaft-strap, his face coloring in anger.</p> + +<p>“Well, you don’t need to get huffy over it.”</p> + +<p>“Mind your business then,” Morgan growled. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_79'></a>79</span></p> + +<p>He didn’t wait to discuss the matter farther, but got into the buggy without favoring Joe with as much as +another glance, gave his horse a vindictive lash with the whip and drove off, leaving the gate open behind him.</p> + +<p>Joe shut it, and turned back to his mowing.</p> + +<p>Many a time he paused that morning in his labor, leaning on the snath of his scythe, in a manner of abstraction and +seeming indolence altogether strange to him. There was a scene, framed by the brown casing of the kitchen door, with +two figures in it, two clinging hands, which persisted in its disturbing recurrence in his troubled mind.</p> + +<p>Ollie was on dangerous ground. How far she had advanced, he did not know, but not yet, he believed, to the place +where the foulness of Morgan had defiled her beyond cleansing. It was his duty as the guardian of his master’s +house to watch her, even to warn her, and to stop her before she went too far.</p> + +<p>Once he put down his scythe and started to go to the house, his mind full of what he felt it his duty to say.</p> + +<p>Then there rose up that feeling of disparity between matron and youth which had held him at a distance from Ollie +before. He turned back to his work with a blush upon his sun-scorched face, and felt ashamed. But it was not a thing to +be deferred until after the damage had been done. He must speak to her that day, perhaps when he should go in for +dinner. So he said.</p> + +<p>Ollie seemed self-contained and uncommunicative at dinner. Joe thought she was a little out of humor, or that she +was falling back into her old gloomy way, from which she had emerged, all smiles and dimples, like a new and youthful +creature, on the coming of Morgan. He thought, too, that this might be her way of showing her resentment of the +familiarity that he had taken in calling her by her name.</p> + +<p>The feeling of deputy-mastership was no longer important upon his shoulders. He shrank down in his chair with a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span> sense of drawing in, like a snail, while he burned with +humiliation and shame. The pinnacle of manhood was too slippery for his clumsy feet; he had plumped down from its +altitudes as swiftly as he had mounted that morning under the spur of duty. He was a boy, and felt that he was a boy, +and far, far from being anything nobler, or stronger, or better qualified to give saving counsel to a woman older, if +not wiser, than himself.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was Ollie’s purpose to inspire such feeling, and to hold Joe in his place. She was neither so dull, +nor so unpractised in the arts of coquetry, to make such a supposition improbable.</p> + +<p>It was only when Joe sighted Morgan driving back to the farm late in the afternoon that his feeling of authority +asserted itself again, and lifted him up to the task before him. He must let her understand that he knew of what was +going on between them. A few words would suffice, and they must be spoken before Morgan entered the house again to pour +his poison into her ears.</p> + +<p>Ollie was churning that afternoon, standing at her task close by the open door. Joe came past the window, as he had +crossed it that morning, his purpose hot upon him, his long legs measuring the ground in immense, swift steps. He +carried his hat in his hand, for the day was one of those with the pepper of autumn in it which puts the red in the +apple’s cheeks.</p> + +<p>Ollie heard him approaching; her bare arm stayed the stroke of the churn-dasher as she looked up. Her face was +bright, a smile was in her eyes, revealing the clear depths of them, and the life and the desires that issued out of +them, like the waters of a spring in the sun. She was moist and radiant in the sweat of her labor, and clean and fresh +and sweet to see.</p> + +<p>Her dress was parted back from her bosom to bare it to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span> +the refreshment of the breeze, and her skin was as white as the cream on the dasher, and the crimson of her cheeks +blended down upon her neck, as if the moisture of her brow had diffused its richness, and spread its beauty there.</p> + +<p>She looked at Joe, halted suddenly like a post set upright in the ground, stunned by the revelation of the plastic +beauty of neck and bare bosom, and, as their eyes met, she smiled, lifted one white arm and pushed back a straying lock +of hair.</p> + +<p>Joe’s tongue lay cold, and numb as wood against his palate; no word would come to it; it would not move. The +wonder of a new beauty in God’s created things was deep upon him; a warm fountain rose in him and played and +tossed, with a new and pleasurable thrill. He saw and admired, but he was not ashamed.</p> + +<p>All that he had come to say to her was forgotten, all that he had framed to speak as he bore hastily on toward the +house had evaporated from his heated brain. A new world turned its bright colors before his eyes, a new breadth of life +had been revealed, it seemed to him. In the pleasure of his discovery he stood with no power in him but to tremble and +stare.</p> + +<p>The flush deepened in Ollie’s cheeks. She understood what was moving in his breast, for it is given to her +kind to know man before he knows himself. She feigned surprise to behold him thus stricken, staring and silent, his +face scarlet with the surge of his hot blood.</p> + +<p>With one slow-lifted hand she gathered the edges of her dress together, withdrawing the revealed secret of her +breast.</p> + +<p>“Why, Joe! What are you looking at?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“You,” he answered, his voice dry and hoarse, like that of one who asks for water at the end of a race. +He turned away from her then, saying no more, and passed quickly out of her sight beyond the shrubbery which shouldered +the kitchen wall. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span></p> + +<p>Slowly Ollie lifted the dasher which had settled to the bottom of the churn, and a smile broke upon her lips. As she +went on with the completion of her task, she smiled still, with lips, with eyes, with warm exultation of her strong +young body, as over a triumphant ending of some issue long at balance and undefined.</p> + +<p>Joe went away from the kitchen door in a strange daze of faculties. For that new feeling which leaped in him and +warmed him to the core, and gave him confidence in his strength never before enjoyed, and an understanding of things +hitherto unrevealed, he was glad. But at heart he felt that he was a traitor to the trust imposed in him, and that he +had violated the sanctity of his master’s home.</p> + +<p>Now he knew what it was that had made his cheeks flame in anger and his blood leap in resentment when he saw Ollie +in the door that morning, all flushed and trembling from Morgan’s arms; now he understood why he had lingered to +interpose between them in past days. It was the wild, deep fear of jealousy. He was in love with his master’s +wife! What had been given him to guard, he had looked upon with unholy hunger; that which had been left with him to +treasure, he had defiled with lustful eyes.</p> + +<p>Joe struck across the fields, his work forgotten, now hot with the mounting fires of his newly discovered passion, +now cold with the swelling accusation of a trust betrayed. Jealousy, and not a regard for his master’s honor, had +prompted him to put her on her guard against Morgan. He had himself coveted his neighbor’s wife. He had looked +upon a woman to lust after her, he had committed adultery in his heart. Between him and Morgan there was no redeeming +difference. One was as bad as the other, said Joe. Only this difference; he would stop there, in time, ashamed now of +the offending of his eyes and the trespass of his heart. Ollie did not know. He had not wormed his way into her +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span> heart by pitying her unhappiness, like the false guest who +had emptied his lies into her ears.</p> + +<p>Joe was able to see now how little deserving Isom was of any such blessing as Ollie, how ill-assorted they were by +nature, inclination and age. But God had joined them, for what pains and penances He alone knew, and it was not the +work of any man to put them apart.</p> + +<p>At the edge of a hazel coppice, far away from the farmhouse that sheltered the object of his tender thoughts and +furtive desires, Joe sat among the first fallen leaves of autumn, fighting to clear himself from the perplexities of +that disquieting situation. In the agony of his aching conscience, he bowed his head and groaned.</p> + +<p>A man’s burden of honor had fallen upon him with the disclosure of a man’s desires. His boyhood seemed +suddenly to have gone from him like the light of a lamp blown out by a puff of wind. He felt old, and responsible to +answer now for himself, since the enormity of his offense was plain to his smarting conscience.</p> + +<p>And he was man enough to look after Morgan, too. He would proceed to deal with Morgan on a new basis, himself out of +the calculation entirely. Ollie must be protected against his deceitful wiles, and against herself as well.</p> + +<p>Joe trembled in his newer and clearer understanding of the danger that threatened her as he hastened back to the +barn-yard to take up his neglected chores. The thought that Morgan and Ollie were alone in the house almost threw him +into a fever of panic and haste.</p> + +<p>He must not be guilty of such an oversight again; he must stand like a stern wall between them, and be able to +account for his trust to Isom with unclouded heart.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_5'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span> +<h2>CHAPTER V<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE SECRET OF THE CLOVER</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Until the time he had entered Isom Chase’s house, temptation never had come near Joe Newbolt. He never had +kissed a maiden; he never had felt the quickening elixir of a soft breast pressed against his own. And so it fell that +the sudden conception of what he had unwittingly come to, bore on him with a weight which his sensitive and upright +mind magnified into an enormous and crushing shame. While his intention could bear arraignment and come away with +acquittal, the fact that he had been perverted enough in the grain, as he looked at it, to drift unknowingly into love +with another man’s wife, galled him until his spirit groaned.</p> + +<p>Isom did not return that evening; the conclusion of his household was that he had been chosen on a jury. They +discussed it at supper, Ollie nervously gay, Morgan full of raucous laughter, Joe sober and grudging of his words.</p> + +<p>Joe never had borne much of a hand at the table-talk since Morgan came, and before his advent there was none to +speak of, so his taciturnity that evening passed without a second thought in the minds of Ollie and her guest. They had +words enough for a house full of people, thought Joe, as he saw that for every word from the lips they sent two +speeding from their eyes. That had become a language to which he had found the Rosetta Stone; it was as plain to him +now as Roman text.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Morgan regarded her with an affection as sincere as his own. He did not know; but he felt that it could not +be as blameless, for if Joe had desired her in the uninterpreted <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_85'></a>85</span> passion of his full young heart, he had brought himself up to sudden judgment before the +tribunal of his conscience. It would go no farther. He had put his moral foot down and smothered his unholy desire, as +he would have stamped out a flame.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Joe that there was something in Morgan’s eyes which betrayed his heart. Little gleams of his +underlying purpose which his levity masked, struck Joe from time to time, setting his wits on guard. Morgan must be +watched, like a cat within leaping distance of an unfledged bird. Joe set himself the task of watching, determined then +and there that Morgan should not have one dangerous hour alone with Ollie again until Isom came back and lifted the +responsibility of his wife’s safety from his shoulders.</p> + +<p>For a while after supper that night Joe sat on the bench beside the kitchen door, the grape-vine rustling over his +head, watching Ollie as she went to and fro about her work of clearing away. Morgan was in the door, his back against +the jamb, leisurely smoking his pipe. Once in a while a snoring beetle passed in above his head to join his fellows +around the lamp. As each recruit to the blundering company arrived, Morgan slapped at him as he passed, making Ollie +laugh. On the low, splotched ceiling of the kitchen the flies shifted and buzzed, changing drowsily from place to +place.</p> + +<p>“Isom ought to put screens on the windows and doors,” said Morgan, looking up at the flies.</p> + +<p>“Mosquito bar, you mean?” asked Ollie, throwing him a smile over her shoulder as she passed.</p> + +<p>“No, I mean wire-screens, everybody’s gettin’ ’em in now; I’ve been thinkin’ of +takin’ ’em on as a side-line.”</p> + +<p>“It’ll be a cold day in July when Isom spends any money just to keep <i>flies</i> out of his +house!” said she.</p> + +<p>Morgan laughed. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span></p> + +<p>“Maybe if a person could show him that they eat up a lot of stuff he’d come around to it,” Morgan +said.</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” said Ollie, and both of them had their laugh again.</p> + +<p>Joe moved on the bench, making it creak, an uneasy feeling coming over him. Close as Isom was, and hard-handed and +mean, Joe felt that there was a certain indelicacy in his wife’s discussion of his traits with a stranger.</p> + +<p>Ollie had cleared away the dishes, washed them and placed them in the cupboard, on top of which the one clock of +that household stood, scar-faced, but hoarse-voiced when it struck, and strong as the challenge of an old cock. Already +it had struck nine, for they had been late in coming to supper, owing to Joe’s long set-to with his conscience at +the edge of the hazel-copse in the woods.</p> + +<p>Joe got up, stretching his arms, yawning.</p> + +<p>“Goin’ to bed, heh?” asked Morgan.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t seem to feel sleepy tonight,” Joe replied.</p> + +<p>He went into the kitchen and sat at the table, his elbows on the board, his head in his hands, as if turning over +some difficult problem in his mind. Presently he fell to raking his shaggy hair with his long fingers; in a moment it +was as disorderly as the swaths of clover hay lying out in the moonlight in the little stone-set field.</p> + +<p>Morgan had filled his pipe, and was after a match at the box behind the stove, with the familiarity of a household +inmate. He winked at Ollie, who was then pulling down her sleeves, her long day’s work being done.</p> + +<p>“Well, do you think you’ll be elected?” he asked, lounging across to Joe, his hands in his +pockets.</p> + +<p>Morgan wore a shirt as gay-striped as a Persian tent, and he had removed his coat so the world, or such of it as was +present in the kitchen, might behold it and admire. Joe withdrew his hands from his forelock and looked at Morgan +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span> curiously. The lad’s eyes were sleep-heavy and red, +and he was almost as dull-looking, perhaps, as Morgan imagined him to be.</p> + +<p>“What did you say?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I asked you if you thought you’d be elected this fall,” repeated Morgan, in mock seriousness.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you mean,” said Joe, turning from him indifferently.</p> + +<p>“Why, ain’t you runnin’ for President on the squash-vine ticket?” asked Morgan. “I +heard you was the can’idate.”</p> + +<p>Joe got up from the table and moved his chair away with his foot. As he was thus occupied he saw Ollie’s +shadow on the wall repeat a gesture of caution which she made to Morgan, a lifting of the hand, a shaking of the head. +Even the shadow betrayed the intimate understanding between them. Joe went over and stood in the door.</p> + +<p>“No use for you to try to be a fool, Morgan; that’s been attended to for you already,” said +he.</p> + +<p>There wasn’t much heart in Morgan’s laugh, but it would pass for one on account of the volume of +sound.</p> + +<p>“Oh, let a feller have his joke, won’t you, Joe?” said he.</p> + +<p>“Go ahead,” granted Joe, leaning his shoulder against the jamb, facing out toward the dark.</p> + +<p>Morgan went over and put his hand on the great lad’s shoulder, with a show of friendly condescension.</p> + +<p>“What would the world be without its jokes?” he asked. And then, before anybody could answer: +“It’d be like home without a mother.”</p> + +<p>Joe faced him, a slow grin spreading back to his ears.</p> + +<p>“Or a ready-reckoner,” said he.</p> + +<p>Morgan’s laugh that time was unfeigned.</p> + +<p>“Joe, you’ve missed your callin’,” said he. “You’ve got no business +foolin’ away your time on a farm. With that solemn, long-hungry look of yours you ought to be sellin’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span> consumption cure and ringbone ointment from the end of a +wagon on the square in Kansas City.”</p> + +<p>“Or books, maybe,” suggested Joe.</p> + +<p>“No-o-o,” said Morgan thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t just say you’re up to the level of +books. But you might rise even to books if you’d cultivate your mind and brain. Well, I think I’ll fly up +to roost. I’ve got to take an early start in the morning and clean up on this neck of the woods tomorrow. Good +night, folks.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose Isom’ll be home tonight,” Ollie ventured, as Morgan’s feet sounded on +the stairs.</p> + +<p>“No, I guess not,” Joe agreed, staring thoughtfully at the black oblong of the door.</p> + +<p>“If he does come, I don’t suppose it’ll hurt him to eat something cold,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I’ll wait up a while longer. If he comes I can warm up the coffee for him,” Joe offered.</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll go to bed, too,” she yawned wearily.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you’d better go,” said he.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s room, which was Isom’s also when he was there, was in the front of the house, upstairs. Joe +heard her feet along the hall, and her door close after her. Morgan was still tramping about in the room next to +Joe’s, where he slept. It was the best room in the house, better than the one shared by Isom and his wife, and in +the end of the house opposite to it. Joe sat quietly at the table until Morgan’s complaining bed-springs told him +that the guest had retired. Then he mounted the narrow kitchen stairs to his own chamber.</p> + +<p>Joe sat on the edge of his bed and pulled off his boots, dropping them noisily on the floor. Then, with shirt and +trousers on, he drew the quilt from his bed, took his pillow under his arm, and opened the door into the hall which +divided the house from end to end.</p> + +<p>The moon was shining in through the double window in the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span> +end toward Ollie’s room; it lay on the white floor, almost as bright as the sun. Within five feet of that splash +of moonlight Joe spread his quilt. There he set his pillow and stretched his long body diagonally across the narrow +hall, blocking it like a gate.</p> + +<p>Joe roused Morgan next morning at dawn, and busied himself with making a fire in the kitchen stove and bringing +water from the well until the guest came down to feed his horse. Morgan was in a crusty humor. He had very little to +say, and Joe did not feel that the world was any poorer for his silence.</p> + +<p>“This will be my last meal with you,” announced Morgan at breakfast. “I’ll not be back +tonight.”</p> + +<p>Ollie was paler than usual, Joe noticed, and a cloud of dejection seemed to have settled over her during the night. +She did not appear to be greatly interested in Morgan’s statement, although she looked up from her breakfast with +a little show of friendly politeness. Joe thought that she did not seem to care for the agent; the tightness in his +breast was suddenly and gratefully eased.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t finished out your week, there’ll be something coming to you on what you’ve paid +in advance,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Let that go,” said Morgan, obliterating all claim with a sweep of his hand.</p> + +<p>“I think you’d better take back what’s coming to you,” suggested Joe.</p> + +<p>Morgan turned to him with stiff severity.</p> + +<p>“Are you the watch-dog of the old man’s treasury?” he sneered.</p> + +<p>“Maybe I am, for a day or two,” returned Joe, “and if you step on me I’ll bite.”</p> + +<p>He leveled his steady gray eyes at Morgan’s shifting orbs, and held them there as if to drive in some hidden +import of his words. Morgan seemed to understand. He colored, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_90'></a>90</span> laughed shortly, and busied himself buttering a griddle-cake.</p> + +<p>Ollie, pale and silent, had not looked up during this by-passage between the two men. Her manner was of one who +expected something, which she dreaded and feared to face.</p> + +<p>Morgan took the road early. Joe saw him go with a feeling of relief. He felt like a swollen barrel which had burst +its close-binding hoops, he thought, as he went back to the place where he dropped his scythe yesterday.</p> + +<p>As he worked through the long morning hours Joe struggled to adjust himself to the new conditions, resulting from +the discovery of his own enlargement and understanding. It would be a harder matter now to go on living there with +Ollie. Each day would be a trial by fire, the weeks and months a lengthening highway strewn with the embers of his own +smoldering passion. Something might happen, almost any day, youth and youth together, galled by the same hand of +oppression, that would overturn his peace forever. Yet, he could not leave. The bond of his mother’s making, +stamped with the seal of the law, held him captive there.</p> + +<p>At length, after spending a harrowing morning over it, he reached the determination to stand up to it like a man, +and serve Isom as long as he could do so without treason. When the day came that his spirit weakened and his continence +failed, he would throw down the burden and desert. That he would do, even though his mother’s hopes must fall and +his own dreams of redeeming the place of his birth, to which he was attached by a sentiment almost poetic, must +dissolve like vapor in the sun.</p> + +<p>It was mid-afternoon when Joe finished his mowing and stood casting his eyes up to the sky for signs of rain. There +being none, he concluded that it would be safe to allow yesterday’s cutting to lie another night in the field +while he put in the remainder of the day with his scythe in the lower orchard plot, where the clover grew rank among +the trees. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91'></a>91</span></p> + +<p>Satisfied that he had made a showing thus far with which Isom could find no fault, Joe tucked the snath of his +scythe under his arm and set out for that part of the orchard which lay beyond the hill, out of sight of the barn and +house, and from that reason called the “lower orchard” by Isom, who had planted it with his own hand more +than thirty years ago.</p> + +<p>There noble wine-sap stretched out mighty arms to fondle willow-twig across the shady aisles, and maidenblush rubbed +cheeks with Spitzenberg, all reddening in the sun. Under many of the trees the ground was as bare as if fire had +devastated it, for the sun never fell through those close-woven branches from May to October, and there no clover grew. +But in the open spaces between the rows it sprang rank and tall, troublesome to cut with a mower because of the +low-swinging, fruit-weighted limbs.</p> + +<p>Joe waded into this paradise of fruit and clover bloom, dark leaf and straining bough, stooping now and then to pick +up a fallen apple and try its mellowness with his thumb. They were all hard, and fit only for cider yet, but their rich +colors beguiled the eye into betrayal of the palate. Joe fixed his choice upon a golden willow-twig. As he stood +rubbing the apple on his sleeve, his eye running over the task ahead of him in a rough estimate of the time it would +require to clean up the clover, he started at sight of a white object dangling from a bough a few rods ahead of him. +His attention curiously held, he went forward to investigate, when a little start of wind swung the object out from the +limb and he saw that it was a woman’s sun-bonnet, hanging basket-wise by its broad strings. There was no question +whose it was; he had seen the same bonnet hanging in the kitchen not three hours before, fresh from the ironing +board.</p> + +<p>Joe dropped his apple unbitten, and strode forward, puzzled a bit over the circumstance. He wondered what +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span> had brought Ollie down there, and where she was then. She +never came to that part of the orchard to gather wind-falls for the pigs–she was not gathering them at all during +Isom’s absence, he had relieved her of that–and there was nothing else to call her away from the house at +that time of the day.</p> + +<p>The lush clover struck him mid-thigh, progress through it was difficult. Joe lifted his feet like an Indian, toes +turned in a bit, and this method of walking made it appear as if he stalked something, for he moved without noise.</p> + +<p>He had dropped his scythe with the apple, his eyes held Ollie’s swinging bonnet as he approached it as if it +were some rare bird which he hoped to steal upon and take. Thus coming on, with high-lifted feet, his breath short from +excitement, Joe was within ten yards of the bonnet when a voice sounded behind the intervening screen of clover and +boughs.</p> + +<p>Joe dropped in his tracks, as if ham-strung, crouched in the clover, pressed his hands to his mouth to stifle the +groan that rose to his lips. It was Morgan’s voice. He had come sneaking back while the watch-dog was off guard, +secure in the belief that he had gone away. As Joe crouched there hidden in the clover, trembling and cold with anger, +Morgan’s voice rose in a laugh.</p> + +<p>“Well, I wouldn’t have given him credit for that much sense if I hadn’t seen him with my own +eyes,” said he.</p> + +<p>“He’s smarter than he looks,” said Ollie, their voices distinct in Joe’s shamed ears, for it +was as quiet in the orchard as on the first day.</p> + +<p>They both laughed over what she said.</p> + +<p>“He thinks I’m gone, he’ll go to bed early tonight,” said Morgan. “Don’t bother +about bringing anything with you.”</p> + +<p>“Not even my diamonds?” she laughed.</p> + +<p>Morgan’s gruffer mirth joined her, and Joe found himself <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_93'></a>93</span> straining to hear, although he despised himself for spying and eavesdropping, even on +guilt.</p> + +<p>“We can get on without the diamonds,” said Morgan, “and I don’t suppose you’ve got any +ball dresses or sealskin cloaks?”</p> + +<p>“Three calico wrappers that he’s bought me, and a dress or two that I had when I came,” said +Ollie, bitterly.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have all you want in a day or two, honey,” said Morgan, in comforting voice.</p> + +<p>They were silent a while; then Joe heard her ask the time. Morgan told her it was half-past four.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I had no idea it was that late–time goes so fast when I’m with you! I must go back to the +house now, Joe might come in and find me gone.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’d like to wring his damned neck!” said Morgan.</p> + +<p>“He’s a good boy, Curtis,” she defended, but with lightness, “but he’s a +little––”</p> + +<p>She held her words back coquettishly.</p> + +<p>“Heh?” queried Morgan.</p> + +<p>“Jealous, you old goose! Can’t you see it?”</p> + +<p>Morgan had a great laugh over that. From the sound of his voice Joe knew that he was standing, and his whole body +ached with the fear that they would discover him lying there in the clover. Not that he was afraid of Morgan, but that +he dreaded the humiliation which Ollie must suffer in knowing that her guilty tryst had been discovered.</p> + +<p>“I’ll meet you at the gate, I’ll have the buggy on down the road a little ways,” Morgan told +her. “There’s only a little while between you and liberty now, sweetheart.”</p> + +<p>Joe dared not look up nor move, but he needed no eyes to know that Morgan kissed her then. After that he heard her +running away toward the house. Morgan stood there a little while, whistling softly. Soon Joe heard him going in the +direction of the road. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span></p> + +<p>Morgan was quite a distance ahead when Joe sprang out of his concealment and followed him, for he wanted to give +Ollie time to pass beyond ear-shot of the orchard. As Joe made no attempt to smother the sound of his feet, Morgan +heard him while he was still several yards behind him. He turned, stopped, and waited for Joe to come up.</p> + +<p>Joe’s agitation was plain in his face, his shocked eyes stared out of its pallor as if they had looked upon +violence and death.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, kid?” inquired Morgan carelessly.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got something to say to you,” answered Joe thickly. He was panting, more from rage than +exertion; his hands trembled.</p> + +<p>Morgan looked him over from boots to bandless hat with the same evidence of curiosity as a person displays when +turning some washed-up object with the foot on the sands. It was as if he had but an abstract interest in the youth, a +feeling which the incident had obtruded upon him without penetrating the reserve of his private cogitations.</p> + +<p>“Kid, you look like you’d seen a snake,” said he.</p> + +<p>“You let that woman alone–you’ve got to let her alone, I tell you!” said Joe with explosive +suddenness, his passion out of hand.</p> + +<p>Morgan’s face grew red.</p> + +<p>“Mind your own business, you sneakin’ skunk!” said he.</p> + +<p>“I am minding it,” said Joe; “but maybe not as well as I ought to ’a’ done. Isom left +me here in his place to watch and look after things, but you’ve sneaked in under my arm like a dirty, thieving +dog, and you’ve–you’ve––”</p> + +<p>Morgan thrust his fist before Joe’s face.</p> + +<p>“That’ll do now–that’ll do out of you!” he threatened.</p> + +<p>Joe caught Morgan’s wrist with a quick, snapping movement, and slowly bent the threatening arm down, Morgan +struggling, foot to foot with him in the test of strength. Joe <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_95'></a>95</span> held the captured arm down for a moment, and they stood breast to breast, glaring into each +other’s eyes. Then with a wrench that spun Morgan half round and made him stagger, Joe flung his arm free.</p> + +<p>“Now, you keep away from here–keep away!” he warned, his voice growing thin and boyish in the +height of his emotion, as if it would break in the treble shallows.</p> + +<p>“Don’t fool with me or I’ll hurt you,” said Morgan. “Keep your +nose––”</p> + +<p>“Let her alone!” commanded Joe sternly, his voice sinking again even below its accustomed level, gruff +and deep in his chest. “I heard you–I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it–and I know +what you’re up to tonight. Don’t come around here tonight after her, for I’m not going to let her +go.”</p> + +<p>“Ya-a, you pup, you pup!” said Morgan nastily.</p> + +<p>“It’s a hard life for her here–I know that better than you do,” said Joe, passing over the +insult, “but you can’t give her any better–not as good. What you’ve done can’t be undone +now, but I can keep you from dragging her down any further. Don’t you come back here tonight!”</p> + +<p>“If you keep your fingers out of the fire,” said Morgan, looking at the ground, rolling a fallen apple +with his toe, “you’ll not get scorched. You stick to your knittin’ and don’t meddle with mine. +That’ll be about the healthiest thing you can do!”</p> + +<p>“If Isom knew what you’ve done he’d kill you–if he’s even half a man,” said Joe. +“She was a good woman till you came, you hound!”</p> + +<p>“She’s a good woman yet,” said Morgan, with some feeling, “too good for that old hell-dog +she’s married to!”</p> + +<p>“Then let her stay good–at least as good as she is,” advised Joe.</p> + +<p>“Oh, hell!” said Morgan disgustedly. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span></p> + +<p>“You can’t have her,” persisted Joe.</p> + +<p>“We’ll see about that, too,” said Morgan, his manner and voice threatening. “What’re +you goin’ to do–pole off and tell the old man?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do what Isom left me here to do, the rest of the time he’s away,” said Joe. +“Ollie shan’t leave the house tonight.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you flat-bellied shad, you want her yourself–you’re stuck on her yourself, you fool! Yes, +and you’ve got just about as much show of gittin’ her as I have of jumpin’ over that tree!” +derided Morgan.</p> + +<p>“No matter what I think of her, good or bad, she’d be safe with me,” Joe told him, searching his +face accusingly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course she would!” scoffed Morgan. “You’re one of these saints that’ll live +all your life by a punkin and never poke it with your finger. Oh, yes, I know your kind!”</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to quarrel with you, Morgan, unless you make me,” said Joe; “but you’ve +got the wrong end of the stick. I don’t want her, not the way you do, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>Morgan looked at him closely, then put out his hand with a gesture of conciliation.</p> + +<p>“I’ll take that back, Joe,” said he. “You’re not that kind of a kid. You mean well, +but you don’t understand. Look-a here, let me tell you, Joe: I love that little woman, kid, just as honest and +true as any man could love her, and she thinks the world and all of me. I only want to take her away from here because +I love her and want to make her happy. Don’t you see it, kid?”</p> + +<p>“How would you do that? You couldn’t marry her.”</p> + +<p>“Not for a while, of course,” admitted Morgan. “But the old possum he’d get a divorce in a +little while.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not going to let her go,” Joe declared, turning away as if that settled the matter for +good and all. “You’ve done–I could kill you for what you’ve done!” said he, with sudden +vehemence. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span></p> + +<p>Morgan looked at him curiously, his careless face softening.</p> + +<p>“Now, see here, don’t you look at it that way, Joe,” he argued. “I’m not so bad; +neither is Ollie. You’ll understand these matters better when you’re older and know more about the way men +feel. She wanted love, and I gave her love. She’s been worked to rags and bones by that old devil; and what +I’ve done, and what I want to do, is in kindness, Joe. I’ll take her away from here and provide for her +like she was a queen, I’ll give her the love and comradeship of a young man and make her happy, Joe. Don’t +you see?”</p> + +<p>“But you can’t make her respectable,” said Joe. “I’m not going to let her leave with +you, or go to you. If she wants to go after Isom comes back, then let her. But not before. Now, you’d better go +on away, Morgan, before I lose my temper. I was mad when I started after you, but I’ve cooled down. Don’t +roil me up again. Go on your way, and leave that woman alone.”</p> + +<p>“Joe, you’re a man in everything but sense,” said Morgan, not unkindly, “and I reckon if you +and I was to clinch we’d raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart. And I don’t know +who’d come out on top at the finish, neither. So I don’t want to have any trouble with you. All I ask of +you is step to one side and leave us two alone in what we’ve started to do and got all planned to carry out. Go +to bed tonight and go to sleep. You’re not supposed to know that anything’s due to happen, and if you sleep +sound you’ll find a twenty-dollar bill under your hat in the morning.”</p> + +<p>The suggestion brought a blush to Joe’s face. He set his lips as if fighting down hot words before he +spoke.</p> + +<p>“If I have to tie her I’ll do it,” said Joe earnestly. “She shan’t leave. And if I +have to take down that old gun from the kitchen wall to keep you away from here till Isom comes home, I’ll take +it down. You can come to the gate tonight if you want to, but if you do––” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span></p> + +<p>Joe looked him straight in the eyes. Morgan’s face lost its color. He turned as if to see that his horse was +still standing, and stood that way a little while.</p> + +<p>“I guess I’ll drive on off, Joe,” said Morgan with a sigh, as if he had reached the conclusion +after a long consideration.</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“No hard feelin’s left behind me?” facing Joe again with his old, self-assured smile. He offered +his hand, but Joe did not take it.</p> + +<p>“As long as you never come back,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>Morgan walked to the fence, his head bent, thoughtfully. Joe followed, as if to satisfy himself that the wily agent +was not going to work some subterfuge, having small faith in his promise to leave, much less in the probability that he +would stay away.</p> + +<p>Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after the dust of his wheels had settled again to the road. At +last he went back to the place where he had dropped his scythe, and cut a swath straight through to the tree where +Ollie’s bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled clover, and obliterated her footprints with his own.</p> + +<p>The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on his breast. He felt that Ollie had fallen from the high +heaven of his regard, never to mount to her place again. But Isom did not know of this bitter thing, this shameful +shadow at his door. As far as it rested with him to hold the secret in his heart, poison though it was to him, Isom +should never know.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_6'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span> +<h2>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>BLOOD</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Joe had debated the matter fully in his mind before going in to supper. Since he had sent her tempter away, there +was no necessity of taking Ollie to task, thus laying bare his knowledge of her guilty secret. He believed that her +conscience would prove its own flagellant in the days to come, when she had time to reflect and repent, away from the +debauching influence of the man who had led her astray. His blame was all for Morgan, who had taken advantage of her +loneliness and discontent.</p> + +<p>Joe now recalled, and understood, her reaching out to him for sympathy; he saw clearly that she had demanded +something beyond the capacity of his unseasoned heart to give. Isom was to blame for that condition of her mind, first +and most severely of all. If Isom had been kind to her, and given her only a small measure of human sympathy, she would +have clung to him, and rested in the shelter of his protection, content against all the world. Isom had spread the +thorns for his own feet, in his insensibility to all human need of gentleness.</p> + +<p>Joe even doubted, knowing him as he did, whether the gray old miser was capable of either jealousy or shame. He did +not know, indeed, what Isom might say to it if his wife’s infidelity became known to him, but he believed that he +would rage to insanity. Perhaps not because the sting of it would penetrate to his heart, but in his censure of his +wife’s extravagance in giving away an affection which belonged, under the form of marriage and law, to him.</p> + +<p>Joe was ashamed to meet Ollie at the table, not for <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span> +himself, but for her. He was afraid that his eyes, or his manner, might betray what he knew. He might have spared +himself this feeling of humiliation on her account, for Ollie, all unconscious of his discovery, was bright and full of +smiles. Joe could not rise to her level of light-heartedness, and, there being no common ground between them, he lapsed +into his old-time silence over his plate.</p> + +<p>After supper Joe flattened himself against the kitchen wall where he had sat the night before on the bench outside +the door, drawing back into the shadow. There he sat and thought it over again, unsatisfied to remain silent, yet +afraid to speak. He did not want to be unjust, for perhaps she did not intend to meet Morgan at all. In addition to +this doubt of her intentions, he had the hope that Isom would come very soon. He decided at length that he would go to +bed and lie awake until he heard Ollie pass up to her room, when he would slip down again and wait. If she came down, +he would know that she intended to carry out her part of the compact with Morgan. Then he could tell her that Morgan +would not come.</p> + +<p>Ollie was not long over her work that night. When Joe heard her door close, he took his boots in his hand and went +downstairs. He had left his hat on the kitchen table, according to his nightly custom; the moonlight coming in through +the window reminded him of it as he passed. He put it on, thinking that he would take a look around the road in the +vicinity of the gate, for he suspected that Morgan’s submissive going masked some iniquitous intent. Joe pulled +on his boots, sitting in the kitchen door, listening a moment before he closed it after him, and walked softly toward +the road.</p> + +<p>A careful survey as far as he could see in the bright moonlight, satisfied him that Morgan had not left his horse +and buggy around there anywhere. He might come later. Joe decided to wait around there and see. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101'></a>101</span></p> + +<p>It was a cool autumn night; a prowling wind moved silently. Over hedgerow and barn roof the moonlight lay in white +radiance; the dusty highway beyond the gate was changed by it into a royal road. Joe felt that there were memories +abroad as he rested his arms on the gate-post. Moonlight and a soft wind always moved him with a feeling of indefinite +and shapeless tenderness, as elusive as the echo of a song. There was a soothing quality in the night for him, which +laved his bruised sensibilities like balm. He expanded under its influence; the tumult of his breast began to +subside.</p> + +<p>The revelations of that day had fallen rudely upon the youth’s delicately tuned and finely adjusted nature. He +had recoiled in horror from the sacrilege which that house had suffered. In a measure he felt that he was guilty along +with Ollie in her unspeakable sin, in that he had been so stupid as to permit it.</p> + +<p>But, he reflected as he waited there with his hand upon the weathered gate, great and terrible as the upheaval of +his day-world had been, the night had descended unconscious of it. The moonlight had brightened untroubled by it; the +wind had come from its wooded places unhurried for it, and unvexed. After all, it had been only an unheard discord in +the eternal, vast harmony. The things of men were matters of infinitesimal consequence in nature. The passing of a +nation of men would not disturb its tranquillity as much as the falling of a leaf.</p> + +<p>It was then long past the hour when he was habitually asleep, and his vigil weighed on him heavily. No one had +passed along the road; Morgan had not come in sight. Joe was weary from his day’s internal conflict and external +toil. He began to consider the advisability of returning to bed.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, thought he, his watch was both futile and unjust. Ollie did not intend to keep her part in the agreement. +She must be burning with remorse for her transgression. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_102'></a>102</span></p> + +<p>He turned and walked slowly toward the house, stopping a little way along to look back and make sure that Morgan had +not appeared. Thus he stood a little while, and then resumed his way.</p> + +<p>The house was before him, shadows in the sharp angles of its roof, its windows catching the moonlight like wakeful +eyes. There was a calm over it, and a somnolent peace. It seemed impossible that iniquitous desires could live and grow +on a night like that. Ollie must be asleep, said he, and repentant in her dreams.</p> + +<p>Joe felt that he might go to his rest with honesty. It would be welcome, as the desire of tired youth for its bed is +strong. At the well he stopped again to look back for Morgan.</p> + +<p>As he turned a light flashed in the kitchen, gleamed a moment, went out suddenly. It was as if a match had been +struck to look for something quickly found, and then blown out with a puff of breath.</p> + +<p>At once the fabric of his hopes collapsed, and his honest attempts to lift Ollie back to her smirched pedestal and +invest her with at least a part of her former purity of heart, came to a painful end. She was preparing to leave. The +hour when he must speak had come.</p> + +<p>He approached the door noiselessly. It was closed, as he had left it, and within everything was still. As he stood +hesitating before it, his hand lifted to lay upon the latch, his heart laboring in painful lunges against his ribs, it +opened without a sound, and Ollie stood before him against the background of dark.</p> + +<p>The moonlight came down on him through the half-bare arbor, and fell in mottled patches around him where he stood, +his hand still lifted, as if to help her on her way. Ollie caught her breath in a frightened start, and shrank +back.</p> + +<p>“You don’t need to be afraid, Ollie–it’s Joe,” said he. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, you scared me so!” she panted.</p> + +<p>Each then waited as if for the other to speak, and the silence seemed long.</p> + +<p>“Were you going out somewhere?” asked Joe.</p> + +<p>“No; I forgot to put away a few things, and I came down,” said she. “I woke up out of my sleep +thinking of them,” she added.</p> + +<p>“Well!” said he, wonderingly. “Can I help you any, Ollie?”</p> + +<p>“No; it’s only some milk and things,” she told him. “You know how Isom takes on if he finds +anything undone. I was afraid he might come in tonight and see them.”</p> + +<p>“Well!” said Joe again, in a queer, strained way.</p> + +<p>He was standing in the door, blocking it with his body, clenching the jamb with his hands on either side, as if to +bar any attempt that she might make to pass.</p> + +<p>“Will you strike a light, Ollie? I want to have a talk with you,” said he gravely.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Joe!” she protested, as if pleasantly scandalized by the request, intentionally misreading it.</p> + +<p>“Have you got another match in your hand? Light the lamp.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what’s the use?” said she. “I only ran down for a minute. We don’t need the +light, do we, Joe? Can’t you talk without it?”</p> + +<p>“No; I want you to light the lamp,” he insisted.</p> + +<p>“I’ll not do it!” she flared suddenly, turning as if to go to her room. “You’ve not +got any right to boss me around in my own house!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose I have, Ollie, and I didn’t mean to,” said he, stepping into the room.</p> + +<p>Ollie retreated a few steps toward the inner door, and stopped. Joe could hear her excited breathing as he flung his +hat on the table. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span></p> + +<p>“Ollie, what I’ve got to say to you has to be said sooner or later tonight, and you’d just as well +hear it now,” said Joe, trying to assure her of his friendly intent by speaking softly, although his voice was +tremulous. “Morgan’s gone; he’ll not be back–at least not tonight.”</p> + +<p>“Morgan?” said she. “What do you mean–what do I care where he’s gone?”</p> + +<p>Joe made no reply. He fumbled for the box behind the stove and scraped a slow sulphur match against the pipe. Its +light discovered Ollie shrinking against the wall where she had stopped, near the door.</p> + +<p>She was wearing a straw hat, which must have been a part of her bridal gear. A long white veil, which she wore +scarf-wise over the front display of its flowers and fruits, came down and crossed behind her neck. Its ends dangled +upon her breast. The dress was one that Joe never had seen her wear before, a girlish white thing with narrow ruffles. +He wondered as he looked at her with a great ache in his heart, how so much seeming purity could be so base and foul. +In that bitter moment he cursed old Isom in his heart for goading her to this desperate bound. She had been starving +for a man’s love, and for the lack of it she had thrown herself away on a dog.</p> + +<p>Joe fitted the chimney on the burner of the lamp, and stood in judicial seriousness before her, the stub of the +burning match wasting in a little blaze between his fingers.</p> + +<p>“Morgan’s gone,” he repeated, “and he’ll never come back. I know all about you two, +and what you’d planned to do.”</p> + +<p>Joe dropped the stub of the match and set his foot on it.</p> + +<p>Ollie stared at him, her face as white as her bridal dress, her eyes big, like a barn-yard animal’s eyes in a +lantern’s light. She was gathering and wadding the ends of her veil in her hands; her lips were open, showing the +points of her small, white teeth. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span></p> + +<p>“Isom–he’ll kill me!” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“Isom don’t know about it,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“You’ll tell him!”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Relief flickered in her face. She leaned forward a little, eagerly, as if to speak, but said nothing. Joe shrank +back from her, his hand pressing heavily upon the table.</p> + +<p>“I never meant to tell him,” said he slowly.</p> + +<p>She sprang toward him, her hands clasped appealingly.</p> + +<p>“Then you’ll let me go, you’ll let me go?” she cried eagerly. “I can’t stay +here,” she hurried on, “you know I can’t stay here, Joe, and suffer like he’s made me suffer +the past year! You say Morgan won’t come––”</p> + +<p>“The coward, to try to steal a man’s wife, and deceive you that way, too!” said Joe, his anger +rising.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you don’t know him as well as I do!” she defended, shaking her head solemnly. +“He’s so grand, and good, and I love him, Joe–oh, Joe, I love him!”</p> + +<p>“It’s wrong for you to say that!” Joe harshly reproved her. “I don’t want to hear you +say that; you’re Isom’s wife.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, God help me,” said she.</p> + +<p>“You could be worse off than you are, Ollie; as it is you’ve got a <i>name</i>!”</p> + +<p>“What’s a name when you despise it?” said she bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Have you thought what people would say about you if you went away with Morgan, Ollie?” inquired Joe +gently.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care. We intend to go to some place where we’re not known, and––”</p> + +<p>“Hide,” said Joe. “Hide like thieves. And that’s what you’d be, both of you, +don’t you see? You’d never be comfortable and happy, Ollie, skulking around that way.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I would be happy,” she maintained sharply. “Mr. Morgan is a gentleman, and he’s good. +He’d be proud of me, he’d take care of me like a lady.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_106'></a>106</span></p> + +<p>“For a little while maybe, till he found somebody else that he thought more of,” said Joe. “When +it comes so easy to take one man’s wife, he wouldn’t stop at going off with another.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a lie–you know it’s a lie! Curtis Morgan’s a gentleman, I tell you, and +I’ll not hear you run him down!”</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen and ladies don’t have to hide,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“You’re lying to me!” she charged him suddenly, her face coloring angrily. “He +wouldn’t go away from here on the say-so of a kid like you. He’s down there waiting for me, and I’m +going to him.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t deceive you, Ollie,” said he, leaving his post near the door, opening a way for her to +pass. “If you think he’s there, go and see. But I tell you he’s gone. He asked me to shut my eyes to +this thing and let you and him carry it out; but I couldn’t do that, so he went away.”</p> + +<p>She knew he was not deceiving her, and she turned on him with reproaches.</p> + +<p>“You want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that old miserly Isom!” she stormed. +“You’re just as bad as he is; you ain’t got a soft spot in your heart.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’d rather see you stay here with Isom and do a nigger woman’s work, like you have been +doing ever since you married him, than let you go away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you’d have to face +with him would kill you quicker than work, and you’d suffer a thousand times more sorrow.”</p> + +<p>“What do you know about it?” she sneered. “You never loved anybody. That’s the way with you +religious fools–you don’t get any fun out of life yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else’s. +Well, you’ll not spoil mine, I tell you. I’ll go to Morgan this very night, and you can’t stop +me!”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll see about that, Ollie,” he told her, showing a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_107'></a>107</span> little temper. “I told him that I’d keep you here if I had to tie you, and +I’ll do that, too, if I have to. Isom––”</p> + +<p>“Isom, Isom!” she mocked. “Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell the old fool what you +saw–tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, and tell him more! Tell the old devil I hate him, and always did +hate him; tell him I’ve got out of bed in the middle of the night more than once to get the ax and kill him in +his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead and in hell, where he belongs, and I’m sorry I didn’t send him +there! What do I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneaking spy!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go with you to the road if you want to see if he’s there,” Joe offered.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood had divested her of all awe in his eyes. He +spoke to her now as he would have reasoned with a child.</p> + +<p>“No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or something like that, and he went away,” said she. +“You couldn’t scare him, he wouldn’t run from you. Tomorrow he’ll send me word, and I’ll +go to him in spite of you and Isom and everything else. I don’t care–I don’t care–you’re +mean to me, too! you’re as mean as you can be!”</p> + +<p>She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her arm to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend +of her elbow. Her shoulders heaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury which she seemed to think +she bore.</p> + +<p>Joe put his hand on her shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Don’t take on that way about it, Ollie,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Oh, oh!” she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now; “why couldn’t you have been kind to +me; why couldn’t you have said a good word to me sometimes? I didn’t have a friend in the world, and I was +so lonesome and tired and–and–and–everything!” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_108'></a>108</span></p> + +<p>Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How could he tell her that he had not understood her striving and +yearning to reach him, and that at last understanding, he had been appalled by the enormity of his own heart’s +desire. He said nothing for a little while, but took her by one tear-wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the +table he stopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with comforting touch.</p> + +<p>“Never mind, Ollie,” said he at last; “you go to bed now and don’t think any more about +going away with Morgan. If I thought it was best for your peace and happiness for you to go, I’d step out of the +way at once. But he’d drag you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for they don’t have that +kind of women here. Morgan isn’t as good a man as Isom is, with all his hard ways and stinginess. If he’s +honest and honorable, he can wait for you till Isom dies. He’ll not last more than ten or fifteen years longer, +and you’ll be young even then, Ollie. I don’t suppose anybody ever gets too old to be happy any more than +they get too old to be sad.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t suppose they do, Joe,” she sighed.</p> + +<p>She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook +her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder after a storm.</p> + +<p>“I’ll put out the light, Ollie,” said he. “You go on to bed.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Joe, Joe!” said she in a little pleading, meaningless way; a little way of reproach and +softness.</p> + +<p>She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her subsiding passion in them, and looked yearningly into +his. Ollie suddenly found herself feeling small and young, penitent and frail, in the presence of this quickly +developed man. His strength seemed to rise above her, and spread round her, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_109'></a>109</span> and warm her in its protecting folds. There was comfort in him, and promise.</p> + +<p>The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come +down from the first mother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the sex as the instinct which cherishes fire. +Ollie was primitive in her passions and pains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in +Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were +loose and trembling.</p> + +<p>“If you’d be good to me, Joe; if you’d only be good and kind, I could stay,” she said.</p> + +<p>Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding plea. He put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way. She +was very near him then, and her small hand, so lately cold and tear-damp, was warm within his. She threw her head back +in expectant attitude; her yearning eyes seemed to be dragging him to her lips.</p> + +<p>“I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I know how to be,” he promised.</p> + +<p>She swayed a little nearer; her warm, soft body pressed against him, her bright young eyes still striving to draw +him down to her lips.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Joe, Joe,” she murmured in a snuggling, contented way.</p> + +<p>Sweat sprang upon his forehead and his throbbing temples, so calm and cool but a moment before. He stood trembling, +his damp elf-locks dangling over his brow. Through the half-open door a little breath of wind threaded in and made the +lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outside through the lilac-bushes like the passing of a lady’s gown.</p> + +<p>Joe’s voice was husky in his throat when he spoke.</p> + +<p>“You’d better go to bed, Ollie,” said he. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_110'></a>110</span></p> + +<p>He still clung foolishly to her willing hand as he led her to the door opening to the stairs.</p> + +<p>“No, you go on up first, Joe,” she said. “I want to put the wood in the stove ready to light in +the morning, and set a few little things out. It’ll give me a minute longer to sleep. You can trust me now, +Joe,” she protested, looking earnestly into his eyes, “for I’m not going away with Morgan +now.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad to hear you say that, Ollie,” he told her, unfeigned pleasure in his voice.</p> + +<p>“I want you to promise me you’ll never tell Isom,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I never intended to tell him,” he replied.</p> + +<p>She withdrew her hand from his quickly, and quickly both of them fled to his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Stoop down,” she coaxed with a seductive, tender pressure of her hands, “and tell me, +Joe.”</p> + +<p>Isom’s step fell on the porch. He crashed the door back against the wall as he came in, and Joe and Ollie fell +apart in guilty haste. Isom stood for a moment on the threshold, amazement in his staring eyes and open mouth. Then a +cloud of rage swept him, he lifted his huge, hairy fist above his head like a club.</p> + +<p>“I’ll kill you!” he threatened, covering the space between him and Joe in two long strides.</p> + +<p>Ollie shrank away, half stooping, from the expected blow, her hands raised in appealing defense. Joe put up his open +hand as if to check Isom in his assault.</p> + +<p>“Hold on, Isom; don’t you hit me,” he said.</p> + +<p>Whatever Isom’s intention had been, he contained himself. He stopped, facing Joe, who did not yield an +inch.</p> + +<p>“Hit you, you whelp!” said Isom, his lips flattened back from his teeth. “I’ll do more than +hit you. You–” He turned on Ollie: “I saw you. You’ve disgraced me! I’ll break every bone +in your body! I’ll throw you to the hogs!” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_111'></a>111</span></p> + +<p>“If you’ll hold on a minute and listen to reason, Isom, you’ll find there’s nothing at all +like you think there is,” said Joe. “You’re making a mistake that you may be sorry for.”</p> + +<p>“Mistake!” repeated Isom bitterly, as if his quick-rising rage had sunk again and left him suddenly +weak. “Yes, the mistake I made was when I took you in to save you from the poorhouse and give you a home. I go +away for a day and come back to find you two clamped in each other’s arms so close together I couldn’t +shove a hand between you. Mistake––”</p> + +<p>“That’s not so, Isom,” Joe protested indignantly.</p> + +<p>“Heaven and hell, didn’t I see you!” roared Isom. “There’s law for you two if I want +to take it on you, but what’s the punishment of the law for what you’ve done on me? Law! No, by God! +I’ll make my own law for this case. I’ll kill both of you if I’m spared to draw breath five minutes +more!”</p> + +<p>Isom lifted his long arm in witness of his terrible intention, and cast his glaring eyes about the room as if in +search of a weapon to begin his work.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Isom, nothing wrong ever passed between me and your wife,” insisted Joe earnestly. +“You’re making a terrible mistake.”</p> + +<p>Ollie, shrinking against the wall, looked imploringly at Joe. He had promised never to tell Isom what he knew, but +how was he to save himself now without betraying her? Was he man enough to face it out and bear the strain, rush upon +old Isom and stop him in his mad intention, or would he weaken and tell all he knew, here at the very first test of his +strength? She could not read his intention in his face, but his eyes were frowning under his gathered brows as he +watched every move that old Isom made. He was leaning forward a little, his arms were raised, like a wrestler waiting +for the clinch. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span></p> + +<p>Isom’s face was as gray as ashes that have lain through many a rain. He stood where he had stopped at +Joe’s warning, and now was pulling up his sleeves as if to begin his bloody work.</p> + +<p>“You two conspired against me from the first,” he charged, his voice trembling; “you conspired to +eat me holler, and now you conspire to bring shame and disgrace to my gray hairs. I trust you and depend on you, and I +come home––”</p> + +<p>Isom’s arraignment broke off suddenly.</p> + +<p>He stood with arrested jaw, gazing intently at the table. Joe followed his eyes, but saw nothing on the table to +hold a man’s words and passions suspended in that strange manner. Nothing was there but the lamp and Joe’s +old brown hat. That lay there, its innocent, battered crown presenting to Joe’s eyes, its broad and pliant brim +tilted up on the farther side as if resting on a fold of itself.</p> + +<p>It came to Joe in an instant that Isom’s anger had brought paralysis upon him. He started forward to assist +him, Isom’s name on his lips, when Isom leaped to the table with a smothered cry in his throat. He seemed to +hover over the table a moment, leaning with his breast upon it, gathering some object to him and hugging it under his +arm.</p> + +<p>“Great God!” panted Isom in shocked voice, standing straight between them, his left arm pressed to his +breast as if it covered a mortal wound. He twisted his neck and glared at Joe, but he did not disclose the thing that +he had gathered from the table.</p> + +<p>“Great God!” said he again, in the same shocked, panting voice.</p> + +<p>“Isom,” began Joe, advancing toward him.</p> + +<p>Isom retreated quickly. He ran to the other end of the table where he stood, bending forward, hugging his secret to +his breast as if he meant to defend it with the blood of his heart. He stretched out his free hand to keep Joe away. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span></p> + +<p>“Stand off! Stand off!” he warned.</p> + +<p>Again Isom swept his wild glance around the room. Near the door, on two prongs of wood nailed to the wall, hung the +gun of which Joe had spoken to Morgan in his warning. It was a Kentucky rifle, long barreled, heavy, of two generations +past. Isom used it for hawks, and it hung there loaded and capped from year’s beginning to year’s end. Isom +seemed to realize when he saw it, for the first time in that season of insane rage, that it offered to his hand a +weapon. He leaped toward it, reaching up his hand.</p> + +<p>“<i>I’ll kill you now!</i>” said he.</p> + +<p>In one long spring Isom crossed from where he stood and seized the rifle by the muzzle.</p> + +<p>“Stop him, stop him!” screamed Ollie, pressing her hands to her ears.</p> + +<p>“Isom, Isom!” warned Joe, leaping after him.</p> + +<p>Isom was wrenching at the gun to free the breech from the fork when Joe caught him by the shoulder and tried to drag +him back.</p> + +<p>“Look out–the hammer!” he cried.</p> + +<p>But quicker than the strength of Joe’s young arm, quicker than old Isom’s wrath, was the fire in that +corroded cap; quicker than the old man’s hand, the powder in the nipple of the ancient gun.</p> + +<p>Isom fell at the report, his left hand still clutching the secret thing to his bosom, his right clinging to the +rifle-barrel. He lay on his back where he had crashed down, as straight as if stretched to a line. His staring eyes +rolled, all white; his mouth stood open, as if in an unuttered cry.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_7'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114'></a>114</span> +<h2>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>DELIVERANCE</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Joe, stunned by the sudden tragedy, stood for a moment as he had stopped when he laid his hand on Isom’s +shoulder. Ollie, on the other side of the fallen man, leaned over and peered into his face.</p> + +<p>In that moment a wild turmoil of hopes and fears leaped in her hot brain. Was it deliverance, freedom? Or was it +only another complication of shame and disgrace? Was he dead, slain by his own hand in the baseness of his own heart? +Or was he only hurt, to rise up again presently with revilings and accusations, to make the future more terrible than +the past. Did this end it; did this come in answer to her prayers for a bolt to fall on him and wither him in his +tracks?</p> + +<p>Even in that turgid moment, when she turned these speculations, guilty hopes, wild fears, in her mind, Isom’s +eyelids quivered, dropped; and the sounding breath in his nostrils ceased.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase lay dead upon the floor. In the crook of his elbow rested a little time-fingered canvas bag, one corner +of which had broken open in his fall, out of which poured the golden gleanings of his hard and bitter years.</p> + +<p>On the planks beneath his shoulder-blades, where his feet had come and gone for forty years, all leached and +whitened by the strong lye of countless scrubbings at the hands of the old wife and the new, his blood ran down in a +little stream. It gathered in a cupped and hollowed plank, and stood there in a little pool, glistening, black. His +wife saw her white face reflected in it as she raised up from peering into his blank, dead eyes. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span></p> + +<p>“Look at his blood!” said she, hoarsely whispering. “Look at it–look at it!”</p> + +<p>“Isom! Isom!” called Joe softly, a long pause between his words, as if summoning a sleeper. He stooped +over, touching Isom’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>There was a trickle of blood on Isom’s beard, where the rifle ball had struck him in the throat; back of his +head that vital stream was wasting, enlarging the pool in the hollowed plank near Ollie’s foot.</p> + +<p>“He’s dead!” she whispered.</p> + +<p>Again, in a flash, that quick feeling of lightness, almost joyful liberty, lifted her. Isom was dead, dead! What she +had prayed for had fallen. Cruel, hard-palmed Isom, who had gripped her tender throat, was dead there on the floor at +her feet! Dead by his own act, in the anger of his loveless heart.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid he is,” said Joe, dazed and aghast.</p> + +<p>The night wind came in through the open door and vexed the lamp with harassing breath. Its flame darted like a +serpent’s tongue, and Joe, fearful that it might go out and leave them in the dark with that bleeding corpse, +crossed over softly and closed the door.</p> + +<p>Ollie stood there, her hands clenched at her sides, no stirring of pity in her heart for her husband with the stain +of blood upon his harsh, gray beard. In that moment she was supremely selfish. The possibility of accusation or +suspicion in connection with his death did not occur to her. She was too shallow to look ahead to that unpleasant +contingency. The bright lure of liberty was in her eyes; it was dancing in her brain. As she looked at Joe’s back +the moment he stood with hand on the door, her one thought was:</p> + +<p>“Will he tell?”</p> + +<p>Joe came back and stood beside the lifeless form of Isom, looking down at him for a moment, pity and sorrow in his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span> face. Then he tiptoed far around the body and took up his +hat from the floor where it had fallen in Isom’s scramble for the sack of gold.</p> + +<p>“What are we going to do?” asked Ollie, suddenly afraid.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go after the doctor, but he can’t help him any,” said Joe. “I’ll wake up +the Greenings as I go by and send some of them over to stay with you.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t leave me here with it–don’t leave me!” begged Ollie. “I can’t stay +here in the house with it alone!”</p> + +<p>She shrank away from her husband’s body, unlovely in death as he had been unloved in life, and clung to +Joe’s arm.</p> + +<p>But a little while had passed since Isom fell–perhaps not yet five minutes–but someone had heard the +shot, someone was coming, running, along the hard path between gate and kitchen door. Ollie started.</p> + +<p>“Listen!” she said. “They’re coming! What will you say?”</p> + +<p>“Go upstairs,” he commanded, pushing her toward the door, harshness in his manner and words. +“It’ll not do for you to be found here all dressed up that way.”</p> + +<p>“What will you tell them–what will you say?” she insisted, whispering.</p> + +<p>“Go upstairs; let me do the talking,” he answered, waving her away.</p> + +<p>A heavy foot struck the porch, a heavy hand beat a summons on the door. Ollie’s white dress gleamed a moment +in the dark passage leading to the stairs, the flying end of her veil glimmered.</p> + +<p>“Come in,” called Joe.</p> + +<p>Sol Greening, their neighbor, whose gate was almost opposite Isom’s, whose barn was not eighty rods from the +kitchen door, stood panting in the lamplight, his heavy beard lifting and falling on his chest. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span></p> + +<p>“What–what’s happened–who was that shootin’–Isom! God A’mighty, is he +hurt?”</p> + +<p>“Dead,” said Joe dully, standing hat in hand. He looked dazedly at the excited man in the door, whose +mouth was open as he stared fearfully at the corpse.</p> + +<p>“How? Who done it?” asked Greening, coming in on tiptoe, his voice lowered to a whisper, in the cautious +fashion of people who move in the vicinity of the sound-sleeping dead. The tread of living man never more would disturb +old Isom Chase, but Sol Greening moved as silently as a blowing leaf.</p> + +<p>“Who done it?” he repeated.</p> + +<p>“He did,” answered Joe.</p> + +<p>“<i>He</i> done it!” repeated Greening, looking from the rifle, still clutched in Isom’s hand, to +the gold in the crook of his arm, and from that to Joe’s blanched face. “<i>He</i> done it!”</p> + +<p>“Jerking down the gun,” explained Joe, pointing to the broken rack.</p> + +<p>“Jerkin’ down the gun! What’d he want–look–look at all that money! The sack’s +busted–it’s spillin’ all over him!”</p> + +<p>“He’s dead,” said Joe weakly, “and I was going after the doctor.”</p> + +<p>“Stone dead,” said Greening, bending over the body; “they ain’t a puff of breath left in +him. The doctor couldn’t do him no good, Joe, but I reckon––”</p> + +<p>Greening straightened up and faced Joe, sternly.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Missis Chase?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Upstairs,” said Joe, pointing.</p> + +<p>“Does <i>she</i> know? Who was here when it happened?”</p> + +<p>“Isom and I,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“God A’mighty!” said Greening, looking at Joe fearfully, “just you and him?”</p> + +<p>“We were alone,” said Joe, meeting Greening’s eyes unfalteringly. “We had some words, and +Isom lost his temper. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span> He jumped for the gun and I tried +to stop him, but he jerked it by the barrel and the hammer caught.”</p> + +<p>“Broke his neck,” said Greening, mouth and eyes wide open; “broke it clean! Where’d that +money come from?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Joe; “I didn’t see it till he fell.”</p> + +<p>“Words!” said Greening, catching at it suddenly, as if what Joe had said had only then penetrated his +understanding. “You and him had some words!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we had some words,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Missis Chase?” demanded Greening again, turning his eyes suspiciously around the +room.</p> + +<p>“Upstairs, I told you Sol,” replied Joe. “She went to bed early.”</p> + +<p>“Hush!” cautioned Greening, holding up his hand, listening intently. “I hear her movin’ +around. Let me talk to her.”</p> + +<p>He tiptoed to the door at the foot of the stairs, and listened again; tiptoed back to the outer portal, which he had +left swinging behind him, and closed it gently. There was no sound from above now to indicate that Ollie was awake. Sol +stood near Isom’s body, straining and listening, his hand to his ear.</p> + +<p>“She must ’a’ been turnin’ over in bed,” said he. “Well, I guess I’ll have +to call her. I hate to do it, but she’s got to be told.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she must be told,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>Sol stood as if reflecting on it a little while. Joe was on the other side of Isom’s body, near the table. +Both of them looked down into his bloodless face.</p> + +<p>“You had words!” said Greening, looking sternly at Joe. “What about?”</p> + +<p>“It was a matter between him and me, Sol, it don’t concern anybody else,” said Joe in a manner of +dignity and reserve that was blunter than his words. Sol was not impressed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_119'></a>119</span> by this implied rebuke, and hint to mind his own business.</p> + +<p>“That ain’t no answer,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Well, it will have to do for you, Sol,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that,” declared Sol. “If you can’t give me the straight of it, in +plain words, I’ll have to take you up.”</p> + +<p>Joe stood thoughtfully silent a little while. Then he raised his head and looked at Sol steadily.</p> + +<p>“If there’s any arresting to be done–” he began, but checked himself abruptly there, as if +he had reconsidered what he started to say. “Hadn’t we better pick Isom up off the floor?” he +suggested.</p> + +<p>“No, no; don’t touch him,” Greening interposed hurriedly. “Leave him lay for the coroner; +that’s the law.”</p> + +<p>“All right.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have to tell Missis Chase before we go,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you must tell her,” Joe agreed.</p> + +<p>Sol rapped on the woodwork of the wall at the bottom of the stairs with his big knuckles. The sound rose sudden and +echoing in the house. Ollie was heard opening her door.</p> + +<p>“Missis Chase–oh, Missis Chase!” called Greening.</p> + +<p>“Who’s that, who’s that?” came Ollie’s voice, tremulous and frightened, little above a +whisper, from above.</p> + +<p>“It’s Sol Greening. Don’t come down here, don’t come down!”</p> + +<p>“What was that noise? It sounded like a gun,” said Ollie, a bit nearer the head of the stairs, her words +broken and disjointed.</p> + +<p>“Something’s happened, something mighty bad,” said Sol. “You stay right where you are till I +send the old woman over to you–do you hear me?–stay right there!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what is it, what is it?” moaned Ollie. “Joe–where’s Joe? Call him, Mr. Greening, +call Joe!” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span></p> + +<p>“He’s here,” Sol assured her, his voice full of portent “he’s goin’ away with me +for a little while. I tell you it’s terrible, you must stay right up there.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so afraid–I’m so afraid!” said Ollie, coming nearer.</p> + +<p>“Go back! Go back!” commanded Greening.</p> + +<p>“If you’ll only stick to it that way,” thought Joe as Ollie’s moans sounded in his ears.</p> + +<p>“Was it robbers–is somebody hurt?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, somebody’s hurt, and hurt bad,” said Greening, “but you can’t do no good by +comin’ down here. You stay right there till the old woman comes over; it’ll only be a minute.”</p> + +<p>“Let me go with you. Oh, Mr. Greening, don’t leave me here alone!” she implored.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing to hurt you, Ollie,” said Joe. “You do as Sol tells you and stay here. Go +to your room and shut the door, and wait till Mrs. Greening comes.”</p> + +<p>Sol leaned into the staircase and listened until he heard her door close. Then he turned and shut the kitchen window +and the door leading into the body of the house, leaving the burning lamp on the table to keep watch over Isom and his +money.</p> + +<p>“We’ll go out the front way,” said Sol to Joe. “Nothing must be touched in that room till +the coroner orders it. Now, don’t you try to dodge me, Joe.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got no reason to want to dodge any man,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Well, for your own sake, as well as your old mother’s, I hope to God you ain’t!” said Sol. +“But this here thing looks mighty bad for somebody, Joe. I’m goin’ to take you over to Bill +Frost’s and turn you over to the law.”</p> + +<p>Joe made no comment, but led the way around the house. At the kitchen window Greening laid a restraining hand on +Joe’s shoulder and stopped him, while he looked in at the corpse of Isom Chase. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span></p> + +<p>“Him and me, we served on the same jury this afternoon,” said Sol, nodding toward the window as he +turned away. “I rode to overtake him on the way home, but he had the start of me; and I was just goin’ in +the gate when I heard that shot. I poled right over here. On the same jury, and now he’s dead!”</p> + +<p>As they approached the gate Joe looked back, the events of the past few minutes and the shock of the tragedy, which +had fallen as swift as a lightning stroke, stunning him out of his usual cool reasoning.</p> + +<p>There lay the house, its roof white in the moonlight, a little stream of yellow coming through the kitchen window, +striking the lilac-bushes and falling brokenly on the grass beyond. There was reality in that; but in this whirl of +events which crowded his mind there was no tangible thing to lay hold upon.</p> + +<p>That Isom was dead on the kitchen floor seemed impossible and unreal, like an event in a dream which one struggles +against the terror of, consoling himself, yet not convincingly, as he fights its sad illusions, with the argument that +it is nothing but a vision, and that with waking it will pass away.</p> + +<p>What was this awful thing with which Sol Greening had charged him, over which the whole neighborhood soon must talk +and conjecture?</p> + +<p>Murder!</p> + +<p>There was no kinder word. Yet the full terror of its meaning was not over him, for his senses still swirled and felt +numb in the suddenness of the blow. He had not meant that this accusation should fasten upon him when he sent Ollie +from the room; he had not thought that far ahead. His one concern was that she should not be found there, dressed and +ready to go, and the story of her weakness and folly given heartlessly to the world.</p> + +<p>And Curtis Morgan–where was he, the man to blame for <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_122'></a>122</span> all this thing? Not far away, thought Joe, driving that white road in security, perhaps, even +that very hour, while he, who had stood between him and his unholy desires, was being led away by Sol Greening like a +calf in a rope. They were going to charge him with the murder of Isom Chase and take him away to jail.</p> + +<p>How far would Morgan permit them to go? Would he come forward to bear his share of it, or would he skulk away like a +coward and leave him, the bondman, to defend the name of his dead master’s wife at the cost of his own honor and +liberty, perhaps his life?</p> + +<p>All that had gone before Isom threw his life away in that moment of blind anger, must be laid bare if he was to free +himself of the shadow of suspicion. It was not the part of an honorable man to seek his own comfort and safety at the +cost of a woman’s name, no matter how unworthy he knew her to be, while that name and fame still stood flawless +before the world. In the absence of some other avenue to vindication, a gentleman must suffer in silence, even to +death. It would be cruel, unjust, and hard to bear, but that was the only way. He wondered if Ollie understood.</p> + +<p>But there were certain humiliations and indignities which a gentleman could not bend his neck to; and being led away +by an inferior man like Sol Greening to be delivered up, just as if he thought that he might have run away if given an +opening, was one of them. Sol had passed on through the open gate, which he had not stopped to close when he ran in, +before he noticed that Joe was not following. He looked back. Joe was standing inside the fence, his arms folded across +his chest.</p> + +<p>“Come on here!” ordered Sol.</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not going any farther with you, Sol,” said Joe quietly. “If there’s any +arresting to be done, I guess I can do it myself.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_123'></a>123</span></p> + +<p>Greening was a self-important man in his small-bore way, who saw in this night’s tragedy fine material for +increasing his consequence, at least temporarily, in that community. The first man on the bloody scene, the man to shut +up the room for the coroner, the man to make the arrest and deliver the murderer to the constable–all within half +an hour. It was a distinction which Greening did not feel like yielding.</p> + +<p>“Come on here, I tell you!” he commanded again.</p> + +<p>“If you want to get on your horse and go after Bill, I’ll wait right here till he comes,” said +Joe; “but I’ll not go any farther with you. I didn’t shoot Isom, Sol, and you know it. If you +don’t want to go after Bill, then I’ll go on over there alone and tell him what’s happened. If he +wants to arrest me then, he can do it.”</p> + +<p>Seeing that by this arrangement much of his glory would get away from him, Greening stepped forward and reached out +his hand, as if to compel submission. Joe lifted his own hand to intercept it with warning gesture.</p> + +<p>“No, don’t you touch me, Sol!” he cautioned.</p> + +<p>Greening let his hand fall. He stepped back a pace, Joe’s subdued, calm warning penetrating his senses like +the sound of a blow on an anvil. Last week this gangling strip of a youngster was nothing but a boy, fetching and +carrying in Isom Chase’s barn-yard. Tonight, big and bony and broad-shouldered, he was a man, with the same +outward gentleness over the iron inside of him as old Peter Newbolt before him; the same soft word in his mouth as his +Kentucky father, who had, without oath or malediction, shot dead a Kansas Redleg, in the old days of border strife, for +spitting on his boot.</p> + +<p>“Will you go, or shall I?” asked Joe.</p> + +<p>Greening made a show of considering it a minute.</p> + +<p>“Well, Joe, you go on over and tell him yourself,” said he, putting on the front of generosity and +confidence, “I know you won’t run off.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_124'></a>124</span></p> + +<p>“If I had anything to run off for, I’d go as quick as anybody, I guess,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go and fetch the old lady over to keep company with Mrs. Chase,” said Sol, hurriedly +striking across the road.</p> + +<p>Joe remained standing there a little while. The growing wind, which marked the high tide of night, lifted his +hat-brim and let the moonlight fall upon his troubled face. Around him was the peace of the sleeping earth, with its +ripe harvest in its hand; the scents of ripe leaves and fruit came out of the orchard; the breath of curing clover from +the fields.</p> + +<p>Joe brought a horse from the barn and leaped on its bare back. He turned into the highroad, lashing the animal with +the halter, and galloped away to summon Constable Bill Frost.</p> + +<p>Past hedges he rode, where cricket drummers beat the long roll for the muster of winter days; past gates letting +into fields, clamped and chained to their posts as if jealous of the plenty which they guarded; past farmsteads set in +dark forests of orchard trees and tall windbreaks of tapering poplar, where never a light gleamed from a pane, where +sons and daughters, worn husbandmen and weary wives, lay soothed in honest slumber; past barn-yards, where cattle +sighed as they lay in the moonshine champing upon their cuds; down into swales, where the air was damp and cold, like a +wet hand on the face; up to hill-crests, over which the perfumes of autumn were blowing–the spices of goldenrod +and ragweed, the elusive scent of hedge orange, the sweet of curing fodder in the shock; past peace and contentment, +and the ripe reward of men’s summer toil.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase was dead; stark, white, with blood upon his beard.</p> + +<p>There a dog barked, far away, raising a ripple on the placid night; there a cock crowed, and there another caught +his cry; it passed on, on, fading away eastward, traveling <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_125'></a>125</span> like an alarm, like a spreading wave, until it spent itself against the margin of breaking +day.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase was dead, with an armful of gold upon his breast.</p> + +<p>Aye, Isom Chase was dead. Back there in the still house his limbs were stiffening upon his kitchen floor. Isom Chase +was dead on the eve of the most bountiful harvest his lands had yielded him in all his toil-freighted years. Dead, with +his fields around him; dead, with the maize dangling heavy ears in the white moonlight; dead, with the gold of pumpkin +lurking like unminted treasure in the margin of his field. Dead, with fat cattle in his pastures, fat swine in his +confines, sleek horses in his barn-stalls, fat cockerels on his perch; dead, with a young wife shrinking among the +shadows above his cold forehead, her eyes unclouded by a tear, her panting breast undisturbed by a sigh of pity or of +pain.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_8'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>WILL HE TELL?</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Constable Bill Frost was not a man of such acute suspicion as Sol Greening. He was a thin, slow man with a high, +sharp nose and a sprangling, yellow mustache which extended broadly, like the horns of a steer. It did not enter his +mind to connect Joe with the tragedy in a criminal way as they rode together back to the farm.</p> + +<p>When they arrived, they found Sol Greening and his married son Dan sitting on the front steps. Mrs. Greening was +upstairs, comforting the young widow, who was “racked like a fiddle,” according to Sol.</p> + +<p>Sol took the constable around to the window and pointed out the body of Isom stretched beside the table.</p> + +<p>“You’re a officer of the law,” said Sol, “and these here primisis is now in your hands and +charge, but I don’t think you orto go in that room. I think you orto leave him lay, just the way he dropped, for +the coroner. That’s the law.”</p> + +<p>Frost was of the same opinion. He had no stomach for prying around dead men, anyhow.</p> + +<p>“We’ll leave him lay, Sol,” said he.</p> + +<p>“And it’s my opinion that you orto put handcuffs on that feller,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Which feller?” asked Bill.</p> + +<p>“That boy Joe,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Well, I ain’t got any, and I wouldn’t put ’em on him if I had,” said Bill. “He +told me all about how it happened when we was comin’ over. Why, you don’t suspiciont he done it, do you, +Sol?”</p> + +<p>“Circumstantial evidence,” said Sol, fresh from jury service <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_127'></a>127</span> and full of the law, “is dead ag’in’ him, Bill. If I was you I’d slap +him under arrest. They had words, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; he told me they did,” said Bill.</p> + +<p>“But he didn’t tell you what them words was about,” said Sol deeply.</p> + +<p>The constable turned to Sol, the shaft of suspicion working its way through the small door of his mind.</p> + +<p>“By ganny!” said he.</p> + +<p>“I’d take him up and hand him over to the sheriff in the morning,” advised Sol.</p> + +<p>“I reckon I better do it,” Frost agreed, almost knocked breathless by the importance of the thing he had +overlooked.</p> + +<p>So they laid their heads together to come to a proper method of procedure, and presently they marched around the +corner of the house, shoulder to shoulder, as if prepared to intercept and overwhelm Joe if he tried to make a dash for +liberty.</p> + +<p>They had left Joe sitting on the steps with Dan, and now they hurried around as if they expected to find his place +empty and Dan stretched out, mangled and bleeding. But Joe was still there, in friendly conversation with Dan, showing +no intention of running away. Frost advanced and laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Joe Newbolt,” said he, “I put you under arrest on the suspiciont of shootin’ and +murderin’ Isom Chase in cold blood.”</p> + +<p>It was a formula contrived between the constable and Sol. Sol had insisted on the “cold blood.” That was +important and necessary, he declared. Omit that in making the arrest, and you had no case. It would fall through.</p> + +<p>Joe stood up, placing himself at the immediate disposal of the constable, which was rather embarrassing to Bill.</p> + +<p>“Well, Bill, if you think it’s necessary, all right,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Form of law demands it,” said Sol. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span></p> + +<p>“But you might wait and see what the coroner thinks about it,” suggested Joe.</p> + +<p>“Perliminaries,” said Greening in his deep way.</p> + +<p>Then the question of what to do with the prisoner until morning arose. Joe pointed out that they could make no +disposition of him, except to hold him in custody, until the coroner had held an inquest into the case and a conclusion +had been reached by the jury. He suggested that they allow him to go to bed and get some needed sleep.</p> + +<p>That seemed to be a very sensible suggestion, according to Bill’s view of it. But Sol didn’t know +whether it would be a regular proceeding and in strict accord with the forms of law. Indeed, he was of the opinion, +after deliberating a while, that it would weaken the case materially. He was strongly in favor of handcuffs, or, in the +absence of regulation manacles, a half-inch rope.</p> + +<p>After a great deal of discussion, during which Frost kept his hand officiously on Joe’s shoulder, it was +agreed that the prisoner should be allowed to go to bed. He was to be lodged in the spare room upstairs, the one lately +occupied by Morgan. Frost escorted him to it, and locked the door.</p> + +<p>“Is they erry winder in that room?” asked Sol, when Bill came back.</p> + +<p>“Reckon so,” said Frost, starting nervously. “I didn’t look.”</p> + +<p>“Better see,” said Sol, getting up to investigate.</p> + +<p>They went round to the side of the house. Yes, there was a window, and it was wide open.</p> + +<p>But any doubt that the prisoner might have escaped through it was soon quieted by the sound of his snore. Joe had +thrown himself across the bed, boots and all, and was already shoulder-deep in sleep. They decided that, at daylight, +Sol’s son should ride to the county-seat, seven miles distant, and notify the coroner. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span></p> + +<p>During the time they spent between Joe’s retirement and daybreak, Sol improved the minutes by arraigning, +convicting, and condemning Joe for the murder of old Isom. He did it so impressively that he had Constable Frost on +edge over the tremendous responsibility that rested on his back. Bill was in a sweat, although the night was cool. He +tiptoed around, listening, spying, prying; he stood looking up at Joe’s window until his neck ached; he explored +the yard for hidden weapons and treasure, and he peered and poked with a rake-handle into shrubbery and vines.</p> + +<p>They could hear the women upstairs talking once in a while, and now and again they caught the sound of a piteous +moan.</p> + +<p>“She ain’t seen him,” said Sol; “I wouldn’t let her come down. She may not be in no +condition to look on a muss like that, her a young woman and only married a little while.”</p> + +<p>Bill agreed on that, as he agreed on every hypothesis which Sol propounded out of his wisdom, now that his official +heat had been raised.</p> + +<p>“If I hadn’t got here when I did he’d ’a’ skinned out with all of that money,” +said Sol. “He was standin’ there with his hat in his hand, all ready to scoop it up.”</p> + +<p>“How’d he come to go after me?” asked Bill.</p> + +<p>“Well, folks don’t always do things on their own accord,” said Sol, giving Bill an unmistakable +look.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that was the way of it,” nodded Bill. “I thought it was funny if he––”</p> + +<p>“He knowed he didn’t have a ghost of a chance to git away between me and you,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>Morning came, and with it rode Sol’s son to fetch the coroner.</p> + +<p>Sol had established himself in the case so that he would lose very little glory in the day’s revelations, and +there remained one pleasant duty yet which he proposed to take upon himself. That was nothing less than carrying the +news <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span> of the tragedy and Joe’s arrest to Mrs. +Newbolt in her lonely home at the foot of the hill.</p> + +<p>Sol’s son spread the news as he rode through the thin morning to the county-seat, drawing up at barn-yard +gates, hailing the neighbors on the way to their fields, pouring the amazing story into the avid ears of all who met +him. Sol carried the story in the opposite direction, trotting his horse along full of leisurely importance and the +enjoyment of the distinction which had fallen on him through his early connection with the strange event. When they +heard it, men turned back from their fields and hastened to the Chase farm, to peer through the kitchen window and +shock their toil-blunted senses in the horror of the scene.</p> + +<p>Curiosity is stronger than thrift in most men, and those of that community were no better fortified against it than +others of their kind. Long before Sol Greening’s great lubberly son reached the county-seat, a crowd had gathered +at the farmstead of Isom Chase. Bill Frost, now bristling with the dignity of his official power, moved among them +soberly, the object of great respect as the living, moving embodiment of the law.</p> + +<p>Yesterday he was only Bill Frost, a tenant of rented land, filling an office that was only a name; this morning he +was Constable Bill Frost, with the power and dignity of the State of Missouri behind him, guarding a house of mystery +and death. Law and authority had transformed him overnight, settling upon him as the spirit used to come upon the +prophets in the good old days.</p> + +<p>Bill had only to stretch out his arm, and strong men would fall back, pale and awed, away from the wall of the +house; he had but to caution them in a low word to keep hands off everything, to be instantly obeyed. They drew away +into the yard and stood in low-voiced groups, the process of thought momentarily stunned by this terrible thing. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span></p> + +<p>“Ain’t it awful?” a graybeard would whisper to a stripling youth.</p> + +<p>“Ain’t it terrible?” would come the reply.</p> + +<p>“Well, well, well! Old Isom!”</p> + +<p>That was as far as any of them could go. Then they would walk softly, scarcely breathing, to the window and peep in +again.</p> + +<p>Joe, unhailed and undisturbed, was spinning out his sleep. Mrs. Greening brought coffee and refreshments for the +young widow from her own kitchen across the road, and the sun rose and drove the mists out of the hollows, as a +shepherd drives his flocks out to graze upon the hill.</p> + +<p>As Sol Greening hitched his horse to the Widow Newbolt’s fence, he heard her singing with long-drawn quavers +and lingering semibreves:</p> + +<div style='margin:0.5em;'><span style='margin-left: 1.0em;'><i>There is a fountain filled with blood,</i></span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1.0em;'><i>Drawn from Immanuel’s veins....</i></span><br /> +</div> + +<p>She appeared at the kitchen door, a pan in her hand, a flock of expectant chickens craning their necks to see what +she had to offer, at the instant that Sol came around the corner of the house. She all but let the pan fall in her +amazement, and the song was cut off between her lips in the middle of a word, for it was not more than six +o’clock, uncommonly early for visitors.</p> + +<p>“Mercy me, Sol Greening, you give me an awful jump!” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn’t aim to,” said Sol, turning over in his mind the speech that he had drawn up in the +last uninterrupted stage of his journey over.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt looked at him sharply, turning her head a little with a quick, pert movement, not unlike one of her +hens.</p> + +<p>“Is anybody sick over your way?” she asked.</p> + +<p>She could not account for the early visit in any other <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span> +manner. People commonly came for her at all hours of the day and night when there was somebody sick and in need of a +herb-wise nurse. She had helped a great many of the young ones of that community into the world, and she had eased the +pains of many old ones who were quitting it. So she thought that Greening’s visit must have something to do with +either life or death.</p> + +<p>“No, nobody just azackly sick,” dodged Greening.</p> + +<p>“Well, laws my soul, you make a mighty mystery over it! What’s the matter–can’t you +talk?”</p> + +<p>“But I can’t say, Missis Newbolt, that everybody’s just azackly well,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Some of your folks?”</p> + +<p>“No, not none of mine,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Then whose?” she inquired impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Isom’s,” said he.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean my Joe?” she asked slowly, a shadow of pain drawing her face.</p> + +<p>“I mean Isom,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Isom?” said she, relieved. “Why didn’t Joe come after me?” Before Sol could adjust +his program to meet this unexpected exigency, she demanded: “Well, what’s the matter with Isom?”</p> + +<p>“Dead,” said Sol, dropping his voice impressively.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean–well, shades of mercy, Isom dead! What was it–cholera-morbus?”</p> + +<p>“Killed,” said Sol; “shot down with his own gun and killed as dead as a dornix.”</p> + +<p>“His own gun! Well, sakes–who done it?”</p> + +<p>“Only one man knows,” said Sol, shaking his head solemnly. “I’ll tell you how it +was.”</p> + +<p>Sol started away back at the summons to jury service, worked up to the case in which he and Isom had sat together, +followed Isom then along the road home, and galloped to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span> +overtake him. He arrived at his gate–all in his long and complete narrative–again, as he had done in +reality the night past; he heard the shot in Isom’s house; he leaped to the ground; he ran. He saw a light in the +kitchen of Isom’s house, but the door was closed; he knocked, and somebody called to him to enter. He opened the +door and saw Isom lying there, still and bloody, money–gold money–all over him, and a man standing there +beside him. There was nobody else in the room.</p> + +<p>“Shades of mercy!” she gasped. “Who was that man?”</p> + +<p>Sol looked at her pityingly. He put his hand to his forehead as if it gave him pain to speak.</p> + +<p>“It was your Joe,” said he.</p> + +<p>She sighed, greatly lightened and relieved.</p> + +<p>“Oh, then Joe he told you how it happened?” said she.</p> + +<p>“Ma’am,” said Sol impressively, “he said they was alone in the kitchen when it happened; he +said him and Isom had some words, and Isom he reached up to pull down the gun, and the hammer caught, and it went off +and shot him. That’s what Joe told me, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Sol Greening, you talk like you didn’t believe him!” she scorned. “If Joe said that, +it’s so.”</p> + +<p>“I hope to God it is!” said Sol, drawing a great breath.</p> + +<p>If Sol had looked for tears, his eyes were cheated; if he had listened for screams, wailings, and moanings, his ears +were disappointed. Sarah Newbolt stood straight and haughtily scornful in her kitchen door, her dark eyes bright +between their snapping lids.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Joe?” she asked sternly.</p> + +<p>“He’s over there,” said Sol, feeling that he had made a noise like a peanut-bag which one inflates +and smashes in the palm in the expectation of startling the world.</p> + +<p>“Have they took him up?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span></p> + +<p>“Well, you see, Bill Frost’s kind of keepin’ his eye on him till the inquest,” explained +Sol.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and I could name the man that put him up to it,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, circumstantial evidence–” began Sol.</p> + +<p>“Oh, circumstance your granny!” she stopped him pettishly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt emptied her pan among the scrambling fowls by turning it suddenly upside down. That done, she reached +behind her and put it on the table. Her face had grown hard and severe, and her eyes were fierce.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t believe my boy!” said she bitterly. “Are you going over that way now?”</p> + +<p>“Guess I’ll be ridin’ along over.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you tell Joe that I’ll be there as quick as shank’s horses can carry me,” she said, +turning away from the door, leaving Sol to gather what pleasure he was able out of the situation.</p> + +<p>She lost no time in primping and preparing, but was on the road before Sol had gone a quarter of a mile.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt cut across fields, arriving at the Chase farm almost as soon as Sol Greening did on his strawberry +roan. The coroner had not come when she got there; Bill Frost allowed Joe to come down to the unused parlor of old +Isom’s house to talk with her. Frost showed a disposition to linger within the room and hear what was said, but +she pushed him out.</p> + +<p>“I’ll not let him run off, Bill Frost,” said she. “If he’d wanted to run, if +he’d had anything to run from, he could ’a’ gone last night, couldn’t he, you dunce?”</p> + +<p>She closed the door, and no word of what passed between mother and son reached the outside of it, although Bill +Frost strained his ear against it, listening.</p> + +<p>When the coroner arrived in the middle of the forenoon he <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_135'></a>135</span> found no difficulty in obtaining a jury to inquire into Isom’s death. The major and +minor male inhabitants of the entire neighborhood were assembled there, every qualified man of them itching to sit on +the jury. As the coroner had need of but six, and these being soon chosen, the others had no further pleasure to look +forward to save the inquiry into the tragedy.</p> + +<p>After examining the wound which caused Isom’s death, the coroner had ordered the body removed from the kitchen +floor. The lamp was still burning on the table, and the coroner blew it out; the gold lay scattered on the floor where +it had fallen, and he gathered it up and put it in the little sack.</p> + +<p>When the coroner went to the parlor to convene the inquest, the crowd packed after him. Those who were not able to +get into the room clustered in a bunch at the door, and protruded themselves in at the windows, silent and +expectant.</p> + +<p>Joe sat with his mother on one hand, Constable Frost on the other, and across the room was Ollie, wedged between fat +Mrs. Sol Greening and her bony daughter-in-law, who claimed the office of ministrants on the ground of priority above +all the gasping, sympathetic, and exclaiming females who had arrived after them.</p> + +<p>Ollie was pale and exhausted in appearance, her face drawn and bloodless, like that of one who wakes out of an +anesthetic after a surgical operation upon some vital part. Her eyes were hollowed, her nostrils pinched, but there was +no trace of tears upon her cheeks. The neighbors said it was dry grief, the deepest and most lasting that racks the +human heart. They pitied her, so young and fair, so crushed and bowed under that sudden, dark sorrow.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening had thrown something black over the young widow’s shoulders, of which she seemed unaware. It +kept slipping and falling down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs. Greening kept adjusting it with motherly hand. +Sitting <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span> bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and wound +her nervous hot fingers in her lap. Now and then she lifted her eyes to Joe’s, as if struggling to read what +intention lay behind the pale calm of his face.</p> + +<p>No wonder she looked at him wild and fearful, people said. It was more than anybody could understand, that sudden +development of fierce passion and treachery in a boy who always had been so shy and steady. No wonder she gazed at him +that way, poor thing!</p> + +<p>Of course they did not dream how far they were from interpreting that look in the young widow’s eyes. There +was one question in her life that morning, and one only, it seemed. It stood in front of the future and blocked all +thought of it like a heavy door. Over and over it revolved in her mind. It was written in fire in her aching brain.</p> + +<p>When they put Joe Newbolt on the witness-stand and asked him how it happened, would he stand true to his first +intention and protect her, or would he betray it all?</p> + +<p>That was what troubled Ollie. She did not know, and in his face there was no answer.</p> + +<p>Sol Greening was the first witness. He told again to the jury of his neighbors the story which he had gone over a +score of times that morning. Mrs. Newbolt nodded when he related what Joe had told him, as if to say there was no doubt +about that; Joe had told her the same thing. It was true.</p> + +<p>The coroner, a quick, sharp little man with a beard of unnatural blackness, thick eyebrows and sleek hair, helped +him along with a question now and then.</p> + +<p>“There was nobody in the room but Joe Newbolt when you arrived?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody else–no livin’ body,” replied Sol.</p> + +<p>“No other living body. And Joe Newbolt was standing beside the body of Isom Chase, near the head, you +say?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, near Isom’s head.”</p> + +<p>“With his hat in his hand, as if he had just entered the room, or was about to leave it?”</p> + +<p>Sol nodded.</p> + +<p>“Do you know anything about a man who had been boarding here the past week or two?”</p> + +<p>The coroner seemed to ask this as an afterthought.</p> + +<p>“Morgan,” said Sol, crossing his legs the other way for relief. “Yes, I knowed him.”</p> + +<p>“Did you see him here last night?”</p> + +<p>“No, he wasn’t here. The old lady said he stopped in at our house yesterday morning to sell me a +ready-reckoner.”</p> + +<p>Sol chuckled, perhaps over what he considered a narrow escape.</p> + +<p>“I was over at Shelbyville, on the jury, and I wasn’t there, so he didn’t sell it. Been +tryin’ to for a week. He told the old lady that was his last day here, and he was leavin’ then.”</p> + +<p>“And about what time of night was it when you heard the shot in Isom Chase’s house, and ran +over?”</p> + +<p>“Along about first rooster-crow,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“And that might be about what hour?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve knowed ’em to crow at ’leven this time o’ year, and ag’in I’ve +knowed ’em to put it off as late as two. But I should judge that it was about twelve when I come over here the +first time last night.”</p> + +<p>Sol was excused with that. He left the witness-chair with ponderous solemnity. The coroner’s stenographer had +taken down his testimony, and was now leaning back in his chair as serenely as if unconscious of his own marvelous +accomplishment of being able to write down a man’s words as fast as he could talk.</p> + +<p>Not so to those who beheld the feat for the first time. They watched the young man, who was a ripe-cheeked chap with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span> pale hair, as if they expected to catch him in the fraud +and pretense of it in the end, and lay bare the deceit which he practised upon the world.</p> + +<p>The coroner was making notes of his own, stroking his black beard thoughtfully, and in the pause between witnesses +the assembled neighbors had the pleasure of inspecting the parlor of dead Isom Chase which they had invaded, into +which, living, he never had invited them.</p> + +<p>Isom’s first wife had arranged that room, in the hope of her young heart, years and years ago. Its walls were +papered in bridal gaiety, its colors still bright, for the full light of day seldom fell into it as now. There hung a +picture of that bride’s father, a man with shaved lip and a forest of beard from ears to Adam’s apple, in a +little oval frame; and there, across the room, was another, of her mother, Quakerish in look, with smooth hair and a +white something on her neck and bosom, held at her throat by a portrait brooch. On the table, just under that +fast-writing young man’s eyes, was a glass thing shaped like a cake cover, protecting some flowers made of human +hair, and sprigs of bachelor’s button, faded now, and losing their petals.</p> + +<p>There hung the marriage certificate of Isom and his first wife, framed in tarnished gilt which was flaking from the +wood, a blue ribbon through a slit in one corner of the document, like the pendant of a seal, and there stood the +horsehair-upholstered chairs, so spare of back and thin of shank that the rustics would stand rather than trust their +corn-fed weight upon them. Underfoot was a store-bought carpet, as full of roses as the Elysian Fields, and over by the +door lay a round, braided rag mat, into which Isom’s old wife had stitched the hunger of her heart and the brine +of her lonely tears.</p> + +<p>The coroner looked up from his little red-leather note-book.</p> + +<p>“Joe Newbolt, step over here and be sworn,” said he. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_139'></a>139</span></p> + +<p>Joe crossed over to the witness-chair, picking his way through feet and legs. As he turned, facing the coroner, his +hand upraised, Ollie looked at him steadily, her fingers fluttering and twining.</p> + +<p>Twelve hours had made a woeful change in her. She was as gaunt as a suckling she-hound, an old terror lay lurking in +her young eyes. For one hour of dread is worse than a year of weeping. One may grieve, honestly and deeply, without +wearing away the cheeks or burning out the heart, for there is a soft sorrow which lies upon the soul like a deadening +mist upon the autumn fields. But there is no worry without waste. One day of it will burn more of the fuel of human +life than a decade of placid sorrow.</p> + +<p>How much would he tell? Would it be all–the story of the caress in the kitchen door, the orchard’s +secret, the attempt to run away from Isom–or would he shield her in some manner? If he should tell all, there sat +an audience ready to snatch the tale and carry it away, and spread it abroad. Then disgrace would follow, pitiless and +driving, and Morgan was not there to bear her away from it, or to mitigate its sting.</p> + +<p>Bill Frost edged over and stood behind the witness chair. His act gave the audience a thrill. “He’s +under arrest!” they whispered, sending it from ear to ear. Most of them had known it before, but there was +something so full and satisfying in the words. Not once before in years had there been occasion to use them; it might +be years again before another opportunity presented. They had an official sound, a sound of adventure and desperation. +And so they whispered them, neighbor nodding to neighbor in deep understanding as it went round the room, like a +pass-word in secret conclave: “He’s under arrest!”</p> + +<p>There was nobody present to advise Joe of his rights. He had been accused of the crime and taken into custody, yet +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140'></a>140</span> they were calling on him now to give evidence which might +be used against him. If he had any doubt about the legality of the proceeding, he was too certain of the outcome of the +inquiry to hesitate or demur. There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that his neighbors, men who had known him all +his life, and his father before him, would acquit him of all blame in the matter and set him free. They would believe +him, assuredly. Therefore, he answered cheerfully when the coroner put the usual questions concerning age and nativity. +Then the coroner leaned back in his chair.</p> + +<p>“Now, Joe, tell the jury just how it happened,” said he.</p> + +<p>The jury looked up with a little start of guilt at the coroner’s reference to itself, presenting a great deal +of whiskers and shocks of untrimmed hair, together with some reddening of the face. For the jury had been following the +movements of the coroner’s stenographer, as if it, also, expected to catch him in the trick of it that would +incriminate him and send him to the penitentiary for life.</p> + +<p>“I’d been down to the barn and out by the gate, looking around,” said Joe. There he paused.</p> + +<p>“Yes; looking around,” encouraged the coroner, believing from the lad’s appearance and slow manner +that he had a dull fellow in hand. “Now, what were you looking around for, Joe?”</p> + +<p>“I had a kind of uneasy feeling, and I wanted to see if everything was safe,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Afraid of horse-thieves, or something like that?”</p> + +<p>“Something like that,” nodded Joe.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt, sitting very straight-backed, held her lips tight, for she was impressed with the seriousness of the +occasion. Now and then she nodded, as if confirming to herself some foregone conclusion.</p> + +<p>“Isom had left me in charge of the place, and I didn’t <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_141'></a>141</span> want him to come back and find anything gone,” Joe explained.</p> + +<p>“I see,” said the coroner in a friendly way. “Then what did you do?”</p> + +<p>“I went back to the house and lit the lamp in the kitchen,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“How long was that before Isom came in?”</p> + +<p>“Only a little while; ten or fifteen minutes, or maybe less.”</p> + +<p>“And what did Isom say when he came in, Joe?”</p> + +<p>“He said he’d kill me, he was in a temper,” Joe replied.</p> + +<p>“You had no quarrel before he said that, Isom just burst right into the room and threatened to kill you, did +he, Joe? Now, you’re sure about that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m perfectly sure.”</p> + +<p>“What had you done to send Isom off into a temper that way?”</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t done a thing,” said Joe, meeting the coroner’s gaze honestly.</p> + +<p>The coroner asked him concerning his position in the room, what he was doing, and whether he had anything in his +hands that excited Isom when he saw it.</p> + +<p>“My hands were as empty as they are this minute,” said Joe, but not without a little color in his cheeks +when he remembered how hot and small Ollie’s hand had felt within his own.</p> + +<p>“When did you first see this?” asked the coroner, holding up the sack with the burst corner which had +lain on Isom’s breast.</p> + +<p>The ruptured corner had been tied with a string, and the sack bulged heavily in the coroner’s hand.</p> + +<p>“When Isom was lying on the floor after he was shot,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>A movement of feet was audible through the room. People looked at each other, incredulity in their eyes. The coroner +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span> returned to the incidents which led up to the shooting +snapping back to that phase of the inquiry suddenly, as if in the expectation of catching Joe off his guard.</p> + +<p>“What did he threaten to kill you for?” he asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“Well, Isom was an unreasonable and quick-tempered man,” Joe replied.</p> + +<p>The coroner rose to his feet in a quick start, as if he intended to leap over the table. He pointed his finger at +Joe, shaking his somber beard.</p> + +<p>“What did Isom Chase catch you at when he came into that kitchen?” he asked accusingly.</p> + +<p>“He saw me standing there, just about to blow out the light and go to bed,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“What did you and Isom quarrel about last night?”</p> + +<p>Joe did not reply at once. He seemed debating with himself over the advisability of answering at all. Then he raised +his slow eyes to the coroner’s face.</p> + +<p>“That was between him and me,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said the coroner shortly, resuming his seat. “You may tell the jury how Isom Chase +was shot.”</p> + +<p>Joe described Isom’s leap for the gun, the struggle he had with him to restrain him, the catching of the lock +in the fork as Isom tugged at the barrel, the shot, and Isom’s death.</p> + +<p>When he finished, the coroner bent over his note-book again, as if little interested and less impressed. Silence +fell over the room. Then the coroner spoke, his head still bent over the book, not even turning his face toward the +witness, his voice soft and low.</p> + +<p>“You were alone with Isom in the kitchen when this happened?”</p> + +<p>A flash of heat ran over Ollie’s body. After it came a sweeping wave of cold. The room whirled; the world +stood on edge. Her hour had struck; the last moment of her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_143'></a>143</span> troubled security was speeding away. What would Joe answer to that?</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Joe calmly, “we were alone.”</p> + +<p>Ollie breathed again; her heart’s constriction relaxed.</p> + +<p>The coroner wheeled on Joe.</p> + +<p>“Where was Mrs. Chase?” he asked.</p> + +<p>A little murmur, as of people drawing together with whispers; a little soft scuffing of cautiously shifted feet on +the carpet, followed the question. Ollie shrank back, as if wincing from pain.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Chase was upstairs in her room,” answered Joe.</p> + +<p>The weight of a thousand centuries lifted from Ollie’s body. Her vision cleared. Her breath came back in +measured flow to her lips, moist and refreshing.</p> + +<p>He had not told. He was standing between her and the sharp tongues of those waiting people, already licking hungrily +in their awakened suspicion, ready to sear her fair name like flames. But there was no gratitude in her heart that +moment, no quick lifting of thankfulness nor understanding of the great peril which Joe had assumed for her. There was +only relief, blessed, easing, cool relief. He had not told.</p> + +<p>But the coroner was a persistent man. He was making more than an investigation out of it; he was fairly turning it +into a trial, with Joe as the defendant. The people were ready to see that, and appreciate his attempts to uncover the +dark motive that lay behind this deed, of which they were convinced, almost to a man, that Joe was guilty.</p> + +<p>“Was Isom jealous of you?” asked the coroner, beginning the assault on Joe’s reserve suddenly +again when it seemed that he was through. For the first time during the inquiry Joe’s voice was unsteady when he +replied.</p> + +<p>“He had no cause to be, and you’ve got no right to ask me that, either, sir!” he said. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span></p> + +<p>“Shame on you, shame on you!” said Mrs. Newbolt, leaning toward the coroner, shaking her head +reprovingly.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got the right to ask you anything that I see fit and proper, young man,” the coroner rebuked +him sternly.</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe you have,” granted Joe, drawing himself straight in the chair.</p> + +<p>“Did Isom Chase ever find you alone with his wife?” the coroner asked.</p> + +<p>“Now you look here, sir, if you’ll ask me questions that a gentleman ought to ask, I’ll answer you +like a gentleman, but I’ll never answer such questions as that!”</p> + +<p>There was a certain polite deference in Joe’s voice, which he felt that he owed, perhaps, to the office that +the man represented, but there was a firmness above it all that was unmistakable.</p> + +<p>“You refuse to answer any more questions, then?” said the coroner slowly, and with a significance that +was almost sinister.</p> + +<p>“I’ll answer any proper questions you care to ask me,” answered Joe.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then. You say that you and Isom quarreled last night?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; we had a little spat.”</p> + +<p>“A little spat,” repeated the coroner, looking around the room as if to ask the people on whose votes he +depended for reelection what <i>they</i> thought of a “little spat” which ended in a man’s death. +There was a sort of broad humor about it which appealed to the blunt rural sense. A grin ran over their faces like a +spreading wavelet on a pool. “Well now, what was the beginning of that ‘little spat’?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what’s that got to do with it?” asked Joe impatiently. “You asked me that +before.”</p> + +<p>“And I’m asking you again. What was that quarrel over?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_145'></a>145</span></p> + +<p>“None of your business!” said Joe hotly, caring nothing for consequences.</p> + +<p>“Then you refuse to answer, and persist in your refusal?”</p> + +<p>“Well, we don’t seem to get on very well,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“No, we don’t,” the coroner agreed snappishly. “Stand down; that will be all.”</p> + +<p>The listening people shifted and relaxed, leaned and whispered, turning quick eyes upon Joe, studying him with +furtive wonder, as if they had discovered in him some fearful and hideous thing, which he, moving among them all his +life, had kept concealed until that day.</p> + +<p>Ollie followed him in the witness-chair. She related her story, framed on the cue that she had taken from +Greening’s testimony and Joe’s substantiation of it, in low, trembling voice, and with eyes downcast. She +knew nothing about the tragedy until Sol called up to her, she said, and then she was in ignorance of what had +happened. Mrs. Greening had told her when she came that Isom was killed.</p> + +<p>Ollie was asked about the book-agent boarder, as Greening had been asked. Morgan had left on the morning of the +fateful day, she said, having finished his work in that part of the country. She and Joe were alone in the house that +night.</p> + +<p>The coroner spared her, no matter how far his sharp suspicions flashed into the obscurity of the relations between +herself and the young bondman. The people, especially the women, approved his leniency with nods. Her testimony +concluded the inquiry, and the coroner addressed the jury.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” he said, “you will take into consideration the evidence you have heard, and +determine, if possible, the manner in which Isom Chase came to his death, and fix the responsibility for the same. It +is within your power to recommend that any person believed by you to be directly or indirectly responsible for his +death, be held to the grand <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span> jury for further +investigation. Gentlemen, you will now view the body.”</p> + +<p>Alive, Isom Chase had walked in the secret derision and contempt of his neighbors, despised for his parsimony, +ridiculed for his manner of life. Dead, he had become an object of awe which they approached softly and with fear.</p> + +<p>Isom lay upon his own cellar door, taken down from its hinges to make him a couch. It stood over against the kitchen +wall, a chair supporting it at either end, and Isom stretched upon it covered over with a sheet. The coroner drew back +the covering, revealing the face of the dead, and the jurymen, hats in hand, looked over each other’s shoulders +and then backed away.</p> + +<p>For Isom was no handsomer as a corpse than he had been as a living, striving man. The hard, worn iron of his frame +was there, like an old plowshare, useless now, no matter what furrows it had turned in its day. The harsh speech was +gone out of his crabbed lips, but the scowl which delinquent debtors feared stood frozen upon his brow. He had died +with gold above his heart, as he had lived with the thought of that bright metal crowding every human sentiment out of +it, and the mystery of those glittering pieces under his dead hand was unexplained.</p> + +<p>Somebody, it appeared, had sinned against old Isom Chase at the end, and Joe Newbolt knew who that person was. Here +he had stood before them all and lifted up a wall of stubborn silence to shield the guilty head, and there was no doubt +that it was his own.</p> + +<p>That also was the opinion of the coroner’s jury, which walked out from its deliberations in the kitchen in a +little while and gave as its verdict that Isom Chase had come to his death by a gunshot wound, inflicted at the hands +of Joseph Newbolt. The jury recommended that the accused be held to the grand jury, for indictment or dismissal. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt did not understand fully what was going forward, but she gathered that the verdict of the neighbors was +unfriendly to Joe. She sat looking from the coroner to Joe, from Joe to the jurors, lined up with backs against the +wall, as solemn and nervous as if waiting for a firing squad to appear and take aim at their patriotic breasts. She +stood up in her bewilderment, and looked with puzzled, dazed expression around the room.</p> + +<p>“Joe didn’t do it, if that’s what you mean,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Madam–” began the coroner severely.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you little whiffet,” she burst out sharply, “you’re the one that put ’em up to +do it! Joe didn’t do it, I tell you, and you men know that as well as I do. Every one of you has knowed him all +his life!”</p> + +<p>“Madam, I must ask you not to interrupt the proceedings,” said the coroner.</p> + +<p>“Order in the court!” commanded the constable in his deepest official voice.</p> + +<p>“Oh, shut your fool mouth, Bill Frost!” said Mrs. Newbolt scornfully.</p> + +<p>“Never mind, Mother,” counseled Joe. “I’ll be all right. They have to do what they’re +doing, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, they’re doin’ what that little snip-snapper with them colored whiskers tells ’em to +do!” said she.</p> + +<p>Solemn as the occasion was, a grin went round at the bald reference to a plainer fact. Even the dullest there had +seen the grayish-red at the roots of the coroner’s beard. The coroner grew very red of face, and gave some orders +to his stenographer, who wrote them down. He thanked the jurors and dismissed them. Bill Frost began to prepare for the +journey to Shelbyville to turn Joe over to the sheriff.</p> + +<p>The first, and most important, thing in the list of preliminaries for the journey, was the proper adjustment of +Bill’s mustache. Bill roached it up with a turn of the forefinger, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_148'></a>148</span> using the back of it, which was rough, like a corn-cob. When he had got the ends elevated at +a valiant angle, his hat firmly settled upon his head, and his suspenders tightened two inches, he touched Joe’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Come on!” he ordered as gruffly and formally as he could draw his edged voice.</p> + +<p>Joe stood, and Bill put his hand on his arm to pilot him, in all officiousness, out of the room. Mrs. Newbolt +stepped in front of them as they approached.</p> + +<p>“Joe!” she cried appealingly.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, Mother,” he comforted her, “everything will be cleared up and settled in +a day or two. You go on home now, Mother, and look after things till I come.”</p> + +<p>“Step out of the way, step out of the way!” said Bill with spreading impatience.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt looked at the blustering official pityingly.</p> + +<p>“Bill Frost, you ain’t got as much sense as you was born with!” said she. She patted Joe’s +shoulder, which was as near an approach to tenderness as he ever remembered her to make.</p> + +<p>Constable Frost fell into consultation with his adjutant, Sol Greening, as soon as he cleared the room with the +prisoner. They discussed gravely in the prisoner’s hearing, for Bill kept his hand on Joe’s arm all the +time, the advisability of tying him securely with a rope before starting on the journey to jail.</p> + +<p>Joe grew indignant over this base proposal. He declared that if Bill was afraid of him he would go alone to the +county-seat and give himself up to the sheriff if they would set him free. Bill was a little assured by his +prisoner’s evident sincerity.</p> + +<p>Another consultation brought them to the agreement that the best they could do, in the absence of handcuffs, was to +hitch up to Isom’s buggy and make the prisoner drive. With <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_149'></a>149</span> hands employed on the lines, he could be watched narrowly by Bill who was to take Sol’s +old navy six along in his mighty hand.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt viewed the officious constable’s preparations for the journey with many expressions of anger and +disdain.</p> + +<p>“Just look at that old fool, Bill Frost, with that revolver!” said she, turning to the neighbors, who +stood silently watching. “Just as if Joe would hurt anybody, or try to run away!”</p> + +<p>Sympathy seemed to be lacking in the crowd. Everybody was against Joe, that was attested by the glum faces and +silence which met her on every hand. She was amazed at their stupidity. There they stood, people who had seen Joe grow +up, people who knew that a Newbolt would give his last cent and go hungry to meet an obligation; that he would wear +rags to pay his debts, as Peter had done, as Joe was doing after him; that he would work and strive night and day to +keep fair his honorable name, and to preserve the honest record of the family clear and clean.</p> + +<p>They all knew that, and they knew that a Newbolt never lied, but they hunched their backs and turned away their +heads as if they thought a body was going to hit them when she spoke. It disgusted her; she felt like she could turn +loose on some of them with their own records, which she had from a generation back.</p> + +<p>She approached the buggy as Joe took up the lines and prepared to drive out of the gate.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why they think you done it, son, it’s so unreasonable and unneighborly of +them,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Neighborly!” said Joe, with sudden bitterness in his young voice. “What am I to them but +‘the pore folks’ boy’? They didn’t believe me, Mother, but when I get a chance to stand up +before Judge Maxwell over at Shelbyville, I’ll be talking to a gentleman. A gentleman will understand.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span></p> + +<p>That sounded like his father, she thought. It moved her with a feeling of the pride which she had reflected feebly +for so many years.</p> + +<p>“I hope so, son,” said she. “If you’re not back in a day or two, I’ll be over to +Shelbyville.”</p> + +<p>“Drive on, drive on!” ordered Bill, the old black revolver in his hand.</p> + +<p>The crowd was impressed by that weapon, knowing its history, as everybody did. Greening’s more or less +honorable father had carried it with him when he rode in the train of Quantrell, the infamous bushwhacker. It was the +old man’s boast to his dying day that he had exterminated a family of father and five sons in the raid upon +Lawrence with that old weapon, without recharging it.</p> + +<p>Joe drove through the open gate without a look behind him. His face was pale, his heart was sick with the +humiliation of that day. But he felt that it was only a temporary cloud into which he had stepped, and that clearing +would come again in a little while. It was inconceivable to him how anybody could be so foolish as to believe, or even +suspect, that he had murdered Isom Chase.</p> + +<p>The assembled people having heard all there was to hear, and seen all there was to see at the gate, began to +straggle back to the farmhouse to gossip, to gape, and exclaim. To Greening and his family had fallen the office of +comforting the widow and arranging for the burial, and now Sol had many offers to sit up with the corpse that +night.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt stood at the roadside, looking after the conveyance which was taking her son away to jail, until a bend +behind a tall hedge hid it from her eyes. She made no further attempt to find sympathy or support among her neighbors, +who looked at her curiously as she stood there, and turned away selfishly when she faced them.</p> + +<p>Back over the road that she had hurried along that morning <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_151'></a>151</span> she trudged, slowly and without spirit, her feet like stones. As she went, she tried to +arrange the day’s happenings in her mind. All was confusion there. The one plain thing, the thing that persisted +and obtruded, was that they had arrested Joe on a charge that was at once hideous and unjust.</p> + +<p>Evening was falling when she reached the turn of the road and looked ahead to her home. She had no heart for supper, +no heart to lift the latch of the kitchen door and enter there. There was no desire in her heart but for her son, and +no comfort in the prospect of her oncoming night.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_9'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span> +<h2>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE SEALED ENVELOPE</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>In the light of Joe’s reluctant testimony and his strange, stubborn, and stiff-necked refusal to go into the +matter of the quarrel between himself and Isom; the unexplained mystery of the money which had been found in the burst +bag on Isom’s breast; and Joe’s declaration that he had not seen it until Isom fell: in the light of all +this, the people of that community believed the verdict of the coroner’s jury to be just.</p> + +<p>This refusal of Joe’s to talk out and explain everything was a display of the threadbare Newbolt dignity, +people said, an exhibition of which they had not seen since old Peter’s death. But it looked more like +bull-headedness to them.</p> + +<p>“Don’t the darned fool know he’s pokin’ his head under the gallus?” they asked.</p> + +<p>What was the trouble between him and Isom about? What was he doin’ there in the kitchen with the lamp lit that +hour of the night? Where did that there money come from, gentlemen? That’s what I want you to tell <i>me</i>!</p> + +<p>Those were the questions which were being asked, man to man, group to group, and which nobody could answer, as they +stood discussing it after Joe had been taken away to jail. The coroner mingled with them, giving them the weight of his +experience.</p> + +<p>“That Newbolt’s deeper than he looks on the outside, gentlemen,” he said, shaking his serious +whiskers. “There’s a lot more behind this case than we can see. Old Isom Chase was murdered, and that +murder was planned away ahead. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anybody on the witness-stand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span> as shrewd and sharp as that Newbolt boy. He knew just +what to so say and just what to shut his jaws on. But we’ll fetch it out of him–or somebody +else.”</p> + +<p>As men went home to take up their neglected tasks, they talked it all over. They wondered what Joe would have done +with that money if he had succeeded in getting away with it; whether he would have made it out of the country, or +whether the invincible Bill Frost, keen on his scent as a fox-hound, would have pursued him and brought him back.</p> + +<p>They wondered how high they built the gallows to hang a man, and discussed the probability of the event being +public. They speculated on the manner in which Joe would go to his death, whether boldly, with his head up that way, or +cringing and afraid, his proud heart and spirit broken, and whether he would confess at the end or carry his secret +with him to the grave. Then they branched off into discussions of the pain of hanging, and wondered whether it was a +“more horribler” death than drowning or burning in a haystack, or from eating pounded glass.</p> + +<p>It was a great, moving, awakening sensation in the countryside, that taking off of Isom Chase by a mysterious +midnight shot. It pulled people up out of the drowse of a generation, and set them talking as they had not talked in +twenty years. Their sluggish brains were heated by it, their sleeping hearts quickened.</p> + +<p>People were of the undivided opinion that Isom had caught Joe robbing him, and that Joe had shot him in the fear of +punishment for the theft. Perhaps it is because chivalry is such a rare quality among the business activities of this +life, that none of them believed he was shielding Isom’s wife, and that he was innocent of any wrong himself. +They did not approve the attempt of the coroner to drag her into it. The shrewd insight of the little man cost him a +good many votes that day. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span></p> + +<p>Joe Newbolt could very well be a robber, they said, for all his life had prepared him for a fall before the +temptation of money. He could very well be a robber, indeed, and there was no room for him to turn out anything nobler, +for wasn’t he the pore folks’ boy?</p> + +<p>Ollie was almost as short in her realization of what Joe had done for her as those who knew nothing at all of his +motive of silence. In the relief of her escape from public disclosure of her intrigue with Morgan, she enjoyed a +luxurious relaxation. It was like sleep after long watching.</p> + +<p>She did not understand the peril in which Joe stood on her account, nor consider that the future still held for both +of them a trial which would test Joe’s strength as the corrosive tooth of acid challenges the purity of gold. It +was enough for her that sunny afternoon, and sufficient to her shallow soul, to know that she was safe. She lay warm +and restful in her bed while the neighbor women set the house to rights, and the men moved Isom’s body into the +parlor to wait for the coffin which Sol Greening had gone after to the county-seat.</p> + +<p>Ollie watched the little warm white clouds against the blue of the October sky, and thought of the fleecy soft +things which a mother loves to swaddle her baby in; she watched the shadow of falling leaves upon the floor, blowing +past her window on the slant sunbeams.</p> + +<p>She was safe!</p> + +<p>Joe was accused, but she seemed to hold that a trivial incident in an exciting day. It would pass; he would clear +himself, as he deserved to be cleared, and then, when Morgan came back for her and carried her away into his world, +everything would be in tune.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was because she knew that Joe was innocent that his accusation appeared so untenable and trivial to her. +At any rate, the lawyers over at Shelbyville–wasn’t their <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_155'></a>155</span> cunning known around the world–could get him off. If it came to that, she would see +that he had a good one, as good as money could employ. Joe had stood by her; she would stand by Joe. That was the +extent of her concern that afternoon.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to stretch there in peace, with no task before her, no rude summons to arise and work. Isom would +call her no more at dawn; his voice would be silent in that house forever more. There was no regret in the thought, no +pang, no pain.</p> + +<p>As one lives his life, so he must be pitied in death. Soft deeds father soft memories. There never was but one man +who rose with the recollection of pleasant dreams from pillowing his head upon a stone, and that man was under the hand +of God. Isom Chase had planted bitterness; his memory was gall.</p> + +<p>She was safe, and she was free. She had come into her expectations; the pre-nuptial dreams of enjoying Isom +Chase’s wealth were suddenly at hand.</p> + +<p>Together with the old rifle and Isom’s blood-stained garments, the coroner had taken away the little bag of +gold, to be used as evidence, he said. He had taken the money, just as it was in the little sack, a smear of blood on +it, after counting it before witnesses and giving her a receipt for the amount. Two thousand dollars; one hundred +pieces of twenty dollars each. That was the tale of the contents of the canvas bag which had lain grinning on +Isom’s pulseless heart. It was not a great amount of money, considering Isom’s faculty for gaining and +holding it. It was the general belief that he had ten, twenty, times that amount, besides his loans, hidden away, and +the secret of his hiding-place had gone out of the world with Isom.</p> + +<p>Others said that he had put his money into lands, pointing to the many farms which he owned and rented in the +county. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span> But be that as it might, there was Ollie, young +and handsome, well paid for her hard year as Isom’s wife, free now, and doubtless already willing at heart to +make some young man happy. Nobody blamed her for that.</p> + +<p>It was well known that Isom had abused her, that her life had been cheerless and lonely under his roof. Those who +did not know it from first-hand facts believed it on the general notoriety of the man. Contact with Isom Chase had been +like sleeping on a corn-husk bed; there was no comfort in it, no matter which way one turned.</p> + +<p>Ollie, her eyes closed languidly, now languidly opened to follow the track of the lamb-fleece clouds, her young body +feeling warm and pleasant, as if lately released from a sorely cramped state; Ollie, with little fleeting dreams in her +pretty, shallow head, was believed by the women of the neighborhood to be in the way of realizing on Isom’s +expectations of an heir. It was a little fiction that had taken its beginning from Sol Greening’s early talk, and +owing to that rumor the coroner had been gentle with her beyond the inclination of his heart.</p> + +<p>The young widow smiled as she lay on her pillow and thought of the little intimate touches of tenderness which this +baseless rumor had made her the beneficiary of at her neighbor’s hands. She was selfish enough to take advantage +of their mistaken kindnesses and to surrender to their vigorous elbows the work below stairs. That was her day of +freedom; it was her dawn of peace.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to have come through stress and hardship to this restful eddy in the storm of life; to have faced +peril and disgrace and come away still clean in the eyes of men. Ollie was content with things as they were, as the +evening shadows closed the door upon the events of that trying day.</p> + +<p>Quite different was the case of Sarah Newbolt, once more back in her poor shelter, nested in bramble and clambering +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span> vine. She was dazed, the song was gone out of her heart. +She was bereaved, and her lips were moving in endless repetition of supplication to the Almighty for the safety and +restoration of her son.</p> + +<p>What was this grim thing of which they had accused her Joe? She could not yet get to the bottom of it, she could not +understand how men could be so warped and blind. Why, Joe had told them how it happened, he had explained it as clear +as well water, but they didn’t believe him. She went out and sat on the porch to think it out, if possible, and +come to some way of helping Joe. There was not a friend to turn to, not a counselor to lean upon.</p> + +<p>She never had felt it lonely in the old place before, for there was companionship even in the memory of her dead, +but this evening as she sat on the porch, the familiar objects in the yard growing dim through the oncoming night, the +hollowness of desolation was there. Joe was in prison. The neighbors had refused to believe the word of her boy. There +was nobody to help him but her. The hand of everybody else was against him. She had delivered him into bondage and +brought this trouble to him, and now she must stir herself to set him free.</p> + +<p>“It’s all my own doin’s,” said she in unsparing reproach. “My chickens has come to +roost.”</p> + +<p>After nightfall she went into the kitchen where she sat a dreary while before her stove, leaning forward in her +unlovely, ruminating pose. Through the open draft of the stove the red coals within it glowed, casting three little +bars of light upon the floor. Now and then a stick burned in two and settled down, showering sparks through the grate. +These little flashes lit up her brown and somber face, and discovered the slow tears upon her weathered cheeks. For a +long time she sat thus, then at last she lifted her head and looked around the room. Her table stood as she had left +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span> it in the morning, no food had passed her lips since +then. But the frantic turmoil of the first hours after Joe had been led away to jail had quieted.</p> + +<p>A plan of action had shaped itself in her mind. In the morning she would go to Shelbyville and seek her +husband’s old friend, Colonel Henry Price, to solicit his advice and assistance. In a manner comforted by this +resolution, she prepared herself a pot of coffee and some food. After the loneliest and most hopeless meal that she +ever had eaten in her life, she went to bed.</p> + +<p>In the house of Isom Chase, where neighbors sat to watch the night out beside the shrouded body, there was a waste +of oil in many lamps, such an illumination that it seemed a wonder that old Isom did not rise up from his gory bed to +turn down the wicks and speak reproof. Everybody must have a light. If an errand for the living or a service for the +dead called one from this room to that, there must be a light. That was a place of tragic mystery, a place of violence +and death. If light had been lacking there on the deeds of Isom Chase, on his hoardings and hidings away; on the hour +of his death and the mystery of it, then all this must be balanced tonight by gleams in every window, beams through +every crevice; lamps here, lanterns there, candles in cupboards, cellar, and nook.</p> + +<p>Let there be light in the house of Isom Chase, and in the sharp espionage of curious eyes, for dark days hang over +it, and the young widow who draws the pity of all because she cannot weep.</p> + +<p>No matter how hard a woman’s life with a man has been, when he dies she is expected to mourn. That was the +standard of fealty and respect in the neighborhood of Isom Chase, as it is in more enlightened communities in other +parts of the world. A woman should weep for her man, no matter what bruises on body his heavy hand may leave behind +him, or <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159'></a>159</span> what scars in the heart which no storm of tears +can wash away. Custom has made hypocrites of the ladies in this matter the wide world through. Let no man, therefore, +lying bloodless and repellent upon his cooling-board, gather comfort to his cold heart when his widow’s tears +fall upon his face. For she may be weeping more for what might have been than was.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase’s widow could not weep at all. That was what they said of her, and their pity was more tender, +their compassion more sweet. Dry grief, they said. And that is grief like a covered fire, which smolders in the heart +and chars the foundations of life. She ought to be crying, to clear her mind and purge herself of the dregs of sorrow, +which would settle and corrode unless flushed out by tears; she ought to get rid of it at once, like any other widow, +and settle down to the enjoyment of all the property.</p> + +<p>The women around Ollie in her room tried to provoke her tears by reference to Isom’s good qualities, his +widely known honesty, his ceaseless striving to lay up property which he knew he couldn’t take with him, which he +realized that his young wife would live long years after him to enjoy. They glozed his faults and made virtues out of +his close-grained traits; they praised and lamented, with sighs and mournful words, but Isom’s widow could not +weep.</p> + +<p>Ollie wished they would go away and let her sleep. She longed for them to put out the lamps and let the moonlight +come in through the window and whiten on the floor, and bring her soft thoughts of Morgan. She chafed under their +chatter, and despised them for their shallow pretense. There was not one of them who had respected Isom in life, but +now they sat there, a solemn conclave, great-breasted sucklers of the sons of men, and insisted that she, his unloved, +his driven, abused and belabored wife, weep tears for his going, for which, in her heart, she was glad. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span></p> + +<p>It was well that they could not see her face, turned into the shadow, nestled against the pillow, moved now and then +as by the zephyr breath of a smile. At times she wanted to laugh at their pretense and humbug. To prevent it breaking +out in unseemly sound she was obliged to bite the coverlet and let the spasms of mirth waste themselves in her body and +limbs.</p> + +<p>When the good women beheld these contractions they looked at each other meaningly and shook dolefully wise heads. +Dry grief. Already it was laying deep hold on her, racking her like ague. She would waste under the curse of it, and +follow Isom to the grave in a little while, if she could not soon be moved to weep.</p> + +<p>Ollie did not want to appear unneighborly nor unkind, but as the night wore heavily on she at last requested them to +leave her.</p> + +<p>“You are all so good and kind!” said she, sincere for the moment, for there was no mistaking that they +meant to be. “But I think if you’d take the lamp out of the room I could go to sleep. If I need you, +I’ll call.”</p> + +<p>“Now, that’s just what you do, deary,” said red-faced Mrs. Greening, patting her head +comfortingly.</p> + +<p>The women retired to the spare bedroom where Joe had slept the night before, and from there their low voices came to +Ollie through the open door. She got up and closed it gently, and ran up the window-blind and opened the window-sash, +letting in the wind, standing there a little while drawing her gown aside, for the touch of it on her hot breast. She +remembered the day that Joe had seen her so, the churn-dasher in her hand; the recollection of what was pictured in his +face provoked a smile.</p> + +<p>There was a mist before the moon like a blowing veil, presaging rain tomorrow, the day of the funeral. It was well +known in that part of the country that rain on a coffin <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span> a +certain sign that another of that family would die within a year. Ollie hoped that it would not rain. She was not ready +to die within a year, nor many years. Her desire to live was large and deep. She had won the right, Isom had +compensated in part for the evil he had done her in leaving behind him all that was necessary to make the journey +pleasant.</p> + +<p>As she turned into her bed again and composed herself for sleep, she thought of Joe, with a feeling of tenderness. +She recalled again what Isom had proudly told her of the lad’s blood and breeding, and she understood dimly now +that there was something extraordinary in Joe’s manner of shielding her to his own disgrace and hurt. A common +man would not have done that, she knew.</p> + +<p>She wondered if Morgan would have done it, if he had been called upon, but the yea or the nay of it did not trouble +her. Morgan was secure in her heart without sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Well, tomorrow they would bury Isom, and that would end it. Joe would be set free then, she thought, the future +would be clear. So reasoning, she went to sleep in peace.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s habit of early rising during the past year of her busy life made it impossible for her to sleep after +daylight. For a while after waking next morning she lay enjoying that new phase of her enfranchisement. From that day +forward there would be no need of rising with the dawn. Time was her own now; she could stretch like a lady who has +servants to bring and take away, until the sun came into her chamber, if she choose.</p> + +<p>Downstairs there were dim sounds of people moving about, and the odors of breakfast were rising. Thinking that it +would be well, for the sake of appearances, to go down and assist them, she got up and dressed.</p> + +<p>She stopped before the glass to try her hair in a new arrangement, it was such bright hair, she thought, for +mourning, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span> but yet as somber as her heart, bringing it a +little lower on the brow, in a sweep from the point of parting. The effect was somewhat frivolous for a season of +mourning, and she would have to pass through one, she sighed. After a while, when she went out into Morgan’s +world of laughter and chatter and fine things. She smiled, patting her lively tresses back into their accustomed +place.</p> + +<p>Ollie was vain of her prettiness, as any woman is, only in her case there was no soul beneath it to give it ballast. +Her beauty was pretty much surface comeliness, and it was all there was of her, like a great singer who sometimes is +nothing but a voice.</p> + +<p>Sol Greening was in the kitchen with his wife and his son’s wife and two of the more distant neighbor women +who had remained overnight. The other men who had watched with Sol around Isom’s bier had gone off to dig a grave +for the dead, after the neighborly custom there. As quick as her thought, Ollie’s eyes sought the spot where +Isom’s blood had stood in the worn plank beside the table. The stain was gone. She drew her breath with freedom, +seeing it so, yet wondering how they had done it, for she had heard all her life that the stain of human blood upon a +floor could not be scoured away.</p> + +<p>“We was just gettin’ a bite of breakfast together,” said Mrs. Greening, her red face shining, and +brighter for its big, friendly smile.</p> + +<p>“I was afraid you might not be able to find everything,” explained Ollie, “and so I came +down.”</p> + +<p>“No need for you to do that, bless your heart!” Mrs. Greening said. “But we was just talkin’ +of callin’ you. Sol, he run across something last night that we thought you might want to see as soon as you +could.”</p> + +<p>Ollie looked from one to the other of them with a question in her eyes. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_163'></a>163</span></p> + +<p>“Something–something of mine?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening nodded.</p> + +<p>“Something Isom left. Fetch it to her, Sol.”</p> + +<p>Sol disappeared into the dread parlor where Isom lay, and came back with a large envelope tied about with a blue +string, and sealed at the back with wax over the knotted cord.</p> + +<p>“It’s Isom’s will,” said Sol, giving it to Ollie. “When we was makin’ room to +fetch in the coffin and lay Isom out in it last night, we had to move the center table, and the drawer fell out of it. +This paper was in there along with a bundle of old tax receipts. As soon as we seen what was on it, we decided it orto +be put in your hands as soon as you woke up.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know he had a will,” said Ollie, turning the envelope in her hands, not knowing what to +make of it, or what to do with it, at all.</p> + +<p>“Read what’s on the in-vellup,” advised Sol, standing by importantly, his hands on his hips, his +big legs spread out.</p> + +<p>Outside the sun was shining, tenderly yellow like a new plant. Ollie marked it with a lifting of relief. There would +be no rain on the coffin. It was light enough to read the writing on the envelope where she stood, but she moved over +to the window, wondering on the way.</p> + +<p>What was a will for but to leave property, and what need had Isom for making one?</p> + +<p>It was an old envelope, its edges browned by time, and the ink upon it was gray.</p> + +<div style='margin:0.5em 2em; text-align:justify;'>My last Will and Testament. <span style= +'font-variant:small-caps;'>Isom Chase.</span></div> + +<div style='margin:0.5em 2em; text-align:justify;'>N. B.–To be opened by John B. Little, in case he is living at +the time of my death. If he is not, then this is to be filed by the finder, unopened, in the probate court.</div> + +<p>That was the superscription in Isom’s writing, correctly spelled, correctly punctuated, after his precise way +in all business affairs. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span></p> + +<p>“Who is John B. Little?” asked Ollie, her heart seeming to grow small, shrinking from some undefined +dread.</p> + +<p>“He’s Judge Little, of the county court now,” said Sol. “I’ll go over after him, if +you say so.”</p> + +<p>“After breakfast will do,” said Ollie.</p> + +<p>She put the envelope on the shelf beside the clock, as if it did not concern her greatly. Yet, under her placid +surface she was deeply moved. What need had Isom for making a will?</p> + +<p>“It saves a lot of lawin’ and wastin’ money on costs,” said Sol, as if reading her mind and +making answer to her thought. “You’ll have a right smart of property on your hands to look after for a +young girl like you.”</p> + +<p>Of course, to her. Who else was there for him to will his property to? A right smart, indeed. Sol’s words were +wise; they quieted her sudden, sharp pain of fear.</p> + +<p>Judge Little lived less than a mile away. Before nine o’clock he was there, his black coat down to his knees, +for he was a short man and bowed of the legs, his long ends of hair combed over his bald crown.</p> + +<p>The judge was at that state of shrinkage when the veins can be counted in the hands of a thin man of his kind. His +smoothly shaved face was purple from congestion, the bald place on his small head was red. He was a man who walked +about as if wrapped in meditation, and on him rested a notarial air. His arms were almost as long as his legs, his +hands were extremely large, lending the impression that they had belonged originally to another and larger man, and +that Judge Little must have become possessed of them by some process of delinquency against a debtor. As he walked +along his way those immense hands hovered near the skirts of his long coat, the fingers bent, as if to lay hold of that +impressive garment and part it. This, together with the judge’s meditative appearance, lent him the aspect of +always being on the point of sitting down. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span></p> + +<p>“Well, well,” said he, sliding his spectacles down his nose to get the reading focus, advancing the +sealed envelope, drawing it away again, “so Isom left a will? Not surprising, not surprising. Isom was a careful +man, a man of business. I suppose we might as well proceed to open the document?”</p> + +<p>The judge was sitting with his thin legs crossed. They hung as close and limp as empty trousers. Around the room he +roved his eyes, red, watery, plagued by dust and wind. Greening was there, and his wife. The daughter-in-law had gone +home to get ready for the funeral. The other two neighbor women reposed easily on the kitchen chairs, arms tightly +folded, backs against the wall.</p> + +<p>“You, Mrs. Chase, being the only living person who is likely to have an interest in the will as legatee, are +fully aware of the circumstances under which it was found, and so forth and so forth?”</p> + +<p>Ollie nodded. There was something in her throat, dry and impeding. She felt that she could not speak.</p> + +<p>Judge Little took the envelope by the end, holding it up to the light. He took out his jack-knife and cut the +cord.</p> + +<p>It was a thin paper that he drew forth, and with little writing on it. Soon Judge Little had made himself master of +its contents, with an <i>Um-m-m</i>, as he started, and with an <i>A-h-h</i>! when he concluded, and a sucking-in of +his thin cheeks.</p> + +<p>He looked around again, a new brightness in his eyes. But he said nothing. He merely handed the paper to Ollie.</p> + +<p>“Read it out loud,” she requested, giving it back.</p> + +<p>Judge Little fiddled with his glasses again. Then he adjusted the paper before his eyes like a target, and read:</p> + +<div style='margin:0.5em 2em; text-align:justify;'>I hereby will and bequeath to my beloved son, Isom Walker Chase, all +of my property, personal and real; and I hereby appoint my friend, John B. Little, administrator of my estate, to serve +without bond, until my son shall attain his majority, in case that I should die before that time. This is my last will, +and I am in sound mind and bodily health.</div> + +<p>That was all.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_10'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span> +<h2>CHAPTER X<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>LET HIM HANG</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>The will was duly signed and witnessed, and bore a notarial seal. It was dated in the hand of the testator, in +addition to the acknowledgment of the notary, all regular, and unquestionably done.</p> + +<p>“His son!” said Sol, amazed, looking around with big eyes. “Why, Isom he never had no +son!”</p> + +<p>“Do we know that?” asked Judge Little, as if to raise the question of reasonable doubt.</p> + +<p>Son or no son, until that point should be determined he would have the administration of the estate, with large and +comfortable fees.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve lived right there acrost the road from him all my life, and all of his, too; and I reckon +I’d purty near know if anybody knowed!” declared Sol. “I went to school with Isom, I was one of the +little fellers when he was a big one, and I was at his weddin’. My wife she laid out his first wife, and I dug +her grave. She never had no children, judge; you know that as well as anybody.”</p> + +<p>Judge Little coughed dryly, thoughtfully, his customary aspect of deep meditation more impressive than ever.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes the people we believe we know best turn out to be the ones we know least,” said he. +“Maybe we knew only one side of Isom’s life. Every man has his secrets.”</p> + +<p>“You mean to say there was another woman somewheres?” asked Sol, taking the scent avidly.</p> + +<p>The women against the wall joined Mrs. Greening in a virtuous, scandalized groan. They looked pityingly at Ollie, +sitting straight and white in her chair. She did not appear <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_167'></a>167</span> to see them; she was looking at Judge Little with fixed, frightened stare.</p> + +<p>“That is not for me to say,” answered the judge; and his manner of saying it seemed to convey the hint +that he <i>could</i> throw light on Isom’s past if he should unseal his lips.</p> + +<p>Ollie took it to be that way. She recalled the words of the will, “My friend, John B. Little.” Isom had +never spoken in her hearing that way of any man. Perhaps there was some bond between the two men, reaching back to the +escapades of youth, and maybe Judge Little had the rusty old key to some past romance in Isom’s life.</p> + +<p>“Laws of mercy!” said Mrs. Greening, freeing a sigh of indignation which surely must have burst her if +it had been repressed.</p> + +<p>“This document is dated almost thirty years ago,” said the judge. “It is possible that Isom left a +later will. We must make a search of the premises to determine that.”</p> + +<p>“In sixty-seven he wrote it,” said Sol, “and that was the year he was married. The +certificate’s hangin’ in there on the wall. Before that, Isom he went off to St. Louis to business college +a year or two and got all of his learnin’ and smart ways. I might ’a’ went, too, just as well as not. +Always wisht I had.”</p> + +<p>“Very true, very true,” nodded Judge Little, as if to say: “You’re on the trail of his +iniquities now, Sol.”</p> + +<p>Sol’s mouth gaped like an old-fashioned corn-planter as he looked from the judge to Mrs. Greening, from Mrs. +Greening to Ollie. Sol believed the true light of the situation had reached his brain.</p> + +<p>“Walker–Isom Walker Chase! No Walkers around in this part of the country to name a boy after–never +was.”</p> + +<p>“His mother was a Walker, from Ellinoi, dunce!” corrected his wife.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Sol, his scandalous case collapsing about <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_168'></a>168</span> him as quickly as it had puffed up. “I forgot about her.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry about that will, honey,” advised Mrs. Greening, going to Ollie and putting her +large freckled arm around the young woman’s shoulders; “for it won’t amount to shucks! Isom never had +a son, and even if he did by some woman he wasn’t married to, how’s he goin’ to prove he’s the +feller?”</p> + +<p>Nobody attempted to answer her, and Mrs. Greening accepted that as proof that her argument was indubitable.</p> + +<p>“It–can’t–be–true!” said Ollie.</p> + +<p>“Well, it gits the best of me!” sighed Greening, shaking his uncombed head. “Isom he was too much +of a business man to go and try to play off a joke like that on anybody.”</p> + +<p>“After the funeral I would advise a thorough search among Isom’s papers in the chance of finding another +and later will than this,” said Judge Little. “And in the meantime, as a legal precaution, merely as a +legal precaution and formality, Mrs. Chase––”</p> + +<p>The judge stopped, looking at Ollie from beneath the rims of his specs, as if waiting for her permission to proceed. +Ollie, understanding nothing at all of what was in his mind, but feeling that it was required of her, nodded. That +seemed the signal for which he waited. He proceeded:</p> + +<p>“As a legal formality, Mrs. Chase, I will proceed to file this document for probate this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>Judge Little put it in his pocket, reaching down into that deep depository until his long arm was engulfed to the +elbow. That pocket must have run down to the hem of his garment, like the oil on Aaron’s beard.</p> + +<p>Ollie got up. Mrs. Greening hastened to her to offer the support of her motherly arm.</p> + +<p>“I think I’ll go upstairs,” said the young widow.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you do,” counseled Mrs. Greening. “They’ll be along with the wagons purty soon, and +we’ll have to git <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169'></a>169</span> ready to go. I think they must +have the grave done by now.”</p> + +<p>The women watched Ollie as she went uncertainly to the stairs and faltered as she climbed upward, shaking their +heads forebodingly. Sol and Judge Little went outside together and stood talking by the door.</p> + +<p>“Ain’t it terrible!” said one woman.</p> + +<p>“Scan’lous!” agreed the other.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening shook her fist toward the parlor.</p> + +<p>“Old sneaky, slinkin’, miserly Isom!” she denounced. “I always felt that he was the kind of +a man to do a trick like that. Shootin’ was too good for him–he orto been hung!”</p> + +<p>In her room upstairs Ollie, while entirely unaware of Mrs. Greening’s vehement arraignment of Isom, bitterly +indorsed it in her heart. She sat on her tossed bed, the sickness of disappointment heavy over her. An hour ago wealth +was in her hand, ease was before her, and the future was secure. Now all was torn down and scattered by an old yellow +paper which prying, curious, meddlesome old Sol Greening had found. She bent her head upon her hand; tears trickled +between her fingers.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Isom had a son, unknown to anybody there. There was that period out of his life when he was at business +college in St. Louis. No one knew what had taken place in that time. Perhaps he had a son. If so, they would oust her, +turn her out as poor as she came, with the memory of that hard year of servitude in her heart and nothing to compensate +for it, not even a tender recollection. How much better if Joe had not come between her and Curtis Morgan that +night–what night, how long ago was it now?–how much kinder and happier for her indeed?</p> + +<p>With the thought of what Joe had caused of wreckage in her life by his meddling, her resentment rose against him. +But for him, slow-mouthed, cold-hearted lout, she would have been safe and happy with Morgan that hour. Old Isom +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span> would have been living still, going about his sordid ways +as before she came, and the need of his money would have been removed out of her life forever.</p> + +<p>Joe was at the bottom of all this–spying, prying, meddling Joe. Let him suffer for it now, said she. If he had +kept out of things which he did not understand, the fool! Now let him suffer! Let him hang, if he must hang, as she had +heard the women say last night he should. No act of hers, no word––</p> + +<p>“The wagons is coming, honey,” said Mrs. Greening at her door. “We must git ready to go to the +graveyard now.”</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_11'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171'></a>171</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XI<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>PETER’S SON</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Mint grew under the peach-trees in Colonel Henry Price’s garden, purple-stemmed mint, with dark-green, tender +leaves. It was not the equal of the mint, so the colonel contended with provincial loyalty, which grew back in Kentucky +along the clear, cool mountain streams. But, picked early in the morning with the dew on it, and then placed +bouquet-wise in a bowl of fresh well-water, to stand thus until needed, it made a very competent substitute for the +Kentucky herb.</p> + +<p>In that cool autumn weather mint was at its best, and Colonel Price lamented, as he gathered it that morning, +elbow-deep in its dewy fragrance, that the need of it was passing with the last blaze of October days.</p> + +<p>Yet it was comforting to consider how well-balanced the seasons and men’s appetites were. With the passing of +the season for mint, the desire for it left the palate. Frosty mornings called for the comfort of hot toddy, wintry +blasts for frothing egg-nog in the cup. Man thirsted and nature satisfied; the economy of the world was thus balanced +and all was well. So reasoned Colonel Price comfortably, after his way.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price straightened up from his mint-picking with dew on his arm and a flush of gathered blood in his cheeks +above his beard. He looked the philosopher and humanitarian that he was that morning, his breast-length white beard +blowing, his long and thick white hair brushed back in a rising wave from his broad forehead. He was a tall and spare +man, slender of hand, small of foot, with the crinkles of past <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_172'></a>172</span> laughter about his eyes, and in his face benevolence. One would have named him a poet at +first look, and argued for the contention on further acquaintance.</p> + +<p>But Colonel Price was not a poet, except at heart, any more than he was a soldier, save in name. He never had trod +the bloody fields of war, but had won his dignified and honorable title in the quiet ways of peace. Colonel Price was +nothing less than an artist, who painted many things because they brought him money, and one thing because he loved it +and could do it well.</p> + +<p>He painted prize-winning heifers and horses; portraits from the faces of men as nature had made them, with more or +less fidelity, and from faded photographs and treasured daguerreotypes of days before and during the war, with whatever +embellishments their owners required. He painted plates of apples which had taken prizes at the county fair, and royal +pumpkins and kingly swine which had won like high distinctions. But the one thing he painted because he loved it, and +could do it better than anybody else, was corn.</p> + +<p>At corn Colonel Price stood alone. He painted it in bunches hanging on barn doors, and in disordered heaps in the +husk, a gleam of the grain showing here and there; and he painted it shelled from the cob. No matter where or how he +painted it, his corn always was ripe and seasoned, like himself, and always so true to nature, color, form, crinkle, +wrinkle, and guttered heart, that farmers stood before it marveling.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price’s heifers might be–very frequently they were–hulky and bumpy and out of proportion, +his horses strangely foreshortened and hindlengthened; but there never was any fault to be found with his corn. Corn +absolved him of all his sins against animate and inanimate things which had stood before his brush in his long life; +corn <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span> apotheosized him, corn lifted him to the throne and +put the laurel upon his old white locks.</p> + +<p>The colonel had lived in Shelbyville for more than thirty years, in the same stately house with its three Ionic +pillars reaching from ground to gable, supporting the two balconies facing toward the east. A square away on one hand +was the court-house, a square away on the other the Presbyterian church; and around him were the homes of men whom he +had seen come there young, and ripen with him in that quiet place. Above him on the hill stood the famous old college, +its maples and elms around it, and coming down from it on each side of the broad street which led to its classic +door.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price turned his thoughts from mint to men as he came across the dewy lawn, his gleanings in his hand, his +bare head gleaming in the morning sun. He had heard, the evening before, of the arrest of Peter Newbolt’s boy for +the murder of Isom Chase, and the news of it had come to him with a disturbing shock, almost as poignant as if one of +his own blood had been accused.</p> + +<p>The colonel knew the sad story of Peter marrying below his estate away back there in Kentucky long ago. The Newbolts +were blue-grass people, entitled to mate with the best in the land. Peter had debased his blood by marrying a mountain +girl. Colonel Price had held it always to Peter’s credit that he had been ashamed of his <i>mésalliance</i>, and +had plunged away into the woods of Missouri with his bride to hide her from the eyes of his aristocratic family and +friends.</p> + +<p>Back in Kentucky the colonel’s family and the Newbolt’s had been neighbors. A few years after Peter made +his dash across the Mississippi with his bride, and the journey on horseback to his new home, young Price had followed, +drawn to Shelbyville by the fame of that place at a seat of culture and knowledge, which even in that early day had +spread afar. The colonel–not having won his title then–came across <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_174'></a>174</span> the river with his easel under one arm and his pride under the other. He had kept both of +them in honor all those years.</p> + +<p>On the hopes and ambitions of those early days the colonel had realized, in a small way, something in the measure of +a man who sets to work with the intention of making a million and finds himself content at last to count his gains by +hundreds. He had taken up politics as a spice to the placid life of art, and once had represented his district in the +state assembly, and four times had been elected county clerk. Then he had retired on his honors, with a competence from +his early investments and an undivided ambition to paint corn.</p> + +<p>Through all those years he had watched the struggles of Peter Newbolt, who never seemed able to kick a foothold in +the steps of success, and he had seen him die at last, with his unrealized schemes of life around him. And now +Peter’s boy was in jail, charged with slaying old Isom Chase. Death had its compensations, at the worst, +reflected the colonel. It had spared Peter this crowning disgrace.</p> + +<p>That boy must be a throw-back, thought the colonel, to the ambuscading, feud-fighting men on his mother’s +side. The Newbolts never had been accused of crime back in Kentucky. There they had been the legislators, the judges, +the governors, and senators. Yes, thought the colonel, coming around the corner of the house, lifting the fragrant +bunch of mint to his face and pausing a step while he drank its breath; yes, the boy must be a throw-back. It +wasn’t in the Newbolt blood to do a thing like that.</p> + +<p>The colonel heard the front gate close sharply, drawn to by the stone weight which he had arranged for that purpose, +having in mind the guarding of his mint-bed from the incursions of dogs. He wondered who could be coming in so early, +and hastened forward to see. A woman was coming up the walk toward the house. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_175'></a>175</span></p> + +<p>She was tall, and soberly clad, and wore a little shawl over her head, which she held at her chin with one hand. The +other hand she extended toward the colonel with a gesture of self-depreciation and appeal as she hurried forward in +long strides.</p> + +<p>“Colonel Price, Colonel Price, sir! Can I speak to you a minute?” she asked, her voice halting from the +shortness of breath.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, ma’am; I am at your command,” said the colonel.</p> + +<p>“Colonel, you don’t know me,” said she, a little inflection of disappointment in her tone.</p> + +<p>She stood before him, and the little shawl over her hair fell back to her shoulders. Her clothing was poor, her feet +were covered with dust. She cast her hand out again in that little movement of appeal.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Newbolt, Peter Newbolt’s widow, upon my soul!” exclaimed the colonel, shocked by his own +slow recognition. “I beg your pardon, madam. I didn’t know you at first, it has been so long since I saw +you. But I was thinking of you only the minute past.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m in such trouble, Colonel Price!” said she.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price took her by the arm with tender friendliness.</p> + +<p>“Come in and rest and refresh yourself,” said he. “You surely didn’t walk over +here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s only a step,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Five or six miles, I should say,” ventured the colonel.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, only four. Have you heard about my boy Joe?”</p> + +<p>The colonel admitted that he had heard of his arrest.</p> + +<p>“I’ve come over to ask your advice on what to do,” said she, “and I hope it won’t +bother you much, Colonel Price. Joe and me we haven’t got a friend in this world!”</p> + +<p>“I will consider it a duty and a pleasure to assist the boy <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_176'></a>176</span> in any way I can,” said the colonel in perfunctory form. “But first come in, have +some breakfast, and then we’ll talk it over. I’ll have to apologize for Miss Price. I’m afraid +she’s abed yet,” said he, opening the door, showing his visitor into the parlor.</p> + +<p>“I’m awful early,” said Mrs. Newbolt hesitating at the door. “It’s shameful to come +around disturbin’ folks at this hour. But when a body’s in trouble, Colonel Price, time seems +long.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the same with all of us,” said he. “But Miss Price will be down presently. I think I +hear her now. Just step in, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>She looked deprecatingly at her dusty shoes, standing there in the parlor door, her skirts gathered back from +them.</p> + +<p>“If I could wipe some of this dust off,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Never mind that; we are all made of it,” the colonel said. “I’ll have the woman set you out +some breakfast; afterward we’ll talk about the boy.”</p> + +<p>“I thank you kindly, Colonel Price, but I already et, long ago, what little I had stomach for,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“Then if you will excuse me for a moment, madam?” begged the colonel, seeing her seated stiffly in an +upholstered chair.</p> + +<p>She half rose in acknowledgment of his bow, awkward and embarrassed.</p> + +<p>“You’re excusable, sir,” said she.</p> + +<p>The colonel dashed away down the hall. She was only a mountain woman, certainly, but she was a lady by virtue of +having been a gentleman’s wife. And she had caught him without a coat!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt sat stiffly in the parlor in surroundings which were of the first magnitude of grandeur to her, with +corn pictures adorning the walls along with some of the colonel’s early transgressions in landscapes, and the +portraits of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span> colonels in the family line who had gone +before. That was the kind of fixings Joe would like, thought she, nodding her serious head; just the kind of things +that Joe would enjoy and understand, like a gentleman born to it.</p> + +<p>“Well, he comes by it honest,” said she aloud.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price did not keep her waiting long. He came back in a black coat that was quite as grand as Judge +Little’s, and almost as long. That garment was the mark of fashion and gentility in that part of the country in +those days, a style that has outlived many of the hearty old gentlemen who did it honor, and has descended even to this +day with their sons.</p> + +<p>“My son’s innocent of what they lay to him, Colonel Price,” said Mrs. Newbolt, with impressive +dignity which lifted her immediately in the colonel’s regard.</p> + +<p>Even an inferior woman could not associate with a superior man that long without some of his gentility passing to +her, thought he. Colonel Price inclined his head gravely.</p> + +<p>“Madam, Peter Newbolt’s son never would commit a crime, much less the crime of murder,” he said, +yet with more sincerity in his words, perhaps, than lay in his heart.</p> + +<p>“I only ask you to hold back your decision on him till you can learn the truth,” said she, unconsciously +passing over the colonel’s declaration of confidence. “You don’t remember Joe maybe, for he was only +a little shaver the last time you stopped at our house when you was canvassin’ for office. That’s been ten +or ’leven–maybe more–years ago. Joe, he’s growed considerable since then.”</p> + +<p>“They do, they shoot up,” said the colonel encouragingly.</p> + +<p>“Yes; but Joe he’s nothing like me. He runs after his father’s side of the family, and he’s +a great big man in size now, Colonel Price; but he’s as soft at heart as a dove.”</p> + +<p>So she talked on, telling him what she knew. When she had finished laying the case of Joe before him, the colonel +sat <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span> thinking it over a bit, one hand in his beard, his +head slightly bowed. Mrs. Newbolt watched him with anxious eyes. Presently he looked at her and smiled. A great load of +uncertainty went up from her heart in a sigh.</p> + +<p>“The first thing to do is to get him a lawyer, and the best one we can nail,” the colonel said.</p> + +<p>She nodded, her face losing its worried tension.</p> + +<p>“And the next thing is for Joe to make a clean breast of everything, holding back nothing that took place +between him and Isom that night.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell him to do it,” said she eagerly, “and I know he will when I tell him you said he +must.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go over to the sheriff’s with you and see him,” said the colonel, avoiding the use of +the word “jail” with a delicacy that was his own.</p> + +<p>“I’m beholden to you, Colonel Price, for all your great kindness,” said she.</p> + +<p>There had been no delay in the matter of returning an indictment against Joe. The grand jury was in session at that +time, opportunely for all concerned, and on the day that Joe was taken to the county jail the case was laid before that +body by the prosecuting attorney. Before the grand jury adjourned that day’s business a true bill had been +returned against Joe Newbolt, charging him with the murder of Isom Chase.</p> + +<p>There was in Shelbyville at that time a lawyer who had mounted to his profession like a conqueror, over the heads of +his fellow-townsmen as stepping-stones. Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that the chins of the men of +Shelbyville were the rungs in this ladder, for the lawyer had risen from the barber’s chair. He had shaved and +sheared his way from that ancient trade, in which he had been respected as an able hand, to the equally ancient +profession, in which he was cutting a rather ludicrous and lumbering figure. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_179'></a>179</span></p> + +<p>But he had that enterprise and lack of modesty which has lately become the fashion among young lawyers–and is +spreading fast among the old ones, too–which carried him into places and cases where simply learning would have +left him without a brief. If a case did not come to Lawyer Hammer, Lawyer Hammer went to the case, laid hold of it by +force, and took possession of it as a kidnaper carries off a child.</p> + +<p>Hammer was a forerunner of the type of lawyer so common in our centers of population today, such as one sees chasing +ambulances through the streets with a business-card in one hand and a contract in the other; such as arrives at the +scene of wreck, fire, and accident along with the undertaker, and always ahead of the doctors and police.</p> + +<p>Hammer had his nose in the wind the minute that Constable Frost came into town with his prisoner. Before Joe had +been in jail an hour he had engaged himself to defend that unsophisticated youngster, and had drawn from him an order +on Mrs. Newbolt for twenty-five dollars. He had demanded fifty as his retainer, but Joe knew that his mother had but +twenty-five dollars saved out of his wages, and no more. He would not budge a cent beyond that amount.</p> + +<p>So, as Mrs. Newbolt and Colonel Price approached the jail that morning, they beheld the sheriff and Lawyer Hammer +coming down the steps of the county prison, and between them Joe, like <i>Eugene Aram</i>, “with gyves upon his +wrists.” The sheriff was taking Joe out to arraign him before the circuit judge to plead to the indictment.</p> + +<p>The court convened in that same building where all the county’s business was centered, and there was no +necessity for taking the prisoner out through one door and in at another, for there was a passage from cells to +court-rooms. But if he had taken Joe that way, the sheriff would have lost a seldom-presented opportunity of showing +himself on the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span> streets in charge of a prisoner accused of +homicide, to say nothing of the grand opening for the use of his ancient wrist-irons.</p> + +<p>Lawyer Hammer also enjoyed his distinction in that short march. He leaned over and whispered in his client’s +ear, so that there would be no doubt left in the public understanding of his relations to the prisoner, and he took +Joe’s arm and added his physical support to his legal as they descended the steps.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt was painfully shocked by the sight of the irons on Joe’s wrists. She groaned as if they clamped +the flesh of her own.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they didn’t need to do that,” she moaned.</p> + +<p>Joe doubtless heard her, for he lifted his face and ran his eyes through the crowd which had gathered. When he found +her he smiled. That was the first look Colonel Price ever had taken into the lad’s face.</p> + +<p>“No,” said he, answering her anguished outbreak with a fervency that came from his heart, “there +was no need of that at all.”</p> + +<p>They followed the sheriff and his charge into the court-room, where Mrs. Newbolt introduced Colonel Price to her +son. While Joe and his mother sat in whispered conversation at the attorney’s table, the colonel studied the +youth’s countenance.</p> + +<p>He had expected to meet a weak-faced, bony-necked, shock-headed type of gangling youngster such as ranged the +Kentucky hills in his own boyhood. At best he had hoped for nothing more than a slow-headed, tobacco-chewing rascal +with dodging, animal eyes. The colonel’s pleasure, then, both as an artist and an honest man, was great on +beholding this unusual face, strong and clear, as inflexible in its molded lines of high purpose and valiant deeds as a +carving in Flemish oak. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span></p> + +<p>Here was the Peter Newbolt of long ago, remodeled in a stronger cast, with more nobility in his brow, more promise +in his long, bony jaw. Here was no boy at all, but a man, full-founded and rugged, and as honest as daylight, the +colonel knew.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price was prepared to believe whatever that young fellow might say, and to maintain it before the world. He +was at once troubled to see Hammer mixed up in the case, for he detested Hammer as a plebeian smelling of grease, who +had shouldered his unwelcome person into a company of his betters, which he could neither dignify nor grace.</p> + +<p>The proceedings in court were brief. Joe stood, upon the reading of the long, rambling information by the +prosecuting attorney, and entered a calm and dignified plea of not guilty. He was held without bond for trial two weeks +from that day.</p> + +<p>In the sheriff’s office Mrs. Newbolt and the colonel sat with Joe, his wrists free from the humiliating irons, +and talked the situation over. Hammer was waiting on the outside. Colonel Price having waved him away, not considering +for a moment the lowering of himself to include Hammer in the conference.</p> + +<p>The colonel found that he could not fall into an easy, advisory attitude with Joe. He could not even suggest what he +had so strongly recommended to Mrs. Newbolt before meeting her son–that he make a clean breast of all that took +place between himself and Isom Chase before the tragedy. Colonel Price felt that he would be taking an offensive and +unwarranted liberty in offering any advice at all on that head. Whatever his reasons for concealment and silence were, +the colonel told himself, the young man would be found in the end justified; or if there was a revelation to be made, +then he would make it at the proper time without being pressed. Of that the colonel felt sure. A gentleman could be +trusted. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span></p> + +<p>But there was another matter upon which the colonel had no scruples of silence, and that was the subject of the +attorney upon whom Joe had settled to conduct his affairs.</p> + +<p>“That man Hammer is not, to say the least, the very best lawyer in Shelbyville,” said he.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t suppose he is,” allowed Joe.</p> + +<p>“Now, I believe in you, Joe, as strong as any man can believe in another––”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir,” said Joe, lifting his solemn eyes to the colonel’s face. The colonel nodded his +acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>“But, no matter how innocent you are, you’ve got to stand trial on this outrageous charge, and the +county attorney he’s a hard and unsparing man. You’ll need brains on your side as well as innocence, for +innocence alone seldom gets a man off. And I’m sorry to tell you, son, that Jeff Hammer hasn’t got the +brains you’ll need in your lawyer. He never did have ’em, and he never will have ’em–never in +this mortal world!”</p> + +<p>“I thought he seemed kind of sharp,” said Joe, coloring a little at the colonel’s implied charge +that he had been taken in.</p> + +<p>“He is sharp,” admitted the colonel, “but that’s all there is to him. He can wiggle and +squirm like a snake; but he’s got no dignity, and no learnin’, and what he don’t know about law would +make a book bigger than the biggest dictionary you ever saw.”</p> + +<p>“Land’s sake!” said Mrs. Newbolt, lifting up her hands despairingly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I guess he’ll do, Colonel Price,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“My advice would be to turn him out and put somebody else in his place, one of the old, respectable heads of +the profession here, like Judge Burns.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t like to do that, colonel,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll see how he behaves,” the colonel yielded, seeing <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_183'></a>183</span> that Joe felt in honor bound to Hammer, now that he had engaged him. “We can put +somebody else in if he goes to cuttin’ up too many didoes and capers.”</p> + +<p>Joe agreed that they could, and gave his mother a great deal of comfort and assurance by his cheerful way of facing +what lay ahead of him. He told her not to worry on his account, and not to come too often and wear herself out in the +long walk.</p> + +<p>“Look after the chickens and things, Mother,” said he, “and I’ll be out of here in two weeks +to help you along. There’s ten dollars coming to you from Isom’s; you collect that and buy yourself some +things.”</p> + +<p>He told her of the order that he had given Hammer for the retaining fee, and asked her to take it up.</p> + +<p>“I’ll make it up to you, Mother, when I get this thing settled and can go to work again,” said +he.</p> + +<p>Tears came into her eyes, but no trace of emotion was to be marked by any change in her immobile face.</p> + +<p>“Lord bless you, son, it all belongs to you!” she said.</p> + +<p>“Do you care about reading?” the colonel inquired, scarcely supposing that he did, considering the +chances which had been his for development in that way.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt answered for Joe, who was slow and deliberative of speech, and always stopped to weigh his answer to a +question, no matter how obvious the reply must be.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Colonel Price, if you could see him!” said she proudly. “Before he was ten years old +he’d read the <i>Cottage Encyclopedy</i> and the <i>Imitation</i> and the Bible–from back to +back!”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re of a studious mind,” said the colonel.</p> + +<p>As often as Joe had heard his mother boast of his achievements with those three notable books, he had not yet grown +hardened to it. It always gave him a feeling of foolishness, and drowned him in blushes. Now it required some time for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span> him to disentangle himself, but presently he looked at +the colonel with a queer smile, as he said:</p> + +<p>“Mother always tells that on me.”</p> + +<p>“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” comforted the colonel, marking his confusion.</p> + +<p>“And all the books he’s borrowed since then!” said she, conveying a sense of magnitude by the +stress of her expression. “He strained his eyes so when he was seventeen readin’ Shuckspur’s writings +that the teacher let him have I thought he’d have to put on specs.”</p> + +<p>“My daughter and I have a considerable number of books,” said the colonel, beginning to feel about for a +bit more elegance in his method of expression, as a thing due from one man of culture to another, “and if you +will express your desires I’m sure we shall be glad to supply you if the scope of our library permits.”</p> + +<p>Joe thanked him for the offer, that strange little smile coming over his face again.</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t take much of a library, Colonel Price, to have a great many books in it that I’ve +never read,” said he. “I haven’t been easy enough in my mind since this thing came up to think about +reading–I’ve got a book in my pocket that I’d forgotten all about until you mentioned books.” +He lifted the skirt of his short coat, his pocket bulging from the volume wedged into it. “I’ll have a job +getting it out, too,” said he.</p> + +<p>“It don’t seem to be a very heavy volume,” smiled the colonel. “What work is it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the Book,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price laid his hand on the lad’s shoulder and looked him straight in the face.</p> + +<p>“Then you’ve got by you the sum and substance of all knowledge, and the beginning and the end of all +philosophy,” said he. “With that work in your hand you need no other, for it’s the father of all +books.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span></p> + +<p>“I’ve thought that way about it myself sometimes,” said Joe, as easy and confident in his manner +with the colonel, who represented a world to which he was a stranger from actual contact, as a good swimmer in water +beyond his depth.</p> + +<p>“But if you happen to be coming over this way in a day or two you might stop in if it wouldn’t trouble +you, and I could name over to you a few books that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time.”</p> + +<p>“I intend to lighten your brief period of confinement as much as it is in my power to do,” declared the +colonel, “and I can speak for my daughter when I say that she will share my anxiety to make you as comfortable as +human hands can make you in this place, Joe. We’ll come over and cheer you every little while.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt had sat by, like one who had been left behind at a way-station by an express-train, while the colonel +and Joe had talked. They had gone beyond her limited powers; there was nothing for her to do but wait for them to come +back. Now the colonel had reached her point of contact again.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be rewarded for your kindness to the widow’s son,” said she, nodding her head +earnestly, tears shining in her eyes.</p> + +<p>When he was leaving, Colonel Price felt that he must make one more effort to induce Joe to discharge Hammer and put +his case into the hands of a more competent man. Joe was firm in his determination to give Hammer a chance. He was a +little sensitive on the matter under the rind, the colonel could see.</p> + +<p>“If I was to hire the best lawyer I could find, Colonel Price, people would say then that I was guilty, sure +enough,” said Joe. “They’d say I was depending more on the lawyer than myself to come clear. Well, +colonel, you know that isn’t the case.”</p> + +<p>That seemed to settle it, at least for the present. The <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_186'></a>186</span> colonel summoned the sheriff, who took Joe to his cell. As the colonel and Mrs. Newbolt +passed out, Attorney Hammer appeared, presenting his order for the money.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt carried her savings with her. When she had paid Hammer she had sixty cents left in her calloused +palm.</p> + +<p>“That’s egg money,” said she, tying it in the corner of her handkerchief. “Oh, colonel, I +forgot to ask the sheriff, but do you reckon they’ll give my Joe enough to eat?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll see to that,” said Hammer officiously.</p> + +<p>Hammer was a large, soft man in an alpaca-coat and white shirt without a collar. His hair was very black and +exceedingly greasy, and brushed down upon his skull until it glittered, catching every ray of light in his vicinity +like a bucket of oil. He walked in long strides, with a sliding motion of the feet, and carried his hands with the +palms turned outward, as if ready instantly to close upon any case, fee, or emolument which came in passing contact +with him, even though it might be on its way to somebody else.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt was not unfavorably impressed with him, for he seemed very officious and altogether domineering in the +presence of the sheriff, but her opinion may have been influenced perhaps by Joe’s determination to have him +whether or no. She thanked him for his promise of good offices in Joe’s behalf, and he took her arm and impeded +her greatly in her progress down the steps.</p> + +<p>After Mrs. Newbolt had taken some refreshment in the colonel’s house, she prepared to return home.</p> + +<p>“If I had a hoss, madam,” said the colonel, “I’d hitch up and carry you home. But I +don’t own a hoss, and I haven’t owned one for nine years, since the city grew up so around me I had to sell +off my land to keep the taxes from eatin’ me up. If I did own a hoss now,” he laughed, “I’d +have no place to keep him except under the bed, like they do the houn’-dogs back in Kentucky.” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span></p> + +<p>She made light of the walk, for Joe’s bright and sanguine carriage had lightened her sorrow. She had hope to +walk home with, and no wayfarer ever traveled in more pleasant company.</p> + +<p>The colonel and his daughter pressed her to make their home her resting-place when in town, even inviting her to +take up her abode there until the trial. This generous hospitality she could not accept on account of the +“critters” at home which needed her daily care, and the eggs which had to be gathered and saved and sold, +all against the happy day when her boy Joe would walk out free and clear from the door of the county jail.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_12'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE SUNBEAM ON THE WALL</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>The sheriff was a mild-mannered man, whose head was shaped like the end of a watermelon. His hair was close-cut and +very thin at the top, due to the fact that all the nourishing substances both inside and outside his head, or any way +appertaining thereto, went into the maintenance of the sheriff’s mustache, which was at least twice as large as +Bill Frost’s.</p> + +<p>This, of course, was as it should have been, for even the poorest kind of a sheriff is more than twice as important +as the very best sort of constable. In those days it was the custom for sheriffs in that part of the country to train +up these prodigious mustaches, perhaps in the belief that such adornments lent them the appearance of competence and +valor, of which endowments nature had given them no other testimonial. In any event it is known that many a two-inch +sheriff took his stand behind an eight-inch mustache, and walked boldly in the honor of his constituents.</p> + +<p>The sheriff of Shelbyville was a type of this class, both in mental depth and facial adornment. He was exceedingly +jealous of his power, and it was his belief that too many liberties permitted a prisoner, and too many favors shown, +acted in contravention of the law’s intent as interpreted by the prosecuting attorney; namely, that a person +under the cloud of accusation should be treated as guilty until able to prove himself innocent. Therefore the sheriff +would not allow Joe Newbolt to leave his cell to meet visitors after his arraignment.</p> + +<p>The meeting between the prisoner and his mother in the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span> +office of the jail was to be the last of that sort; all who came in future must see him at the door of his cell. That +was the rule laid down to Joe when he parted from his mother and Colonel Price that day.</p> + +<p>As a cell in a prison-house, perhaps Joe’s place of confinement was fairly comfortable. It was situated in the +basement of the old court-house, where there was at least light enough to contemplate one’s misery by, and +sufficient air to set one longing for the fields. There was but one other prisoner, a horse-thief, waiting for +trial.</p> + +<p>This loquacious fellow, who was lodged directly across the corridor, took great pains to let Joe see the admiration +and esteem in which he held him on account of the distinguished charge under which he was confined. He annoyed Joe to +such extent that he asked the sheriff that evening to shift them about if possible.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll move him if you say so, but I left him there because I thought he’d be company for +you,” said the sheriff. “I don’t mind talkin’ in this jail when there’s no more than two +in it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to talk,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>So the horse-thief was removed to the farther end of the corridor, where he kept up a knocking on the bars of his +cell during the early hours of the night, and then turned off his diversion by imitating the sound of a saw on steel, +which he could do with his tongue against his teeth with such realism as to bring the sheriff down in his nightshirt, +with a lantern in one hand and a shotgun in the other.</p> + +<p>Joe’s second night in jail passed very much like the first, when they had brought him there all bewildered and +dazed. There was a grated window in the wall above his reach, through which he could see the branches of an elm-tree, +blowing bare of leaves; beyond that a bit of sky. Joe sat on the edge of his cot that second night a long time after +the stars <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span> came out, gazing up at the bar-broken bit of +sky, reviewing the events leading up to his situation.</p> + +<p>There was no resentment in him against the jury of his neighbors whose finding had sent him to jail under the cloud +of that terrible accusation; he harbored no ill-feeling for the busy, prying little coroner, who had questioned him so +impertinently. There was one person alone, in the whole world of men, to blame, and that was Curtis Morgan. He could +not have been far away on the day of the inquest; news of the tragic outcome of Ollie’s attempt to join him must +have traveled to his ears.</p> + +<p>Yet he had not come forward to take the load of suspicion from Joe’s shoulders by confessing the treacherous +thing that he had plotted. He need not have revealed the complete story of his trespass upon the honor of Isom Chase, +thought Joe; he could have saved Ollie’s name before the neighbors; and yet relieved Joe of all suspicion. Now +that Isom was dead, he could have married her. But Morgan had not come. He was a coward as well as a rascal. It was +more than likely that, in fear of being found out, he had fled away.</p> + +<p>And suppose that he never came back; suppose that Ollie should not elect to stand forth and explain the hidden part +of that night’s tragedy? She could not be expected, within reason, to do this. Even the thought that she might +weaken and do so was abhorrent to Joe. It was not a woman’s part to make a sacrifice like that; the world did not +expect it of her. It rested with Morgan, the traitor to hospitality; Morgan, the ingratiating scoundrel, to come +forward and set him free. Morgan alone could act honorably in that clouded case; but if he should elect to remain +hidden and silent, who would be left to answer but Joe Newbolt?</p> + +<p>And should he reveal the thing that would bring him liberty? Was freedom more precious than his honor, and the honor +of a poor, shrinking, deluded woman? <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span></p> + +<p>No. He was bound by a gentleman’s obligation; self-assumed, self-appointed. He could not tell.</p> + +<p>But what a terrible situation, what an awful outlook for him in such event! They hung men for murder on the +jail-yard gallows, with a knot of rope behind the left ear and a black cap over the face. And such a death left a stain +upon the name that nothing would purify. It was an attainder upon generations unborn.</p> + +<p>Joe walked his cell in the agony of his sudden and acute understanding of the desperate length to which this thing +might carry him. Hammer had protested, with much show of certainty, that he would get him off without much difficulty. +But perhaps Hammer was counting on him to reveal what he had kept to himself at the inquest. What should he do about +that in his relations with Hammer? Should he tell him about Morgan, and have him set men on his track to drag him back +and make him tell the truth? Granting that they found him, who was there to make him speak?</p> + +<p>Could not Morgan and Ollie, to cover their own shame and blame, form a pact of silence or denial and turn back his +good intentions in the form of condemnation upon his own head? How improbable and unworthy of belief his tale, with its +reservations and evasions, would sound to a jury with Morgan and Ollie silent.</p> + +<p>The fright of his situation made him feverish; he felt that he could tear at the walls with his hands, and scream, +and scream until his heart would burst. He was unmanned there in the dark. He began to realize this finally after his +frenzy had thrown him into a fever. He gave over his pacing of the little cell, and sat down again to reason and +plan.</p> + +<p>Hammer had made so much talk about the papers which he would get ready that Joe had been considerably impressed. He +saw now that it would require something more than papers to make people understand that he had a gentleman’s +reason, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192'></a>192</span> and not a thief’s, for concealing what they +had pressed him to reveal.</p> + +<p>There was a woman first, and that was about all that Joe could make of the situation up to that time. She must be +protected, even though unworthy. None knew of that taint upon her but himself and the fugitive author of it, but Joe +could not bring himself to contemplate liberty bought at the price of her public degradation. This conclusion refreshed +him, and dispelled the phantoms from his hot brain.</p> + +<p>After the sounds of the town had fallen quiet, and the knocking of feet on the pavement along his prison wall had +ceased, Joe slept. He woke steady, and himself again, long before he could see the sun, yellow on the boughs of the +elm-tree.</p> + +<p>The sheriff furnished him a piece of comb, and he smoothed his hair by guess, a desperate character, such as he was +accounted by the officer, not being allowed the luxury of a mirror. One might lick the quicksilver from the back of a +mirror, or open an artery with a fragment of it, or even pound the glass and swallow it. Almost anything was nicer than +hanging, so the sheriff said.</p> + +<p>Scant as the food had been at Isom’s until his revolt had forced a revision of the old man’s lifelong +standard, Joe felt that morning after his second jail breakfast that he would have welcomed even a hog-jowl and beans. +The sheriff was allowed but forty cents a day for the maintenance of each prisoner, and, counting out the twenty-five +cents profit which he felt as a politician in good standing to be his due, the prisoners’ picking was very lean +indeed.</p> + +<p>That morning Joe’s breakfast had been corn-pone, cold, with no lubricant to ease it down the lane. There had +been a certain squeamish liquid in addition, which gave off the smell of a burning straw-stack, served in a large tin +cup. Joe had not tasted it, but his nose had told him that it was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_193'></a>193</span> “wheat coffee,” a brew which his mother had made sometimes in the old days of +their darkest adversity.</p> + +<p>Joe knew from the experience of the previous day that there would be nothing more offered to fortify the stomach +until evening. The horse-thief called up from his end of the jail, asking Joe how he liked the fare.</p> + +<p>Reserved as Joe was disposed to be toward him, he expressed himself somewhat fully on the subject of the +sheriff’s cuisine. The horse-thief suggested a petition to the county court or a letter to the sheriff’s +political opponent. He said that his experience in jails had been that a complaint on the food along about election +time always brought good results. Joe was not interested in the matter to that extent. He told the fellow that he did +not expect to be a permanent occupant of the jail.</p> + +<p>“You think you’ll go down the river for a double-nine?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you mean,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“To the pen for life, kid; that’s what I mean.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Joe gloomily.</p> + +<p>“Well, say, I tell you, if they give you the other,” said the friendly thief, lifting his naturally high +voice to make it carry along the echoing passage, “you’ll git plenty to eat, and three times a day, too. +When they put a feller in the death-cell they pass in the finest chuck in the land. You know, if a feller’s got a +smart lawyer he can keep up that line of eatin’ for maybe two or three years by appealin’ his case and +dodges like that.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to talk,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right, kid,” said the thief flippantly. Then he rattled his grated door to draw Joe’s +attention.</p> + +<p>“But, ’y God, kid, the day’s comin’ to you when you will want to talk, and when you’d +give the teeth out of your mouth, and nearly the eyes out of your head, for the sound <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span> of a friendly human voice aimed at you. Let ’em take you off +down the river to Jeff’ City and put you behind them tall walls once, where the best you hear’s a cuss from +a guard, and where you march along with your hands on the shoulders of the man in front of you; and another one behind +you does the same to you, and their eyes all down and their faces the color of corpses, and <i>then</i> you’ll +know!</p> + +<p>“You’ll hear them old fellers, them long-timers, whisperin’ in the night, talkin’ to +theirselves, and it’ll sound to you like wind in the grass. And you’ll think of grass and trees and things +like that on the outside, and you’ll feel like you want to ram your head ag’in’ the wall and yell. +Maybe you’ll do it–plenty of ’em does–and then they’ll give you the water-cure, +they’ll force it down you with a hose till you think you’ll bust. I tell you, kid, I <i>know</i>, ’y +God! I’ve been there–but not for no double-nine like they’ll give you.”</p> + +<p>The man’s voice seemed to be hanging and sounding yet in the corridor, even after he was silent, his cruel +picture standing in distorted fancy before Joe’s eyes. Joe wiped the sweat from his forehead, breathing through +his open mouth.</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe they won’t, though,” said the fellow, resuming as if after considering it, +“maybe they’ll give you the quick and painless, I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>Joe had been standing at his cell door, drawn to listen to the lecture of his fellow prisoner, terrible, hopeless, +as it sounded in his ears. Now he sat on his bedside again, feeling that this was indeed a true forecast of his own +doom. The sun seemed already shut out from him in the morning of his day, the prison silence settling, never to be +broken again in those shadows where shuffling men filed by, with eyes downcast and faces gray, like the faces of the +dead.</p> + +<p>Life without liberty would be a barren field, he knew; but liberty without honor would yield no sweeter fruit. And +who was there in the world of honorable men to respect a coward <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_195'></a>195</span> who had saved his own skin from the fire by stripping a frail woman’s back to the +brand? A gentleman couldn’t do it, said Joe, at the end, coming back from his sweating race with fear to the +starting-place, a good deal cooled, not a little ashamed.</p> + +<p>Let them use him as they might; he would stand by his first position in the matter. He would have to keep on lying, +as he had begun; but it would be repeating an honorable lie, and no man ever went to hell for that.</p> + +<p>The sun was coming through the high cell window, broadening its oblique beam upon the wall. Looking up at it, Joe +thought that it must be mid-morning. Now that his panic was past, his stomach began to make a gnawing and insistent +demand for food. Many a heavy hour must march by, thought he, before the sheriff came with his beggarly portion. He +felt that in case he should be called upon to endure imprisonment long he must fall away to a skeleton and die.</p> + +<p>In his end of the corridor the horse-thief was still, and Joe was glad of it. No matter how earnestly he might come +to desire the sound of a human voice in time, he did not want to hear the horse-thief’s then, nor any other that +prophesied such disquieting things.</p> + +<p>There was a barred gate across the corridor at the foot of the stairs which led up to the sheriff’s office. +Joe’s heart jumped with the hope that it was his mother coming when he heard the key in the lock and voices at +the grating.</p> + +<p>“Right down there, to the right,” the sheriff was directing. “When you want to leave just come +here and rattle the lock. I can’t take no chances bringin’ such desperate fellers as him up to the office, +colonel. You can see that as well as me.”</p> + +<p>What Colonel Price replied Joe could not hear, for his low-modulated voice of culture was like velvet beside a +horse-blanket compared to the sheriff’s. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span></p> + +<p>“I’m over on this side, colonel, sir,” said Joe before he could see him.</p> + +<p>And then the colonel stepped into the light which came through the cell window, bringing with him one who seemed as +fair to Joe in that somber place as the bright creatures who stood before Jacob in Bethel that night he slept with his +head upon a stone.</p> + +<p>“This is my daughter,” said Colonel Price. “We called in to kind of cheer you up.”</p> + +<p>She offered Joe her hand between the bars; his went forward to meet it gropingly, for it lacked the guidance of his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Joe was honey-bound, like an eager bee in the heart of some great golden flower, tangled and leashed in a thousand +strands of her hair. The lone sunbeam of his prison had slipped beyond the lintel of his low door, as if it had timed +its coming to welcome her, and now it lay like a hand in benediction above her brow.</p> + +<p>Her hair was as brown as wild honey; a golden glint lay in it here and there under the sun, like the honeycomb. A +smile kindled in her brown eyes as she looked at him, and ran out to the corners of them in little crinkles, then moved +slowly upon her lips. Her face was quick with the eagerness of youth, and she was tall.</p> + +<p>“I’m surely beholden to you, Miss Price, for this favor,” said Joe, lapsing into the Kentucky mode +of speech, “and I’m ashamed to be caught in such a place as this.”</p> + +<p>“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” said she; “we know you are innocent.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you kindly, Miss Price,” said he with quaint, old courtesy that came to him from some cavalier of +Cromwell’s day.</p> + +<p>“I thought you’d better meet Alice,” explained the colonel, “and get acquainted with her, +for young people have tastes <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span> in common that old codgers +like me have outgrown. She might see some way that I would overlook to make you more comfortable here during the time +you will be obliged to wait.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Joe, hearing the colonel’s voice, but not making much out of what he was +saying.</p> + +<p>He was thinking that out of the gloom of his late cogitations she had come, like hope hastening to refute the +argument of the horse-thief. His case could not be so despairing with one like her believing in him. It was a matter +beyond a person such as a horse-thief, of course. One of a finer nature could understand.</p> + +<p>“Father spoke of some books,” she ventured; “if you will––”</p> + +<p>Her voice was checked suddenly by a sound which rose out of the farther end of the corridor and made her start and +clutch her father’s arm. Joe pressed his face against the bars and looked along at his fellow prisoner, who was +dragging his tin cup over the bars of his cell door with rapid strokes.</p> + +<p>When the thief saw that he had drawn the attention of the visitors, he thrust his arm out and beckoned to the +colonel. “Mister, I want to ask you to do me a little turn of a favor,” he begged in a voice new to Joe, so +full of anguish, so tremulous and weak. “I want you to carry out to the world and put in the papers the last +message of a dyin’ man!”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with you, you poor wretch?” asked the colonel, moved to pity.</p> + +<p>“Don’t pay any attention to him,” advised Joe; “he’s only acting up. He’s as +strong as I am. I think he wants to beg from you.”</p> + +<p>The colonel turned away from him to resume his conference with Joe, and the horse-thief once more rattled his cup +across the bars.</p> + +<p>“That noise is very annoying,” said the colonel, turning <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_198'></a>198</span> to the man tartly. “Stop it now, before I call the sheriff!”</p> + +<p>“Friend, it’s a starvin’ man that’s appealin’ to you,” said the prisoner, +“it’s a man that ain’t had a full meal in three weeks. Ask that gentleman what we git here, let him +tell you what this here sheriff that’s up for election agin serves to us poor fellers. Corn dodger for breakfast, +so cold you could keep fish on it, and as hard as the rocks in this wall! That’s what we git, and that’s +all we git. Ask your friend.”</p> + +<p>“Is he telling the truth?” asked the colonel, looking curiously at Joe.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid he is, colonel, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll talk to him,” said the colonel.</p> + +<p>In a moment he was listening to the horse-thief’s earnest relation of the hardships which he had suffered in +the Shelbyville jail, and Joe and Alice were standing face to face, with less than a yard’s space between them, +but a barrier there as insuperable as an alp.</p> + +<p>He wanted to say something to cause her to speak again, for her low voice was as wonderful to him as the sound of +some strange instrument moved to unexpected music by a touch in the dark. He saw her looking down the corridor, and +swiftly around her, as if afraid of what lay in the shadows of the cells, afraid of the memories of old crimes which +they held, and the lingering recollection of the men they had contained.</p> + +<p>“He’ll not do any harm, don’t be afraid,” said he.</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not,” she told him, drawing a little nearer, quite unconsciously, he knew, as she spoke. +“I was thinking how dreadful it must be here for you, especially in the night. But it will not be for +long,” she cheered him; “we know they’ll soon set you free.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose a person would think a guilty man would suffer more here than an innocent one,” said he, +“but I don’t think that’s so. That man down there knows he’s going to be <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span> sent to the penitentiary for stealing a horse, but he +sings.”</p> + +<p>She was looking at him, a little cloud of perplexity in her eyes, as if there was something about him which she had +not looked for and did not quite understand. She blushed when Joe turned toward her, slowly, and caught her eyes at +their sounding.</p> + +<p>He was thinking over a problem new to him, also–the difference in women. There was Ollie, who marked a period +in his life when he began to understand these things, dimly. Ollie was not like this one in any particular that he +could discover as common between them. She was far back in the past today, like a simple lesson, hard in its hour, but +conquered and put by. Here was one as far above Ollie as a star.</p> + +<p>Miss Price began to speak of books, reaching out with a delicate hesitancy, as if she feared that she might lead +into waters too deep for him to follow. He quickly relieved her of all danger of embarrassment on that head by telling +her of some books which he had not read, but wished to read, holding to the bars as he talked, looking wistfully toward +the spot of sunlight which was now growing as slender as a golden cord against the gray wall. His eyes came back to her +face, to find that look of growing wonder there, to see her quick blush mount and consume it in her eyes like a +flame.</p> + +<p>“You’ve made more of the books that you’ve read than many of us with a hundred times more,” +said she warmly. “I’ll be ashamed to mention books to you again.”</p> + +<p>“You oughtn’t say that,” said he, hanging his head in boyish confusion, feeling that same sense of +shyness and desire to hide as came over him when his mother recounted his youthful campaign against the three books on +the Newbolt shelf.</p> + +<p>“You remember what you get out of them,” she nodded gravely, “I don’t.” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span></p> + +<p>“My father used to say that was one advantage in having a few,” said he.</p> + +<p>The colonel joined them then, the loud-spoken benediction of the horse-thief following him. There was a flush of +indignation in his face and fire in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“I’ll expose the scoundrel; I’ll show him that he can’t rob both the county and the helpless +men that misfortune throws into his hands!” the colonel declared.</p> + +<p>He gave his hand to Joe in his ceremonious fashion.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got some pressing business ahead of me with the sheriff,” he said, “and we’ll be +going along. But I’ll manage to come over every few days and bring what cheer I can to you, Joe.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t put yourself out,” said Joe; “but I’ll be mighty glad to see you any +time.”</p> + +<p>“This is only a cloud in your life, boy; it will pass, and leave your sky serene and bright,” the +colonel cheered.</p> + +<p>“I’ll see how many of the books that you’ve named we have,” said Alice. “I’m +afraid we haven’t them all.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll appreciate anything at all,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>He looked after her as far as his eyes could follow, and then he listened until her footsteps died, turning his +head, checking his breath, as if holding his very life poised to catch the fading music of some exquisite strain.</p> + +<p>When she was quite out of hearing, he sighed, and marked an imaginary line upon the wall. Her head had reached to +there, just on a level with a certain bolt. He measured himself against it to see where it struck in his own height. It +was just a boy’s trick. He blushed when he found himself at it.</p> + +<p>He sat on his bedside and took up the Book. The humor for reading seemed to have passed away from him for then. But +there was provender for thought, new thought, splendid and bright-colored. He felt that he had been associating, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span> for the first time in his life, with his own kind. He +never had seen Alice Price before that day, for their lives had been separated by all that divides the eminent from the +lowly, the rich from the poor, and seeing her had been a moving revelation. She had come into his troubled life and +soothed it, marking a day never to be forgotten. He sat there thinking of her, the unopened book in his hand.</p> + +<p>How different she was from Ollie, the wild rose clambering unkept beside the hedge. She was so much more delicate in +form and face than Ollie–Ollie, who–There was a sense of sacrilege in the thought. He must not name her +with Ollie; he must not think of them in the measure of comparison. Even such juxtaposition was defiling for Alice. +Ollie, the unclean!</p> + +<p>Joe got up and walked his cell. How uncouth he was, thought he, his trousers in his boot-tops, his coat spare upon +his growing frame. He regarded himself with a feeling of shame. Up to that time he never had given his clothing any +thought. As long as it covered him, it was sufficient. But it was different after seeing Alice. Alice! What a soothing +name!</p> + +<p>Joe never knew what Colonel Price said to the sheriff; but after the little gleam of sun had faded out of his cell, +and the gnawings of his stomach had become painfully acute, his keeper came down with a basket on his arm. He took from +it a dinner of boiled cabbage and beef, such as a healthy man might lean upon with confidence, and the horse-thief came +in for his share of it, also.</p> + +<p>When the sheriff came to Joe’s cell for the empty dishes, he seemed very solicitous for his comfort and +welfare.</p> + +<p>“Need any more cover on your bed, or anything?”</p> + +<p>No, Joe thought there was enough cover; and he did not recall in his present satisfied state of stomach, that his +cell lacked any other comfort that the sheriff could supply. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_202'></a>202</span></p> + +<p>“Well, if you want anything, all you’ve got to do is holler,” said the sheriff in a friendly +way.</p> + +<p>There is nothing equal to running for office to move the love of a man for his fellows, or to mellow his heart to +magnanimous deeds.</p> + +<p>“Say,” called the horse-thief in voice softened by the vapors of his steaming dinner, “that friend +of yours with the whiskers all over him is ace-high over here in this end of the dump! And say, friend, they could keep +me here for life if they’d send purty girls like that one down here to see me once in a while. You’re in +right, friend; you certainly air in right!”</p> + +<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; height: 1px; width: 10em; text-align: center; margin: 10px auto;' /> + +<p>Colonel Price had kindled a fire in his library that night, for the first chill of frost was in the air. He sat in +meditative pose, the newspaper spread wide and crumpling upon the floor beside him in his listlessly swinging hand. The +light of the blazing logs was laughing in his glasses, and the soft gleam of the shaded lamp was on his hair.</p> + +<p>Books by the hundred were there in the shelves about him. Old books, brown in the dignity of age and service to +generations of men; new books, tucked among them in bright colors, like transient blooms in the homely stability of +garden soil. There was a long oak table, made of native lumber and finished in its natural color, smoke-brown from age, +like the books; and there was Alice, like a nimble bee skimming the sweets of flowers, flitting here and there in this +scholar’s sanctuary.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price looked up out of his meditation and followed her with a smile.</p> + +<p>“Have you found them all?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I’ve found Milton and <i>The Lays of Ancient Rome</i> and <i>Don Quixote</i>, but I can’t find +the <i>Meditations of Marcus Aurelius</i>,” said she. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_203'></a>203</span></p> + +<p>“Judge Maxwell has it,” he nodded; “he carried it away more than a month ago. It was the first +time he ever met an English translation, he said. I must get it from him; he has a remarkably short memory for borrowed +books.”</p> + +<p>Alice joined him in the laugh over the judge’s shortcoming.</p> + +<p>“He’s a regular old dear!” she said.</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes; if he was only forty years younger, Alice–if he was only forty years younger!” the +colonel sighed.</p> + +<p>“I like him better the way he is,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Where did that boy ever hear tell of Marcus Aurelius?” he wondered.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand him, he seems so strange and +deep. He’s not like a boy. You’d think, from talking with him, that he’d had university +advantages.”</p> + +<p>“It’s blood,” said the colonel, with the proud swelling of a man who can boast that precious +endowment himself, “you can’t keep it down. There’s no use talking to me about this equality between +men at the hour of birth; it’s all a poetic fiction. It would take forty generations of this European scum such +as is beginning to drift across to us and taint our national atmosphere to produce one Joe Newbolt! And he’s got +blood on only one side, at that.</p> + +<p>“But the best in all the Newbolt generations that have gone before seem to be concentrated in that boy. +He’ll come through this thing as bright as a new bullet, and he’ll make his mark in the world, too. Marcus +Aurelius. Well, bless my soul!”</p> + +<p>“Is it good?” she asked, stacking the books which she had selected on the table, standing with her hand +on them, looking down at her smiling father with serious face.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t say that it would be good for a young lady with forty beaus and unable to choose among them, +or for a frivolous young thing with three dances a week––” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_204'></a>204</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, never more than two at the very height of social dissipation in Shelbyville!” she laughed.</p> + +<p>He lifted a finger, imposing silence, and a laugh lurked in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“No, I’d not say that such a light-headed creature would find much fodder in the ruminations and +speculations and wise conclusions of our respected friend, Marcus,” said he. “But a lad like Joe Newbolt, +with a pair of eyes in his head like a prophet, will get a great deal of good, and even comfort, out of that +book.”</p> + +<p>“We must get it from Judge Maxwell,” said she conclusively.</p> + +<p>“A strange lad, a strange lad,” reflected the colonel.</p> + +<p>“So tall and strong,” said she. “Why, from the way his mother spoke of him, I expected to see a +little fellow with trousers up to his knees.”</p> + +<p>She sat at the table and began cutting the leaves of a new magazine.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price lifted his paper, smoothed the crumples out of it, adjusted the focus of his glasses, and resumed +reading the county news. They seemed contented and happy there, alone, with their fire in the chimney. Fire itself is a +companion. It is like youth in a room.</p> + +<p>There was between them a feeling of comradeship and understanding which seldom lives where youth stands on one hand, +age on the other. Years ago Alice’s mother had gone beyond the storms and vexations of this life. Those two +remaining of the little family had drawn together, closing up the space that her absence had made. There seemed no +disparity of years, and their affection and fidelity had come to be a community pride.</p> + +<p>Alice was far from being the frivolous young thing that her father’s banter indicated. She had a train of +admirers, never thinning from year to year, to be certain, for it had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_205'></a>205</span> been the regular fate of adolescent male Shelbyville to get itself tangled up in love with +Alice Price ever since her high-school days. Many of the youngsters soon outgrew the affection; but it seemed to become +a settled and permanent affliction in others, threatening to incapacitate them from happiness, according to their young +view of it, and blast their ambitions in the face of the world.</p> + +<p>Every girl, to greater or less extent, has her courtiers of that kind. Nature has arranged this sort of tribute for +the little queen-bees of humanity’s hives. And so there were other girls in Shelbyville who had their train of +beaus, but there was none quite so popular or so much desired as Alice Price.</p> + +<p>Alice was considered the first beauty of the place. Added to this primary desirability was the fact that, in the +fine gradations of pedigrees and the stringent exactions of blood which the patrician families of Shelbyville drew, +Colonel Price and his daughter were the topmost plumes on the peacock of aristocracy. Other young ladies seemed to make +all haste to assuage the pangs of at least one young man by marrying him, and to blunt the hopes of the rest by that +decisive act. Not so Alice Price. She was frank and friendly, as eager for the laughter of life as any healthy young +woman should be, but she gave the young men kindly counsel when they became insistent or boresome, and sent them +away.</p> + +<p>Shelbyville was founded by Kentuckians; some of the old State’s best families were represented there. A +person’s pedigree was his credentials in the society of the slumbering little town, nestled away among the blue +hills of Missouri. It did not matter so much about one’s past, for blood will have its vagaries and outflingings +of youthful spirit; and even less what the future promised, just so there was blood to vouch for him at the +present.</p> + +<p>Blood had not done a great deal for Shelbyville, no matter what its excellencies in social and political life. The +old town <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span> stood just about as it was finished, sixty years +and more before that time. Upstart cities had sprung up not far away, throwing Shelbyville into hopeless shadow. The +entire energies of its pioneers seemed to have been expended in its foundation, leaving them too much exhausted to +transmit any of their former fire and strength to their sons. It followed that the sons of Shelbyville were not what +their fathers had been.</p> + +<p>Of course, there were exceptions where one of them rose once in a while and made a streak across the state or +national firmament. Some of them were eminent in the grave professions; most of them were conductors of street cars in +Kansas City, the nearest metropolis. There was not room in Shelbyville for all its sons to establish themselves at law, +even if they had all been equipped, and if a man could not be a lawyer or a college professor, what was open to him, +indeed, but conducting a street-car? That was a placid life.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable how Kentuckians can maintain the breed of their horses through many generations, but so frequently +fall short in the standard of their sons. Kentuckians are only an instance. The same might be said of kings.</p> + +<p>Not understanding her exactions in the matter, nor her broader requirements, Shelbyville could not make out why +Alice Price remained unmated. She was almost twenty, they said, which was coming very close to the age-limit in +Shelbyville. It was nothing unusual for girls to marry there at seventeen, and become grandmothers at thirty-seven.</p> + +<p>If she wanted better blood than she could find in Shelbyville, the old gentlemen said, twisting their white old +heads in argumentative finality, she’d have to go to the nobility of Europe. Even then she’d be running her +chances, by Ned! They grew indignant when she refused to have their sons. They took it up with the colonel, they +remonstrated, they went into pedigrees and offered to produce documents. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_207'></a>207</span></p> + +<p>There was Shelley Bryant’s father, a fine, straight-backed old gentleman with beard as white as the plumage of +a dove. His son was a small, red-faced, sandy-haired, pale-eyed chap with spaces between his big front teeth. He traded +in horses, and sometimes made as much as fifteen dollars on a Saturday. His magnitude of glory and manly dignity as +compared to his father’s was about that of a tin pan to the sun.</p> + +<p>When Alice refused Shelley, the old general–he had won the title in war, unlike Colonel Price–went to +the colonel and laid the matter off with a good deal of emphasis and flourishing of his knotted black stick. If a woman +demanded blood, said the general, where could she aspire above Shelley? And beyond blood, what was there to be +considered when it came to marrying and breeding up a race of men?</p> + +<p>Champion that he was of blood and lineage, Colonel Price was nettled by the old gentleman’s presumptuous +urging of his unlikely son’s cause.</p> + +<p>“I am of the opinion, sir,” Colonel Price replied, with a good bit of hauteur and heat, “that my +daughter always has given, and always will give, the preference to brains!”</p> + +<p>General Bryant had not spoken to the colonel for two months after that, and his son Shelley had proved his +superiority by going off to Kansas City and taking a job reading gas-meters.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price went to the mantel and filled his pipe from the tobacco-jar. He sat smoking for a little while, his +paper on his knee.</p> + +<p>“The lad’s in deeper trouble, I’m afraid, than he understands,” said he at last, as if +continuing his reflections aloud, “and it may take a bigger heave to pull him out than any of us think right +now.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I hope not,” said Alice, looking across at him suddenly, her eyes wide open with concern. “I +understood that this was just a preliminary proceeding, a sort of formality <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_208'></a>208</span> to conform to the legal requirements, and that he would be released when they brought him up +before Judge Maxwell. At least, that was the impression that he gave me of the case himself.”</p> + +<p>“Joe is an unsophisticated and honest lad,” said the colonel. “There is something in the case that +he refused to disclose or discuss before the coroner’s jury, they say. I don’t know what it is, but +it’s in relation to the quarrel between him and Isom Chase which preceded the tragedy. He seems to raise a point +of honor on it, or something. I heard them say this afternoon that it was nothing but the fear that it would disclose +his motive for the crime. They say he was making off with old Chase’s money, but I don’t believe +that.”</p> + +<p>“They’re wrong if they think that,” said she, shaking her head seriously, “he’d never +do a thing like that.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t believe he would. But they found a bag of money in the room, old Chase had it clamped in +the hook of his arm, they say.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m sure Joe Newbolt never had his hands on it, anyhow,” said she.</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” approved the colonel, nodding in slow thoughtfulness; “we must stand up for +him, for his own sake as well as Peter’s. He’s worthy.”</p> + +<p>“And he’s innocent. Can’t you see that, father?”</p> + +<p>“As plain as daylight,” the colonel said.</p> + +<p>The colonel stretched out his legs toward the blaze, crossed his feet and smoked in comfort.</p> + +<p>“But I wonder what it can be that the boy’s holding back?”</p> + +<p>“He has a reason for it, whatever it is,” she declared.</p> + +<p>“That’s as certain as taxes,” said the colonel. “He’s a remarkable boy, considering +the chances he’s had–bound out like a nigger slave, and beaten and starved, I’ll warrant. A +remark-able lad; very, very. Don’t you think so, Alice?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_209'></a>209</span></p> + +<p>“I think he is, indeed,” said she.</p> + +<p>A long silence.</p> + +<p>A stick in the chimney burned in two, the heavy ends outside the dogs dropped down, the red brands pointing upward. +The colonel put his hand to his beard and sat in meditation. The wind was rising. Now and then it sounded like a groan +in the chimney-top. Gray ashes formed, frost-like, over the ardent coals. The silence between them held unbroken.</p> + +<p>Both sat, thought-wandering, looking into the fire....</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_13'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>UNTIL THE DAY BREAK</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Although Isom Chase had been in his grave a week, and Judge Little had been cracking his coat-tails over the road +between his home and the county-seat daily, the matter of the will and the administration of the estate remained as in +the beginning.</p> + +<p>Judge Little had filed the will for probate, and had made application for letters of administration, which the court +had denied. Under the terms of the will, it was pointed out, he was empowered to act in that capacity only in case of +the testator’s death before the majority of the legatee. The date of the document proved that the heir was now +long past his majority, and the only interest that remained to Judge Little in the matter seemed to be the discovery of +the testator’s unknown, unseen, and unbelieved-in son.</p> + +<p>If Isom ever had fathered a son, indeed, and the child had died in infancy, the fact had slipped the recollection of +the oldest settler. Perhaps the proof of that mysterious matter lay in the hands of the two witnesses to Isom’s +will. They should know, if anybody knew, people said.</p> + +<p>One of these witnesses, Thomas Cogshawl, had died long since, and there remained behind neither trace nor +remembrance of him save a leaning, yellowed tombstone carrying the record of his achievements in this world. They were +succinctly recounted in two words: Born and Died. His descendants were scattered, his family dispersed.</p> + +<p>The other witness, John Owens, was in the county poorhouse, deaf, dumb, and blind, his children dead, his money +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211'></a>211</span> gone. Communication with him, except by prods and thumps, +had been out of the question for ten years and more.</p> + +<p>On the advice of her neighbors, Ollie had engaged a lawyer to guard her interests, and make a fight in the courts, +if it came to that, in an effort to retain the property. It was a shame, said the neighbors; Isom never had a son, or, +if he did have one, he had no business to do any such surreptitious fathering.</p> + +<p>While they denounced Isom, Judge Little was advertising in the metropolitan papers for the mysterious legatee, for +there is no man so faithful to his trust as the administrator of another’s estate. Although the property had not +yet succeeded to his hands, the judge was proceeding in confidence. If the existence of Isom Chase’s son could +not be proved, neither could it be disproved.</p> + +<p>And there stood the will in Isom’s writing as plain as cow tracks, naming him as administrator. It would all +work into his hands at the end, and there were rewards and emoluments for an administrator who understood his business, +in that estate.</p> + +<p>That is true in the case of any executor in the affairs of dead men, or receiver in the muddled business of the +living. That accounts for such men’s inflexibility in carrying out the provisions of unfeeling testators and the +decrees of heartless courts. The law must be applied to the letter, the wishes of the deceased fulfilled to the last +hateful particular, for the longer the administrator or receiver is in place, the longer flows the soothing stream of +fees.</p> + +<p>Ollie had passed out of the brief tranquillity which had settled on her after the inquest and funeral. Worry had +overtaken her again, and a longing for the return of Morgan, which seemed destined never to be quieted.</p> + +<p>There was not so much concern for her in the ultimate disposal of Isom’s estate, for she had consoled herself +all <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212'></a>212</span> along, since the discovery of the will, that she +would soon be above the need of his miserly scrapings and hoarded revenues of stint. Morgan would come, triumphant in +his red-wheeled buggy, and bear her away to the sweet recompense of love, and the quick noises of life beyond that +drowsy place. For Morgan, and love, she could give it all over without one regret, or a glance behind.</p> + +<p>Yet, with the thought of what she already had given for Morgan and love a quick catching of pain, a troubled +stirring bordering on panic, rose in her breast. Where was Morgan, why did he remain away when he might come boldly +now, like a man, and claim his own? What if Morgan never should come back? What if she should find herself a double +widow, bereft of both the living and the dead?</p> + +<p>During her days she watched for him, straining her eyes up and down the dust-white road. At night her cheek burned +upon her pillow, and her tears ran down, yearning for the man who had her heart’s love in his keeping and seemed +unworthy of the trust.</p> + +<p>At such times her anger would flame hot against Joe. If he had not come into her affairs and muddled them, like a +calf in a kitchen, all of this uncertainty and longing would have been spared her. And it would be like the fool now, +the miserable, bleating bull-calf, to turn back on his word and betray her. In that case, what should she do? Bow her +head, meekly, and bear him out? She did not think so. There was little chance that anybody would credit Joe if he +should turn now on his own evidence, less if she should maintain that his first version of the tragedy was true. For +what he had done by his impertinent meddling between her and Morgan he deserved to suffer. He must grin and bear it +now, said she.</p> + +<p>Besides this feeling of revenge on Joe’s luckless head, Ollie had her reasons of selfishness and security for +desiring him <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213'></a>213</span> out of the way. With him in prison for a +long time–people said it would be for life–the secret of her indiscretion with Morgan would be safe. And +then, if Morgan never came back, perhaps another.</p> + +<p>But she recoiled from the thought that they might hang Joe for the murder of Isom. She did not want him hung, for +through her gathering cloud of blame for his too faithful guardianship of his master’s house, she had gleams of +tenderness and gratitude for him. She could not help comparing him with Morgan in such moments of softness. Morgan had +let that boy drive him away; he seemed to have gone with such a terror of him that he never had looked back. Joe, on +the other hand, had stood by her through the storm. No, she did not want them to hang Joe, but it would be quite easy +and comfortable with him out of the way for a long, long time.</p> + +<p>Public opinion was framing toward giving her the relief that she desired. If anybody suspected that Ollie was +concerned in her husband’s death, it was some remote person whose opinion did not affect the public mind. The +current belief was that Joe alone was to blame.</p> + +<p>No matter how severe the world may be upon a woman after she is down in the mire, there is no denying that it is +reluctant to tumble her from her eminence and throw her there. A woman will find more champions than detractors in the +face of the most serious charge; especially a young and pretty one, or one whose life has been such as to shape +sympathy for her in itself.</p> + +<p>All her neighbors knew that Isom’s wife had suffered. That year of penance in her life brought Ollie before +them in a situation which was an argument and plea for their sympathy and support.</p> + +<p>In spite, then, of the coroner’s attempt at the inquest to drag Ollie into the tragedy, and to give foundation +for his <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214'></a>214</span> shrewd suspicion that there had been something +between Isom’s wife and bondman which the husband was unaware of, no sensation nor scandal had come of that. The +case was widely talked of, and it was the hope of every voter in the county that he would be drawn on the jury to try +the boy accused of the murder. Even the busiest farmers began to plan their affairs so they would have at least one day +to spare to attend the trial at its most interesting point.</p> + +<p>The date set for the trial was approaching, and so was election day. The prosecuting attorney, being up for +reelection, hadn’t time, at that busy hour, to try a homicide case. He had to make speeches, and bestir himself +to save his valuable services to the state. The man penned in jail, growing thin of cheek and lank of limb, could wait. +There would be other homicide cases, but there never would be another prosecuting attorney so valuable as that one +offering himself, and his young ambitions, on the altar of public service. That was according to his view. So he +notified Hammer that the state would not be ready for trial on the day set.</p> + +<p>This pleased Hammer well enough, for the greater the delay the wider the notoriety of the case would spread, the +larger his audience would be. By mutual agreement, the case was put over for one month.</p> + +<p>Joe protested against this delay in vain. Hammer said that they would profit by it, as the ferment of the public +mind would settle meantime, and prejudice would not be so sharp. He talked a great deal about “character +witnesses,” which Joe couldn’t see the need of, and took down the names of all the people whom Joe could +name as having known him all his life. Then Hammer went his way, to make speeches in the campaign in support of the +worthy sheriff.</p> + +<p>So Joe found himself with another month ahead of him before he could even hope to walk out into the sun again. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215'></a>215</span></p> + +<p>Jail was wearing on him. The disgrace of it was torture to his sensitive mind, without the physical chafing to pull +him down to bones. Those two weeks had taken off his frame a great deal of the flesh that he had gained during the +summer. His gauntness was more pronounced than it ever had been before.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt walked in twice a week to see him, carrying with her a basket of biscuits and other homely things dear +to her son’s palate. All of which the sheriff speared with knitting-needles, and tried on various domestic +animals, to make certain that the Widow Newbolt did not cheat the gallows out of its due by concealing saws in pies, or +introducing poison to her hopeless offspring in boiled eggs.</p> + +<p>But all of her tempting relishes, or such of them, at least, as reached Joe, were powerless to fill his hollow +cheeks, growing thinner and paler day by day. He could not eat with relish, he could not sleep with peace. If it had +not been for the new light that Alice Price had brought into his life, he must have burned his young heart to ashes in +his restiveness.</p> + +<p>Twice again the colonel and Alice had visited Joe, once to carry to him the books for which he had expressed a +desire, and again to bring the <i>Meditations of Marcus Aurelius</i>, which Alice herself had gone after to Judge +Maxwell’s house. Each time Joe fancied that she left a radiance behind her that brightened and warmed his cell +for days.</p> + +<p>Nobody else in the town troubled himself about the prisoner’s welfare, for nobody else knew him. Two of the +ministers had called at the jail in the first days of Joe’s incarceration, in a sort of urging-to-penitence state +of mind, just as if they were assured of Joe’s guilt by reason of his very obscurity. Joe had told them that he +had a religion of his own which seemed to fill all present needs, and did not want to make any change. He was +respectful, but lofty in his <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216'></a>216</span> bearing. So they put him +down as a stiff-necked son of Belial, and went away, leaving him to save himself if he thought he was equal to the +task, in a manner of challenge.</p> + +<p>In the face of this clerical abandonment, people wondered over the deep interest that Colonel Price and his daughter +seemed to have in the Widow Newbolt’s son, who had neither pride of family nor of possessions to recommend +him.</p> + +<p>Joe had not yet brought himself to the belief that it was necessary to take his lawyer into his confidence, although +Hammer had made it unfeelingly plain to him that the withholding of any vital fact would be fatal to his cause. +Although Joe was beginning to experience a deep and disquieting concern about the outcome of the trial, he was disposed +to give Morgan an honest man’s chance to come forward and take his share of it upon himself. If he should do +that, then Joe felt that he would be morally free to disclose all that took place in the kitchen on the night Isom lost +his life.</p> + +<p>In case that Morgan did not come, or that he had gone beyond the reach of Hammer or anybody else to fetch him back, +then there would not be one word of evidence to uphold him, or justify his seemingly ridiculous stand of reticence. +Yet, perhaps Morgan was waiting until the trial day; perhaps he knew all about it, and would appear in time. So argued +Joe, in his great desire to be just to everybody.</p> + +<p>He reviewed the matter in this wise with ceaseless repetition, always arriving at this same end, from which he drew +the comfort of hope. Perhaps Morgan would come in time. At any event, he would wait until the last minute of the last +hour, and give him a man’s chance to do what was honorable and fair.</p> + +<p>The talkative horse-thief had been tried and condemned, and had gone his cheerful way to the penitentiary to serve +three years. Before leaving he had taken pains to sound again his forecast of what was waiting Joe “down the +river,” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217'></a>217</span> in case they did not give him the +“quick and painless.” He never had forgiven Joe his unwillingness to gossip with him in jail. The +fellow’s vindictiveness was evident in the sneering delight that he took on his last night in jail in calling Joe +out of his sleep, or pretended sleep, to hear his description of the terrors waiting a man condemned to prison for +life.</p> + +<p>Now that he was gone, Joe felt that his words lived after him, like mold upon the walls, or a chilling damp between +the stones. The recollection of them could not be denied his abnormally sharpened senses, nor the undoubted truth of +their terrifying picture shut out of his imagination by any door of reasoning that he had the strength to close. +Condemnation to prison would mean the suspension of all his young hopes and healthy desires; it would bring him to the +end of his activities in the world as suddenly as death. Considering ambition, love, happiness, men in prison were +already dead. They lived only in their faculty for suffering.</p> + +<p>Would Morgan come to save him from that fate? That was his sole speculation upon a solution of his pressing trouble. +Without Morgan, Joe did not consider any other way.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price had received lately a commission for a corn picture from a St. Louis hotel, upon which he was working +without pause. He had reached that state of exalted certainty in relation to corn that he never was obliged to put +aside his colors and wait the charge of inspiration. His inspirational tide always was setting in when corn was the +subject. Work with the colonel in such case was a matter of daylight.</p> + +<p>On account of the order, the colonel had no time for Joe, for art with him, especially corn art, was above the +worries and concerns of all men. He did not forget the prisoner in the white heat of his commission. For several days +he had it in his mind to ask Alice to visit him, and carry to him the assurance of the continuance of the family +interest <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218'></a>218</span> and regard. But it was an unconventional thing +to request of a young lady; a week slipped past before the colonel realized it while he temporized in his mind.</p> + +<p>At last he approached it circuitously and with a great deal of diplomatic concealment of his purpose, leaving ample +room for retreat without unmasking his intention, in case he should discern indications of unwillingness.</p> + +<p>By that time the election was over and the country regularly insured against anarchy, devastation, and ruin for two +years longer. The prosecuting attorney and the sheriff had been reelected; the machinery of the law was ready to turn +at the grist.</p> + +<p>The colonel was pleased to see that Alice seconded him in his admission that they had been treating Joe Newbolt +shamefully. Of course the sheriff was partly to blame for that, having set himself up with metropolitan importance, now +that he was secure in office. He had put aside Wednesday as the one day of the week on which visitors, other than +relatives or counsel of prisoners, would be permitted to enter the jail.</p> + +<p>It chanced to be a Wednesday morning when the colonel got around to it finally, and they agreed heartily and warmly +that somebody ought to go and carry a little gleam of cheer and encouragement to Joe. The colonel looked at his +unfinished picture, then at the mellow light of the autumn day, so much like the soul of corn itself, and then at +Alice. He lifted his eyebrows and waved his hands in a gesture of helplessness.</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” said she; “you go ahead with the picture; I’ll go alone.”</p> + +<p>The colonel blessed her, and turned to his picture with a great sigh of relief. Alice left him to prepare for her +visit, a flutter of eagerness in her heart, a feeling of timid nervousness which was unaccountable and strange. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219'></a>219</span></p> + +<p>She was not accustomed to trembling at the thought of meeting young men. Usually she went forward to the ordeal with +a smile, which the victim would not have gathered a great deal of pleasure from, in most cases, if he had been able to +read, for he would have seen her appraisement of him on her lips. There was none of this amusing measurement of Joe, no +sounding of his shallows with her quick perception like a sunbeam finding the pebbles in the bottom of a brook. There +was something in his presence which seemed like a cool wind on the forehead, palpable, yet profound from the mystery of +its source.</p> + +<p>She had been surprised by the depth of this unpromising subject, to whom she had turned at first out of pity for his +mother. The latent beauties of his rugged mind, full of the stately poetry of the old Hebrew chronicles, had begun to +unfold to her sympathetic perception in the three visits she had made in her father’s company. Each visit had +brought some new wonder from that crude storehouse of his mind, where Joe had been hoarding quaint treasures all his +lonely, companionless years.</p> + +<p>And Joe, even in his confinement, felt that he was free in a larger sense than he ever had been before. He was +shaking out his wings and beginning to live understandingly and understood. It was beyond him to believe it sometimes; +beyond him always to grasp the reality of Alice Price, and her friendship for one so near the dust as he.</p> + +<p>What was there about the poor folks’ boy, bound out but yesterday to Isom Chase, and still bound to his estate +under the terms of his articles? What was there in him to reach out and touch the sympathies of this beautiful young +woman, who came to him with the scent of violets in her hair? Others had despised him for his poverty, and fastened a +name upon him which was in itself a reproach. And still misunderstanding, they had carried him off to prison, charged +with a dark <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220'></a>220</span> and hideous crime. Now this light had come to +him in his despair, like the beam of that white star above the Judean plains. Like that star, she would stand far off +to guide him, and exalt his soul by its strivings to attain her level. There their relations must cease. He might yearn +his heart away in the gulf that lay between them, and stretch out his empty hands for evermore, never to feel its +nearer warmth upon his breast. He was the poor folks’ boy.</p> + +<p>There was a wan sun on the day she came alone to the jail, a day so long remembered by Joe and held by him so dear. +A solemn wind was roaming the tree-tops outside his cell window; the branches stood bleak and bare against the mottled +sky.</p> + +<p>Alice wore a dress of some soft gray material, which seemed to embrace her in warm comfort, and reveal her in a new +and sprightly loveliness. Her rippled hair was free upon her temples, her ear peeped out from beneath it with a roguish +tint upon it, as if it waited to be kissed, and blushed for its own temerity. A gay little highland bonnet rode the +brown billows of her abundant hair, saucy and bold as a corsair, with one bright little feather at its prow. Perhaps it +was no more than a goose quill, or a cock’s plume dipped in dye, but to Joe it seemed as glorious as if it had +been plucked from the fairest wing in the gardens of paradise.</p> + +<p>The marvel of it came over Joe again as he stood close against the bars to greet her. She, so rare and fine, so +genteel and fair, caring enough for him and his unpromising fate to put aside the joyous business of her unhampered +life and seek him in that melancholy place. It seemed a dream, yet she was there, her delicate dark brows lifted +questioningly, as if uncertain that he would approve her unconventional adventure, a smile in the depths of her serene, +frank eyes. Her cheeks were glowing from the sparks of morning, and her ungloved hand was reaching out to meet him. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221'></a>221</span></p> + +<p>He clasped it, and welcomed her with joy that he could not have simulated any more than he could have hidden. There +was a tremor in his voice; a hot sweep of blood flamed in his face like a confession of his secret soul.</p> + +<p>“I never saw you look so tall,” said he slowly, measuring her with adoring eyes.</p> + +<p>“Maybe it’s the dress,” said she, looking herself over with a little expressive sweep of the +hands, as if to put all the blame on that innocent nun-gray gown, if there was blame to be borne.</p> + +<p>She wore a little bunch of mignonette upon her breast, just at the point where the slashing of her bodice ended, and +the gray gave way to a wedge of virginal white, as if her sempstress had started to lay bare her heart. The flowers +quivered as from some internal agitation, nestling their pale gold spikes against their lovely bed.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that it’s the dress,” said he, “but you do look taller than usual, it +seems to me.”</p> + +<p>She laughed, as if she found humor in his solemn repetition of such a trivial discovery.</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t help being tall,” she said. “How tall would you have a lady grow? How tall do +you think one ought to be?”</p> + +<p>“‘As high as my heart,’” said Joe, remembering <i>Orlando’s</i> words.</p> + +<p>The color deepened in her cheeks; she caught her breath with a little “Oh!”</p> + +<p>She wondered what sprout of blue-blooded and true-blooded nobility in Shelbyville there was capable of turning a +reply like that without straining for it more than that pale cavalier with his worn clothing hanging loose upon his +bony frame. When she ventured to lift her eyes to his face, she found him grasping a bar of the cell door with one +hand, as if he would tear it from its frame. His gaze was fixed upon the high <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_222'></a>222</span> window, he did not turn. She felt that he was struggling with himself that moment, but +whether to drive to speech or to withhold it, she could not tell.</p> + +<p>“I wish I could go out there and run about five miles this morning,” he sighed.</p> + +<p>She gave him sigh for sigh, feeling that something was lost. He had not striven with himself merely to say that. But +from there they went on to talk of his coming trial, and to expose the mutual hope that no further excuse would be +advanced for its continuance. He seemed to be certain that the trial would see an end of his difficulty, and she +trembled to contemplate any other outcome.</p> + +<p>So they stood and talked, and her face was glowing and her eyes were bright.</p> + +<p>“Your cheeks are as red as bitter-sweet,” said he.</p> + +<p>“There was frost last night,” she laughed, “and the cool wind makes my face burn.”</p> + +<p>“I know just how it feels,” said he, looking again toward the window with pathetic wistfulness, the +hunger of old longings in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“It will not be long now until you are free,” she said in low voice of sympathy.</p> + +<p>He was still looking at the brown branches of the bare elm, now palely touched with the cloud-filtered autumn +sun.</p> + +<p>“I know where there’s lots of it,” said he, as if to himself, “out in the hills. It loves to +ramble over scrub-oak in the open places where there’s plenty of sun. I used to pick armloads of it the last year +I went to school and carry it to the teacher. She liked to decorate the room with it.”</p> + +<p>He turned to her with apologetic appeal, as if to excuse himself for having wandered away from her in his +thoughts.</p> + +<p>“I put it over the mantel,” she nodded; “it lasts all winter.”</p> + +<p>“The wahoo’s red now, too,” said he. “Do you care for it?” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223'></a>223</span></p> + +<p>“It doesn’t last as long as bitter-sweet,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Bitter-sweet,” said he reflectively, looking down into the shadows which hung to the flagstones of the +floor. Then he raised his eyes to hers and surprised them brimming with tears, for her heart was aching for him in a +reflection of his own lonely pain.</p> + +<p>“It is emblematic of life,” said he, reaching his hand out through the bars to her, as if to beg her not +to grieve over the clouds of a day; “you know there are lots of comparisons and verses and sayings about it in +that relation. It seems to me that I’ve always had more of the bitter than the sweet–but it will all come +out right in time.”</p> + +<p>She touched his hand.</p> + +<p>“Do you like mignonette?” she asked. “I’ve brought you some.”</p> + +<p>“I love it!” said he with boyish impetuosity. “I had a bed of it last–no, I mean the summer +before last–before I was–before I went to work for Isom.”</p> + +<p>She took the flowers from her bosom and placed them in his hand. The scent of them was in his nostrils, stirring +memories of his old days of simple poverty, of days in the free fields. Again he turned his face toward the window, the +little flowers clutched in his hand. His breast heaved as if he fought in the deep waters of his soul against some +ignoble weakness.</p> + +<p>She moved a little nearer, and reached timidly through the bars with the breathless quiet of one who offers a caress +to a sleeper. Her finger-tips touched his arm.</p> + +<p>“Joe,” said she, as if appealing in pity to him for permission to share his agony.</p> + +<p>He lifted the flowers to his lips and kissed the stems where her hand had clasped them; then bowed his head, his +strong shoulders against the bars.</p> + +<p>“Joe!” Her voice was a whisper in his ear, more than <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_224'></a>224</span> pity in it, so it seemed to him in the revelation of that moment; more than entreaty, more +than consolation.</p> + +<p>Her hand was on his arm; he turned to her, shaking the fallen locks of his wild hair back from his brow. Then her +hand was in his, and there was a warm mist, as of summer clouds, before his eyes. Her face was before him, and +near–so near. Not red like the bitter-sweet, but pale as the winter dawn. Her eyes were wide, her chin was +lifted, and he was straining her to him with the jail door bars against his breast.</p> + +<p>Love comes that way, and death; and the blow of sorrow; and the wrench of life’s last bitter pang. Only life +is slow; tedious and laggard with its burdens and its gleams.</p> + +<p>He remembered in a moment; the pressure of the bars against his breast recalled him to his sad estate. He released +her hand and fell back a step from her, a sharp cry on his lips as if he had seen her crushed and mangled just beyond +his reach.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to do that, Alice; I didn’t mean to do that!” said he, dropping to his knees +before her as if struck down by a stunning blow. He bowed his head in contrite humiliation.</p> + +<p>“I forgot where I was, Alice; I forgot!”</p> + +<p>There was no displeasure in her face as she stood panting before the barred door, her hands to her heaving breast, +her head thrown back. Her lips were parted; there was a light of exaltation in her eyes, as of one who has felt the +benediction of a great and lasting joy. She put her hand through the bars again, and touched his bowed head.</p> + +<p>“Don’t do that, Joe,” said she.</p> + +<p>The sheriff’s key sounded in the lock of the corridor gate.</p> + +<p>“Time’s up,” he called.</p> + +<p>“All right; I’m coming,” Alice returned.</p> + +<p>Joe stood, weak and trembling. He felt as if he had, in <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_225'></a>225</span> the heat of some great passion, rashly risked life, and more than life; that he had only now +dragged his battered body back to the narrow, precarious ledge from which he had leaped, and that safety was not +his.</p> + +<p>“I must go now,” said she, soft and low and in steady voice. “Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand, and he clung to it like a nestling fastening upon the last branch interposing between it and +destruction.</p> + +<p>“I forgot where I was,” said he weakly, his shaken mind incapable of comprehending things as they were, +his abasement over the breach that he had committed being so profound. She withdrew her hand. When it was gone out of +his, he remembered how warm it was with the tide of her young body, and how soft for his own work-roughened fingers to +meet and enfold.</p> + +<p>“I must go now,” said she again. Her feet sounded in the corridor as she ran away. A little way along +she stopped. She was beyond his sight, but her voice sounded near him when she called back “Good-bye!”</p> + +<p>She had not gone in anger nor displeasure, thought he, getting hand of his confused senses after a while, standing +as she had left him, the flowers in his hand. Strangely exulting, strangely thrilling, mounting a moment like an eagle, +plunging down now like a stone, Joe walked his cell.</p> + +<p>What had he done, drawn on by that which he had read in her eyes in that poignant moment! In jail, locked behind a +grated door of steel, he had taken her hand and drawn her to him until the shock of the bars had called back his +manhood. He had taken advantage of her friendship and sympathy.</p> + +<p>Prison was no place for love; a man locked in jail charged with a crime had no right to think of it. It was base of +him, and unworthy. Still–mounting again in a swift, delicious <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_226'></a>226</span> flight–it was sweet to know what her eyes had told him, sweeter to rest assured that +she had not left him in scorn. Down again, a falling clod. Unless he had misinterpreted them in the ignorance of his +untutored heart. Yet, that is a language that needs no lexicon, he knew.</p> + +<p>Who is so simple, indeed, as to be unaware of that? How different this passion from that which Ollie’s +uncovered bosom had stirred; how he burned with shame at the memory of that day!</p> + +<p>Up and down he strode the morning through, his long, thin legs now spare in his boot-tops, his wide, bony shoulders +sharp through his coat. The strong light fell on his gaunt face as he turned toward the window; shadows magnified its +hollows when he turned toward the door. Now that the panic of it had left him, the sweetness of it remained.</p> + +<p>How soft her hand was, how her yielding body swayed in his arm! How delicious her breath was on his face; how near +her eyes, speaking to him, and her lips; how near her parted, warm, red lips!</p> + +<p>He took up the Book, and turned with trembling hands to a place that he remembered well. There was something that he +had read, not feeling, not understanding, words of which came back to him now. The Songs of Songs, Which is +Solomon’s.</p> + +<p>Ah, the Song of Songs! The music of it now was written in his heart. It was not the song in glorification and +exaltation of the church that the translators had captioned it; not a song full of earthly symbols meant to represent +spiritual passions. Joe had read it, time and again, in that application, and it had fallen flavorless upon his +understanding. No; it was the song of a strong man to the woman whom he loved.</p> + +<p>And the music of it, old but ever new in its human appeal, now was written in his heart. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227'></a>227</span></p> + +<p>Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in +thee.... Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved....</p> + +<p>Ah, until the day break!</p> + +<p>In his rapt exaltation the boy’s face beamed as he strode swiftly the length of his cell. It would not be long +until daybreak now. The judge would understand him, and would not press a man to tell what he had delicate reasons for +concealing, when the concealment could bring harm to nobody, but boundless good to one weak creature who must wither +otherwise in the blaze of shame.</p> + +<p>He remembered the strong face and the long iron-gray hair of Judge Maxwell; only a little while ago Joe had given +him some apples which he had stopped to admire as he drove past Isom’s orchard in his sagging, mud-splashed, old +buggy. He was a good man; the uprightness of his life spoke from his face. Judge Maxwell was a man to understand.</p> + +<p>Poor Ollie; poor weak, shrinking Ollie! Her frightened eyes glowed hot in his memory of the day of the inquest, +carrying to him their appeal. Poor, mistaken, unguided Ollie! He would protect her to the last, as he had done at the +beginning, and trust and hope that the judge, and Alice, and the colonel, and the whole world, would understand in due +and proper time.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_14'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228'></a>228</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>DESERTED</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>John Owens, the surviving witness to Isom Chase’s will, spent his dreary days at the poorhouse whittling long +chains of interlocking rings, and fantastic creatures such as the human eye never beheld in nature, out of soft +pine-wood. He had taken up that diversion shortly after the last of his afflictions, blindness, fell upon him and, as +white pine was cheap, the superintendent of the institution indulged him without stint.</p> + +<p>Uncle John, as he was called long years before the hard-riding world threw him, was a preacher back in the days of +his youth, middling manhood and prosperity. He had ridden the country in the Campbellite faith, bringing hundreds into +the fold, with a voice as big as a bull’s, and a long beard, which he wore buttoned under his vest in winter. And +now in his speechlessness, darkness, and silence, he still preached in his way, carving out the beast with seven heads +and ten horns, and female figures of hideous mien, the signification of which nobody rightly knew.</p> + +<p>Uncle John had a little slate upon which he wrote his wants, but nobody had discovered any way of communicating with +him save by taking his hand and guiding it to the object for which he had asked. For a long time he had written the one +word “Paint” on his slate. That was the beginning of his use of it, when one word was all that he could get +on a side of it at a time. After his fingers had become sensitive through his new art of whittling and feeling, he +improved his writing, until he made it plain that he wanted paint to adorn his carved figures, so they could be sold. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229'></a>229</span></p> + +<p>It was the hope of the poor old soul that he could whittle himself out of the poorhouse, and live free and +independent upon the grotesque productions of his knife, if they would give him paint to make them attractive, and thus +get a start. He did not know how fantastic and ridiculous they were, having only his own touch to guide him to judgment +of their merits.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he was no less reasonable in this belief than certain painters, musicians, and writers, who place their own +blind value upon the craft of their hands and brains, and will not set them aside for any jury that the world can +impanel.</p> + +<p>Uncle John never came to realize his hopes of freedom, any more than he ever came to realize the uselessness of +paint for his angels when he had no eyes for applying it. He whittled on, in melancholy dejection, ring upon ring in +his endless chains of rings, forging in bitter irony the emblems of bondage, when his old heart so longed to be +free.</p> + +<p>It was a bright day in the life of Uncle John Owens, then, when Ollie’s lawyer called at the poorhouse and +placed under his hands some slender slips of cardboard bearing raised letters, the A B C of his age.</p> + +<p>His bearded old face shone like a window in which a light has been struck as his fluttering fingers ran over the +letters. He fumbled excitedly for his slate which hung about his neck, and his hand trembled as he wrote:</p> + +<p>“More–book–more.”</p> + +<p>It had been an experiment, the lawyer having doubted whether Uncle John’s untrained fingers, dulled by age, +could pick out the letters, large as they were. He had nothing more to offer, therefore, and no way of answering the +appeal. But that night an order for the New Testament in raised characters for the blind went out from Shelbyville.</p> + +<p>Judge Little was making no progress in establishing the will. Nobody had come forward in answer to his +advertisements <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230'></a>230</span> in the city papers, claiming for himself +the distinction of being Isom Chase’s son. But the judge gave Ollie to understand, in spite of his quiescence +while he searched for the heir, that the courts must settle the question. If there were fees to be had out of that +estate, Judge Little was the man to get them.</p> + +<p>Meantime, in his cell in the county jail, Joe Newbolt was bearing the heaviest penance of his life. Alice had not +come again. Two visiting days had passed, and there would be no more before the date of the trial, which was set for +the following Monday. But since that dun morning when she had given him the mignonette, and he had drawn her +unresisting body to the barrier of his prison door, she had visited him no more.</p> + +<p>Joe reproached himself for it. He accused himself of having offended beyond forgiveness. In the humiliation which +settled upon him, he wasted like water in the sun. The mignonette which she had given him withered, dried; its perfume +vanished, its blossoms turned gray. She came no more. What did it matter if they convicted him before the judge, said +he, now that Alice had condemned him in her heart. He lamented that he had blundered into such deep offending. His +untutored heart had seen only the reflection of his own desire in her eyes that day. She did not care for him. It was +only pity that he had distorted into love.</p> + +<p>He had inquired about her, timidly, of the sheriff, who had looked at him with a slow wink, then formed his mouth +into an egg-shaped aperture and held it so an exasperating while, as if he meant to whistle. The sheriff’s +clownish behavior nettled Joe, for he was at a loss to understand what he meant.</p> + +<p>“I thought maybe she’d sent over some books,” said Joe, blushing like a hollyhock.</p> + +<p>“Books!” said the sheriff, with a grunt.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” Joe answered, respectfully. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_231'></a>231</span></p> + +<p>“Huh, she never sent no books,” said the sheriff, turning away.</p> + +<p>After a little he came back and stood before Joe’s door, with his long legs far apart, studying the prisoner +calculatively, as a farmer stands when he estimates the weight of a hog.</p> + +<p>“Cree-mo-nee!” said he.</p> + +<p>He laughed then, much to Joe’s confusion, and totally beyond his comprehension. The sheriff left him with +that. From the passage his laugh came back.</p> + +<p>The day was Friday; Joe plucked up a little hope when he heard the sheriff conducting somebody to the corridor gate. +It was Colonel Price, who had exercised his political influence over the sheriff and induced him to set aside his new +regulations for the day. The colonel made apologies to Joe for what might seem his lack of interest in his welfare.</p> + +<p>Joe inquired of him concerning Alice, with respectful dignity. She was well, said the colonel, and asked to be +remembered. What else the colonel said on that occasion Joe did not recall. All that he could think of was that Alice +had desired to be remembered.</p> + +<p>What an ironical message to send him, thought Joe. If she only had come herself, and given him the assurance with +her eyes that there was no stored censure, no burning reproach; if she had come, and quieted the doubt, the +uncertainty, of his self-tortured soul. His case had become secondary beside Alice. The colonel talked of it, but Joe +wondered if the mignonette in her garden was dead. The colonel shook his head gravely when he went away from the jail +that day. It was plain that the boy was suffering with that load on his mind and the uncertainty of the outcome +pressing upon him. He mentioned it to Alice.</p> + +<p>“I think we’d better try to get him another lawyer,” said the colonel. “Hammer never will be +equal to that job. It <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232'></a>232</span> will be more the size of Judge +Burns, or one of the old heads. That boy’s in a pickle, Alice, and a mighty tight one, at that.”</p> + +<p>“But he’s innocent–you don’t doubt that?” said she.</p> + +<p>“Not for a minute,” the colonel declared. “I guess I should have been looking after him closer, +but that picture intervened between us. He’s wearing away to a shadow, chafing and pining there in jail, poor +chap.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think he’ll consent to your employing another lawyer for him?” she asked, searching his +face wistfully.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; he’s so set in the notion of loyalty to Hammer–just as if anybody could hurt +Hammer’s feelings! If the boy will consent to it, I’ll hire Judge Burns at my own expense.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose he will,” sighed she.</p> + +<p>“No, I reckon not, his notions are so high-flown,” the colonel admitted, with evident pride in the lofty +bearing of the widow’s son.</p> + +<p>“He’s longing for a run over the hills,” said she. “He told me he was.”</p> + +<p>“A year of it in there would kill him,” the colonel said. “We must get him a lawyer who can +disentangle him. I never saw anybody go down like that boy has gone down in the last month. It’s like taking a +wild Indian out of the woods and putting him in a cage.”</p> + +<p>The colonel put aside the corn picture for the day, and went out to confer with Judge Burns, a local lawyer who had +gained a wide reputation in the defense of criminal cases. He was a doubly troubled man when he returned home that +evening, for Joe had been firm in his refusal either to dismiss Hammer or admit another to his defense. In the library +he had found Alice, downcast and gloomy, on the margin of tears.</p> + +<p>“Why, honey, you mustn’t mope around this way,” he remonstrated gently. “What is +it–what’s gone wrong with my little manager?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_233'></a>233</span></p> + +<p>She raised up from huddling her head against her arms on the table, pushed her fallen hair back from her eyes and +gave him a wan smile.</p> + +<p>“I just felt so lonely and depressed somehow,” said she, placing her hand on his where it lay on the +table. “Never mind me, for I’ll be all right. What did he say?”</p> + +<p>“Judge Burns?”</p> + +<p>“Joe.”</p> + +<p>The colonel drew a chair near and sat down, flinging out his hand with impatient gesture.</p> + +<p>“I can’t do anything with him,” said he. “He says one lawyer will do as well as another, and +Hammer’s doing all that can be done. ‘They’ll believe me or they’ll not believe me, colonel, +and that’s all there is to it,’ says he, ‘and the best lawyer in the world can’t change +that.’ And I don’t know but he’s right, too,” the colonel sighed. “He’s got to come +out with that story, every word of it, or there’ll never be a jury picked in the whole State of Missouri +that’ll take any stock in his testimony.”</p> + +<p>“It will be a terrible thing for his mother if they don’t believe him,” said she.</p> + +<p>“We’ll do all that he’ll allow us to do for him, we can’t do any more. It’s a gloomy +outlook, a gloomy case all through. It was a bad piece of business when that mountain woman bound him out to old Isom +Chase, to take his kicks and curses and live on starvation rations. He’s the last boy in the world that +you’d conceive of being bound out; he don’t fit the case at all.”</p> + +<p>“No, he doesn’t,” said she, reflectively.</p> + +<p>“But don’t let the melancholy thing settle on you and disturb you, child. He’ll get out of +it–or he’ll not–one way or the other, I reckon. It isn’t a thing for you to take to heart and +worry over. I never should have taken you to that gloomy old jail to see him, at all.” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234'></a>234</span></p> + +<p>“I can’t forget him there–I’ll always see him there!” she shuddered. “He’s +above them all–they’ll never understand him, never in this world!”</p> + +<p>She got up, her hair hanging upon her shoulders, and left him abruptly, as if she had discovered something that lay +in her heart. Colonel Price sat looking after her, his back very straight, his hand upon his knee.</p> + +<p>“Well!” said he. Then, after a long ruminative spell: “Well!”</p> + +<p>That same hour Hammer was laboring with his client in the jail, as he had labored fruitlessly before, in an endeavor +to induce him to impart to him the thing that he had concealed at the coroner’s inquest into Isom Chase’s +death. Hammer assured him that it would not pass beyond him in case that it had no value in establishing his +innocence.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hammer, sir,” said Joe, with unbending dignity and firmness, “if the information you ask of +me was mine to give, freely and honorably, I’d give it. You can see that. Maybe something will turn up between +now and Monday that will make a change, but if not, you’ll have to do the best you can for me the way it stands. +Maybe I oughtn’t expect you to go into the court and defend me, seeing that I can’t help you any more than +I’m doing. If you feel that you’d better drop out of the case, you’re free to do it, without any hard +feelings on my part, sir.”</p> + +<p>Hammer had no intention of dropping the case, hopeless as he felt the defense to be. Even defeat would be glorious, +and loss profitable, for his connection with the defense would sound his name from one end of the state to the +other.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t desert you in the hour of your need, Joe, for anything they could name,” said Hammer, +with significant suggestion.</p> + +<p>His manner, more than his words, carried the impression that they had named sums, recognizing in him an insuperable +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235'></a>235</span> barrier to the state’s case, but that he had put +his tempters aside with high-born scorn.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“But if Missis Chase was mixed up in it any way, I want you to tell me, Joe,” he pressed.</p> + +<p>Joe said nothing. He looked as stiff and hard as one of the iron hitching-posts in front of the court-house, thought +Hammer, the side of his face turned to the lawyer, who measured it with quick eyes.</p> + +<p>“Was she, Joe?” whispered Hammer, leaning forward, his face close to the bars.</p> + +<p>“The coroner asked me that,” replied Joe, harshly.</p> + +<p>This unyielding quality of his client was baffling to Hammer, who was of the opinion that a good fatherly kick might +break the crust of his reserve. Hammer had guessed the answer according to his own thick reasoning, and not very +pellucid morals.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you take the stand, Joe, they’ll make you tell it then,” Hammer warned him. +“You’d better tell me in advance, so I can advise you how much to say.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have to get on somehow without your advice, thank you sir, Mr. Hammer, when it comes to how much +to say,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“There’s not many lawyers–and I’ll tell you that right now in a perfectly plain and friendly +way–that’d go ahead with your case under the conditions,” said Hammer. “But as I told you, +I’ll stick to you and see you through. I wash my hands of any blame for the case, Joe, if it don’t turn out +exactly the way you expect.”</p> + +<p>Joe saw him leave without regret, for Hammer’s insistence seemed to him inexcusably vulgar. All men could not +be like him, reflected Joe, his hope leaping forward to Judge Maxwell, whom he must soon confront.</p> + +<p>Joe tossed the night through with his longing for Alice, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_236'></a>236</span> which gnawed him like hunger and would not yield to sleep, for in his dreams his heart went +out after her; he heard her voice caressing his name. He woke with the feeling that he must put the thought of Alice +away from him, and frame in his mind what he should say when it came his turn to stand before Judge Maxwell and tell +his story. If by some hinted thing, some shade of speech, some qualification which a gentleman would grasp and +understand, he might convey his reason to the judge, he felt that he must come clear.</p> + +<p>He pondered it a long time, and the face of the judge rose before him, and the eyes were brown and the hair in soft +wavelets above a white forehead, and Alice stood in judgment over him. So it always ended; it was before Alice that he +must plead and justify himself. She was his judge, his jury, and his world.</p> + +<p>It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Newbolt arrived for her last visit before the trial. She came down to his door in her +somber dress, tall, bony and severe, thinner of face herself than she had been before, her eyes bright with the +affection for her boy which her tongue never put into words. Her shoes were muddy, and the hem of her skirt draggled, +for, high as she had held it in her heavy tramp, it had become splashed by the pools in the soft highway.</p> + +<p>“Mother, you shouldn’t have come today over the bad roads,” said Joe with affectionate +reproof.</p> + +<p>“Lands, what’s a little mud!” said she, putting down a small bundle which she bore. “Well, +it’ll be froze up by tomorrow, I reckon, it’s turnin’ sharp and cold.”</p> + +<p>She looked at Joe anxiously, every shadow in his worn face carving its counterpart in her heart. There was no smile +of gladness on her lips, for smiles had been so long apart from her life that the nerves which commanded them had grown +stiff and hard.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Joe, taking up her last words, “winter will <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_237'></a>237</span> be here in a little while now. I’ll be out then, Mother, to lay in wood for you. It +won’t be long now.”</p> + +<p>“Lord bless you, son!” said she, the words catching in her throat, tears rising to her eyes and standing +so heavy that she must wipe them away.</p> + +<p>“It will all be settled next week,” Joe told her confidently.</p> + +<p>“I hope they won’t put it off no more,” said she wearily.</p> + +<p>“No; Hammer says they’re sure to go ahead this time.”</p> + +<p>“Ollie drove over yesterday evening and brought your things from Isom’s,” said she, lifting the +bundle from the floor, forcing it to him between the bars. “I brought you a couple of clean shirts, for I knew +you’d want one for tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mother, I’m glad you brought them,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Ollie, she said she never would make you put in the rest of your time there if she had anything to say about +it. But she said if Judge Little got them letters of administration he was after she expected he’d try to hold us +to it, from what he said.”</p> + +<p>“No matter, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“And Ollie said if she ever did come into Isom’s property she’d make us a deed to our +place.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt’s face bore a little gleam of hope when she told him this. Joe looked at her kindly.</p> + +<p>“She could afford to, Mother,” said he, “it was paid for in interest on that loan to +Isom.”</p> + +<p>“But Isom, he never would ’a’ give in to that,” said she. “Your pap he paid twelve per +cent interest on that loan for sixteen years.”</p> + +<p>“I figured it all up, Mother,” said he.</p> + +<p>There was nothing for her to sit on in the corridor; she stood holding to the bars to take some of the weight from +her tired feet.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to hurry you off, Mother,” said Joe, “but <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_238'></a>238</span> I hate to see you standing there all tired out. If the sheriff was a gentleman he’d +fetch you a chair. I don’t suppose there’d be any use in asking him.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind, Joe, it takes more than a little walk like that to play me out.”</p> + +<p>“You’d better stop in at Colonel Price’s and rest a while before you start back,” he +suggested.</p> + +<p>“Maybe I will,” said she.</p> + +<p>She plunged her hand into the black draw-string bag which she carried on her arm, rummaging among its contents.</p> + +<p>“That little rambo tree you planted a couple of years ago had two apples on it,” she told him, +“but I never noticed ’em all summer, the leaves was so thick and it was such a little feller, +anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“It is a little one to begin bearing,” said Joe, with a boy’s interest in a thing that he has done +with his own hand turning out to be something.</p> + +<p>“Yes; and I aimed to leave them on the tree till you could see them, but the hard wind yesterday shook +’em off. Here they are, I’ve fetched ’em to you, son.”</p> + +<p>Joe took the apples, the recollection of the high hopes which he had centered around that little apple-tree when he +planted it coming back to him like a scented wind at dawn. He had planned to make that tree the nucleus of an orchard, +which was to grow and spread until it covered the old home place, the fields adjoining, and lifted the curse of poverty +from the Newbolt name. It had been a boyish plan which his bondage to Isom Chase had set back.</p> + +<p>He had not given it up for a day while he labored in Chase’s fields. When he became his own man he always +intended to take it up and put it through. Now, there in his hand, was the first fruit of his big intention, and in +that moment Joe reviewed his old pleasant dream.</p> + +<p>He saw again as he had pictured it before, to the relief of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_239'></a>239</span> many a long, hot day in Isom’s fields, his thousand trees upon the hills, the laden +wagons rolling to the station with his barrels of fruit, some of it to go to far lands across the sea. He saw again the +stately house with its white columns and deep porticoes, in the halls of which his fancy had reveled many a happy hour, +and he saw–the bars of his stone cell and his mother’s work-hardened hands clasping them, while she looked +at him with the pain of her sad heart speaking from her eyes. A heavy tear rolled down his hollow cheek and fell upon +the apples in his hand.</p> + +<p>For the pain of prison he had not wept, nor for its shame. The vexing circumstance of being misunderstood, the dread +threat of the future had not claimed a tear. But for a dream which had sprung like a sweet flower in his young heart +and had passed away like a mist, he wept.</p> + +<p>His mother knew nothing about that blasted dream; the gloom of his cell concealed his tears. He rubbed the fruit +along his coat sleeve, as if to make it shine, as a fruiterer polishes the apples in his stall.</p> + +<p>“All right, Mother, I’m glad you brought them,” he said, although there was no gladness in his +voice.</p> + +<p>“I planned to fetch you in some fried chicken today, too,” said she, “but the pesky rooster I had +under the tub got away when I went to take him out. If you’d like some, Joe, I’ll come back +tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>“No, no; don’t you tramp over here tomorrow, Mother,” he admonished, “and don’t bother +about the chicken. I don’t seem to have any appetite any more. But you wait till I’m out of here a day or +two; then you’ll see me eat.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then I guess I’ll be goin’ on back, Joe; and bright and early Monday morning I’ll be +on hand at the court. Maybe we’ll be able to go home together that evenin’, son.”</p> + +<p>“Hammer says it will take two or three days,” Joe told her, “but I don’t see what they can +do to make it string out <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240'></a>240</span> that long. I could tell them all +about it in ten minutes. So we mustn’t put our hopes too high on Monday, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll beseech the Lord all day tomorrow, son, to open their ears that they may hear,” said she +solemnly. “And when the time comes to speak tell it all, Joe, tell it all!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mother, when the time comes,” said he gently.</p> + +<p>“Tell ’em all Isom said to you, son,” she charged.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry over that now, Mother.”</p> + +<p>She felt that her son drew away from her, in his haughty manner of self-sufficiency, as he spoke. She sighed, +shaking her head sadly. “Well, I’ll be rackin’ off home,” she said.</p> + +<p>“If you stop at the colonel’s to rest a while, Mother–and I wish you would, for you’re all +tired out–you might hand this book back to Miss Price. She loaned it to me. Tell her I read it long ago, and +I’d have sent it back before now, only I thought she might come after it herself some time.”</p> + +<p>His mother turned to him, a curious expression in her face.</p> + +<p>“Don’t she come any more, Joe?”</p> + +<p>“She’s been busy with other things, I guess,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” she allowed, with a feeling of resentment against the book on account of its cold, unfriendly +owner.</p> + +<p>She had almost reached the corridor gate when Joe called after her.</p> + +<p>“No, don’t tell her that,” he requested. “Don’t tell her anything. Just hand it back, +please, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“Whatever you say, Joe.”</p> + +<p>Joe heard the steel gate close after her and the sheriff’s voice loud above his mother’s as they went +toward the door.</p> + +<p>Loyal as he was to his mother, the thought of her went out with her, and in her place stood the slender figure of +youth, her lips “like a thread of scarlet.” One day more to wait for the event of his justification and +vindication, or at least the beginning of it, thought Joe.</p> + +<p>Ah, if Alice only would come to lighten the interval!</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_15'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241'></a>241</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XV<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE STATE <i>VS.</i>NEWBOLT</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>The court-house at Shelbyville was a red brick structure with long windows. From the joints of its walls the mortar +was falling. It lay all around the building in a girdle of gray, like an encircling ant-hill, upon the green lawn. +Splendid sugar-maples grew all about the square, in the center of which the court-house stood, and close around the +building.</p> + +<p>In a corner of the plaza, beneath the largest and oldest of these spreading trees, stood a rotting block of wood, a +section of a giant tree-trunk, around which centered many of the traditions of the place. It was the block upon which +negro slaves had been auctioned in the fine old days before the war.</p> + +<p>There was a bench beside the approach to the main door, made from one of the logs of the original court-house, built +in that square more than sixty years before the day that Joe Newbolt stood to answer for the murder of Isom Chase. The +old men of the place sat there in the summer days, whittling and chewing tobacco and living over again the stirring +incidents of their picturesque past. Their mighty initials were cut in the tough wood of the bench, to endure long +after them and recall memories of the hands which carved them so strong and deep.</p> + +<p>Within the court-house itself all was very much like it had had been at the beginning. The court-room was furnished +with benches, the judge sat behind a solemn walnut desk. The woodwork of the room was thick with many layers of paint, +the last one of them grim and blistered now, scratched by stout finger-nails and prying knife-blades. The stairway +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242'></a>242</span> leading from the first floor ascended in a broad sweep, +with a turn half-way to the top.</p> + +<p>The wall along this stairway was battered and broken, as if the heels of reluctant persons, dragged hither for +justice to be pronounced upon them, had kicked it in protest as they passed. It was as solemn and gloomy a stairway as +ever was seen in a temple of the law. Many had gone up it in their generation in hope, to descend it in despair. Its +treads were worn to splinters; its balustrade was hacked by the knives of generations of loiterers. There was no window +in the wall giving upon it; darkness hung over its first landing on the brightest day. The just and the unjust alike +were shrouded in its gloomy penumbra as they passed. It was the solemn warder at the gate, which seemed to cast a taint +over all who came, and fasten a cloud upon them which they must stand in the white light of justice to purge away.</p> + +<p>When the civil war began, the flag of the Union was taken down from the cupola of the court-house. In all the years +that had passed since its close, the flag never had been hoisted to its place of honor again. That event was not to +take place, indeed, until twenty years or more after the death of Isom Chase, when the third court-house was built, and +the old generation had passed away mainly, and those who remained of it had forgotten. But that incident is an +incursion into matters which do not concern this tale.</p> + +<p>Monday morning came on dull and cloudy. Shelbyville itself was scarcely astir, its breakfast fires no more than +kindled, when the wagons of farmers and the straggling troops of horsemen from far-lying districts began to come in and +seek hitching-room around the court-house square. It looked very early in the day as if there was going to be an +unusual crowd for the unusual event of a trial for murder.</p> + +<p>Isom Chase had been widely known. His unsavory reputation had spread wider than the sound of the best deeds of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243'></a>243</span> the worthiest man in the county. It was not so much on +account of the notoriety of the old man, which had not died with him, as the mystery in the manner of his death, that +people were anxious to attend the trial.</p> + +<p>It was not known whether Joe Newbolt was to take the witness-stand in his own behalf. It rested with him and his +lawyer to settle that; under the law he could not be forced to testify. The transcript of his testimony at the inquest +was ready at the prosecutor’s hand. Joe would be confronted with that, and, if there was a spark of spunk in him, +people said, he would rise up and stand by it. And then, once Sam Lucas got him in the witness-chair, it would be all +day with his evasions and concealments.</p> + +<p>Both sides had made elaborate preparations for the trial. The state had summoned forty witnesses; Hammer’s +list was half as long. It was a question in the public speculation what either side expected to prove or disprove with +this train of people. Certainly, Hammer expected to prove very little. His chief aim was to consume as much time before +the jury as possible, and disport himself in the public eye as long as he could drag out an excuse. His witnesses were +all from among the old settlers in the Newbolt neighborhood over in Sni, who had the family record from the date of the +Kentucky hegira. They were summoned for the purpose of sustaining and adding color to the picture which Hammer intended +to draw of his client’s well-known honesty and clean past.</p> + +<p>Fully an hour before Judge Maxwell arrived to open court, the benches down toward the front were full. This vantage +ground had been preempted mainly by the old men whose hearing was growing dim. They sat there with their old hands, as +brown as blackberry roots, clasped over their sticks and umbrellas, their peaked old chins up, their eyes alert. Here +and there among them sat an ancient dame, shawled and kerchiefed, for the day was chill; and from them <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244'></a>244</span> all there rose the scent of dry tobacco-leaves, and out of their +midst there sounded the rustling of paper-bags and the cracking of peanut-shells.</p> + +<p>“Gosh m’ granny!” said Captain Bill Taylor, deputy sheriff, as he stood a moment after placing a +pitcher of water and a glass on the bench, ready for Judge Maxwell’s hand. “They’re here from +Necessity to Tribulation!”</p> + +<p>Of course the captain was stretching the territory represented by that gathering somewhat, for those two historic +post offices lay farther away from Shelbyville than the average inhabitant of that country ever journeyed in his life. +But there was no denying that they had come from surprising distances.</p> + +<p>There was Uncle Posen Spratt, from Little Sugar Creek, with his steer’s-horn ear trumpet; and there were Nick +Proctor and his wife, July, from the hills beyond Destruction, seventeen miles over a road that pitched from end to end +when it didn’t slant from side to side, and took a shag-barked, sharp-shinned, cross-eyed wind-splitter to +travel. There sat old Bev Munday, from Blue Cut, who hadn’t been that far away from home since Jesse James got +after him, with his old brown hat on his head; and it was two to one in the opinion of everybody that he’d keep +it there till the sheriff ordered him to lift it off. Hiram Lee, from Sni-a-bar Township was over there in the corner +where he could slant up and spit out of the window, and there was California Colboth, as big around the waist as a cow, +right behind him. She had came over in her dish-wheeled buggy from Green Valley, and she was staying with her married +son, who worked on the railroad and lived in that little pink-and-blue house behind the water-tank.</p> + +<p>Oh, you could stand there–said Captain Taylor–and name all the old settlers for twenty-seven mile in a +ring! But the captain hadn’t the time, even if he was taken with the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_245'></a>245</span> inclination, for the townspeople began to come, and it was his duty to stand at the door and +shut off the stream when all the benches were full.</p> + +<p>That was Judge Maxwell’s order; nobody was to be allowed to stand around the walls or in the aisles and jig +and shuffle and kick up a disturbance just when the lawyers or witnesses might be saying something that the captain +would be very anxious to hear. The captain indorsed the judge’s mandate, and sustained his judgment with internal +warmth.</p> + +<p>General Bryant and Colonel Moss Punton came early, and sat opposite each other in the middle of the aisle, each on +the end of a bench, where they could look across and exchange opinions, yet escape being crowded by the mongrel stock +which was sure to come pouring in soon. A good many unnoted sons of distinguished fathers arrived in pairs and troops, +with perfumery on their neckties and chewing-gum in their teeth; and their sisters, for the greater part as lovely as +they were knotty, warty, pimply, and weak-shanked, came after them in churchlike decorum and settled down on the +benches like so many light-winged birds. But not without a great many questioning glances and shy explorations around +them, not certain that this thing was proper and admissible, it being such a mixed and dry-tobacco atmosphere. Seeing +mothers here, grandfathers there, uncles and aunts, cousins and neighbors everywhere, they settled down, assured, to +enjoy the day.</p> + +<p>It was a delightfully horrid thing to be tried for murder, they said, even though one was obscure and nobody, a +bound servant in the fields of the man whom he had slain. Especially if one came off clear.</p> + +<p>Then Hammer arrived with three law-books under his arm. He was all sleek and shining, perfumed to the last possible +drop. His alpaca coat had been replaced by a longer one of broadcloth, his black necktie surely was as dignified and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246'></a>246</span> somberly learned of droop as Judge Burns’, or Judge +Little’s, or Attorney Pickell’s, who got Perry Norris off for stealing old man Purvis’ cow.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt was there already, awaiting him at the railing which divided the lawyers from the lawed, lawing, and, +in some cases, outlawed. She was so unobtrusive in her rusty black dress, which looked as if it were made of +storm-streaked umbrellas, that nobody had noticed her.</p> + +<p>Now, when they saw her stand and shake hands with Hammer, and saw Hammer obsequiously but conspicuously conduct her +to a chair within the sacred precincts of the bar, there were whisperings and straightenings of backs, and a stirring +of feet with that concrete action which belongs peculiarly to a waiting, expectant crowd, but is impossible to +segregate or individually define.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell opened the door of his chamber, which had stood tall and dark and solemnly closed all morning just a +little way behind the bench, and took his place. At the same moment the sheriff, doubtless timing himself to the +smooth-working order, came in from the witness-room, opening from the court-room at the judge’s right hand, with +the prisoner.</p> + +<p>Joe hesitated a little as the sheriff closed the door behind them, his hand on the prisoner’s shoulder, as if +uncertain of what was next required of him. The sheriff pushed him forward with commanding gesture toward the table at +which Hammer stood, and Joe proceeded to cross the room in the fire of a thousand eyes.</p> + +<p>It seemed to him that the sheriff might have made the entrance less spectacular, that he could have brought him +sooner, or another way. That was like leading him across a stage, with the audience all in place, waiting the event. +But Joe strode along ahead of the sheriff with his head up, his long, shaggy hair smoothed into some semblance of +order, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247'></a>247</span> his spare garments short and outgrown upon his +bony frame. His arms were ignominiously bound in the sheriff’s handcuffs, linked together by half a foot of +dangling chain.</p> + +<p>That stirring sigh of mingled whispers and deep-drawn breaths ran over the room again; here and there someone half +rose for a better look. The dim-eyed old men leaned forward to see what was coming next; Uncle Posen Spratt put up his +steer’s-horn trumpet as if to blow the blast of judgment out of his ear.</p> + +<p>Joe sat in the chair which Hammer indicated; the sheriff released one hand from the manacles and locked the other to +the arm of the chair. Then Captain Taylor closed the door, himself on the outside of it, and walked down to the front +steps of the court-house with slow and stately tread. There he lifted his right hand, as if to command the attention of +the world, and pronounced in loud voice this formula:</p> + +<p>“Oy’s, oy’s, oy’s! The hon’r’bl’ circuit court of the <i>hum</i>teenth +judicial de-strict is now in session, pursu’nt t’ ’j’urnm’nt!”</p> + +<p>Captain Taylor turned about as the last word went echoing against the First National Bank, and walked slowly up the +stairs. He opened the court-room door and closed it; he placed his back against it, and folded his arms upon his +breast, his eyes fixed upon a stain on the wall.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell took up some papers from the desk, and spread one of them before him.</p> + +<p>“In the matter of Case No. 79, State <i>vs.</i> Newbolt. Gentlemen, are you ready for trial?”</p> + +<p>The judge spoke in low and confidential voice, meant for the attorneys at the bar only. It scarcely carried to the +back of the room, filled with the sound-killing vapors from five hundred mouths, and many of the old men in the front +seats failed to catch it, even though they cupped their hands behind their ears. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_248'></a>248</span></p> + +<p>Sam Lucas, prosecuting attorney, rose.</p> + +<p>Slight and pale, with a thin chest and a stoop forward, he was distinguished by the sharp eyes beside his +flat-bridged nose, so flattened out, it seemed, by some old blow, that they could almost communicate with each other +across it. His light, loose hair was very long; when he warmed up in speaking he shook it until it tumbled about his +eyes. Then it was his habit to sweep it back with the palm of his hand in a long, swinging movement of the arm. It was +a most expressive gesture; it seemed as if by it he rowed himself back into the placid waters of reasoning. Now, as he +stood before Judge Maxwell, he swept his palm over his forelock, although it lay snug and unruffled in its place.</p> + +<p>“Your honor, the state is ready,” said he, and remained standing.</p> + +<p>Hammer pushed his books along the table, shuffled his papers, and rose ponderously. He thrust his right hand into +the bosom of his coat and leaned slightly against the left in an attitude of scholarly preparedness.</p> + +<p>“Your honor, the defense is ready,” he announced.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_16'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249'></a>249</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>“SHE COMETH NOT,” HE SAID</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Joe, his face as white as some plant that has sprung in a dungeon, bent his head toward his mother, and placed his +free hand on hers where it lay on the arm of her chair.</p> + +<p>“It will soon be over with now, Mother,” he encouraged, with the hope in his heart that it would, +indeed, be so.</p> + +<p>With an underling in his place at the door, Captain Taylor advanced to take charge of the marshaling of the jury +panel. There ensued a great bustling and tramping as the clerk called off the names of those drawn.</p> + +<p>While this was proceeding, Joe cast his eyes about the room, animated by a double hope: that Alice would be there to +hear him tell his story; that Morgan had come and was in waiting to supply the facts which honor sealed upon his own +tongue. He could see only the first few rows of benches with the certainty of individual identification; they were +filled with strangers. Beyond them it was conglomerate, that fused and merged thing which seemed a thousand faces, yet +one; that blended and commingled mass which we call the public. Out of the mass Joe Newbolt could not sift the lean, +shrewd face of Curtis Morgan, nor glean from it the brown hair of Alice Price.</p> + +<p>The discovery that Alice was not there smote him with a feeling of sudden hopelessness and abandonment; the +reproaches which he had kindled against himself in his solitary days in jail rose up in redoubled torture. He blamed +the rashness of an unreasoning moment in which he had forgotten time and circumstance. Her interest was gone from him +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250'></a>250</span> now, where, if he had waited for vindication, he might +have won her heart.</p> + +<p>But it was a dream, at the best, he confessed, turning away from his hungry search of the crowd, his head drooping +forward in dejection. What did it matter for the world’s final exculpation, if Alice were not there to hear?</p> + +<p>His mother nodded to somebody, and touched his hand. Ollie it was, whom she greeted. She was seated near at hand, +beside a fat woman with a red and greasy face, whose air of protection and large interest proclaimed her a relative. +Joe thought that she filled pretty well the bill that Ollie had made out of her mother, on that day when she had +scorned her for having urged her into marriage with Isom.</p> + +<p>Ollie was very white in her black mourning dress, and thinner of features than when he had seen her last. She +smiled, and nodded to him, with an air of timid questioning, as if doubtful whether he had expected it, and uncertain +how it would be received. Joe bowed his head, respectfully.</p> + +<p>What a wayside flower she seemed, thought he; how common beside Alice! Yet, she had been bright and refreshing in +the dusty way where he had found her. He wondered why she was not within the rail also, near Hammer, if she was for +him; or near the prosecutor, if she was on the other side.</p> + +<p>He was not alone in this speculation. Many others wondered over that point also. It was the public expectation that +she naturally would assist the state in the punishment of her husband’s slayer; but Sam Lucas was not paying the +slightest attention to her, and it was not known whether he even had summoned her as a witness.</p> + +<p>And now Captain Taylor began to create a fresh commotion by clearing the spectators from the first row of benches to +make seats for the jury panel. Judge Maxwell was waiting the restoration of order, leaning back in his chair. Joe +scanned his face. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251'></a>251</span></p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell was tall and large of frame, from which the study and abstemiousness of his life had worn all +superfluous flesh. His face, cleanly shaved, was expressive of the scholarly attainments which made his decisions a +national standard. The judge’s eyes were bushed over with great, gray brows, the one forbidding cast in his +countenance; they looked out upon those who came for judgment before him through a pair of spring-clamp spectacles +which seemed to ride precariously upon his large, bony nose. The glasses were tied to a slender black braid, which he +wore looped about his neck.</p> + +<p>His hair was long, iron-gray, and thick; he wore it brushed straight back from his brow, without a parting or a +break. It lay in place so smoothly and persistently through all the labor of his long days, that strangers were +sometimes misled into the belief that it was not his own. This peculiar fashion of dressing his hair, taken with the +length and leanness of his jaw, gave the judge a cast of aquiline severeness which his gray eyes belied when they +beamed over the tops of his glasses at floundering young counsel or timid witness.</p> + +<p>Yet they could shoot darts of fire, as many a rash lawyer who had fallen under their censure could bear witness. At +such moments the judge had a peculiar habit of drawing up his long back and seemingly to distend himself with all the +dignity which his cumulative years and honors had endured, and of bowing his neck to make the focus of his eyes more +direct as he peered above his rimless glasses. He did not find it necessary to reprimand an attorney often, never more +than once, but these occasions never were forgotten. In his twenty-five years’ service on the bench, he never had +been reversed.</p> + +<p>Joe felt a revival of hope again under the influence of these preparations for the trial. Perhaps Alice was there, +somewhere among the people back in the room, he thought. And <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_252'></a>252</span> the colonel, also, and maybe Morgan. Who could tell? There was no use in abandoning hope when +he was just where he could see a little daylight.</p> + +<p>Joe sat up again, and lifted his head with new confidence. His mother sat beside him, watching everything with a +sharpness which seemed especially bent on seeing that Joe was given all his rights, and that nothing was omitted nor +slighted that might count in his favor.</p> + +<p>She watched Hammer, and Captain Taylor; she measured Sam Lucas, the prosecutor, and she weighed the judge. When +Hammer did something that pleased her, she nodded; when the prosecutor interposed, or seemed to be blocking the +progress of the case, she shook her head in severe censure.</p> + +<p>And now Joe came in for his first taste of the musty and ancient savor of the law. He had hoped that morning to walk +away free at evening, or at least to have met the worst that was to come, chancing it that Morgan failed to appear and +give him a hand. But he saw the hours waste away with the most exasperating fiddling, fussing and scratching over +unprofitable straw.</p> + +<p>What Hammer desired in a juryman, the prosecuting attorney was hotly against, and what pleased the state’s +attorney seemed to give Hammer a spasmodic chill. Instead of selecting twelve intelligent men, the most intelligent of +the sixty empaneled, both Hammer and the prosecutor seemed determined to choose the most dense.</p> + +<p>That day’s sweating labor resulted in the selection of four jurymen. Hammer seemed cheered. He said he had +expected to exhaust the panel and get no more than two, at the best. Now it seemed as if they might secure the full +complement without drawing another panel, and that would save them at least four days. That must have been an +exceedingly lucky haul of empty heads, indeed.</p> + +<p>Joe could not see any reason for elation. The prospect <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253'></a>253</span> +of freedom–or the worst–had withdrawn so far that there was not even a pin-point of daylight in the gloom. +Alice had not shown her face. If she had come at all, she had withheld herself from his hungry eyes. His heart was as +bleak that night as the mind of the densest juryman agreed upon between Hammer and the attorney for the state.</p> + +<p>Next day, to the surprise of everybody, the jury was completed. And then there followed, on the succeeding morning, +a recital by the prosecuting attorney of what he proposed and expected to prove in substantiation of the charge that +Joe Newbolt had shot and killed Isom Chase; and Hammer’s no shorter statement of what he was prepared to show to +the contrary.</p> + +<p>Owing to the unprecedented interest, and the large number of people who had driven in from the country, Judge +Maxwell unbent from his hard conditions on that day. He instructed Captain Taylor to admit spectators to standing-room +along the walls, but to keep the aisles between the benches clear.</p> + +<p>This concession provided for at least a hundred more onlookers and listeners, who stood forgetful of any ache in +their shanks throughout the long and dragging proceedings well satisfied, believing that the coming sensations would +repay them for any pangs of inconvenience they might suffer.</p> + +<p>It was on the afternoon of the third day of the trial that Sol Greening, first witness for the state, was +called.</p> + +<p>Sol retailed again, in his gossipy way, and with immense enjoyment of his importance, the story of the tragedy as he +had related it at the inquest. Sam Lucas gave him all the rope he wanted, even led him into greater excursions than Sol +had planned. Round-about excursions, to be sure, and inconsequential in effect, but they all led back to the tragic +picture of Joe Newbolt standing beside the dead body of Isom Chase, his hat in his hand, as if he had been interrupted +on the point of escape. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254'></a>254</span></p> + +<p>Sol seemed a wonderfully acute man for the recollection of details, but there was one thing that had escaped his +memory. He said he did not remember whether, when he knocked on the kitchen door, anybody told him to come in or not. +He was of the opinion, to the best of his knowledge and belief–the words being supplied by the +prosecutor–that he just knocked, and stood there blowing a second or two, like a horse that had been put to a +hard run, and then went in without being bidden. Sol believed that was the way of it; he had no recollection of anybody +telling him to come in.</p> + +<p>When it came Hammer’s turn to question the witness, he rose with an air of patronizing assurance. He called +Sol by his first name, in easy familiarity, although he never had spoken to him before that day. He proceeded as if he +intended to establish himself in the man’s confidence by gentle handling, and in that manner cause him to +confound, refute and entangle himself by admissions made in gratitude.</p> + +<p>But Sol was a suspicious customer. He hesitated and he hummed, backed and sidled, and didn’t know anything +more than he had related. The bag of money which had been found with Isom’s body had been introduced by the state +for identification by Sol. Hammer took up the matter with a sudden turn toward sharpness and belligerency.</p> + +<p>“You say that this is the same sack of money that was there on the floor with Isom Chase’s body when you +entered the room?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” nodded Sol.</p> + +<p>“Tell this jury how you know it’s the same one!” ordered Hammer, in stern voice.</p> + +<p>“Well, I seen it,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, you saw it. Well, did you go over to it and make a mark on it so you’d know it +again?”</p> + +<p>“No, I never done that,” admitted Sol. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255'></a>255</span></p> + +<p>“Don’t you know the banks are full of little sacks of money like that?” Hammer wanted to know.</p> + +<p>“I reckon maybe they air,” Sol replied.</p> + +<p>“And this one might be any one of a thousand like it, mightn’t it, Sol?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t reckon it could. That’s the one Isom had.”</p> + +<p>“Did you step over where the dead body was at and heft it?”</p> + +<p>“’Course I never,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Did you open it and count the money in it, or tie a string or something onto it so you’d know it when +you saw it again?”</p> + +<p>“No, I never,” said Sol sulkily.</p> + +<p>“Then how do you know this is it?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I seen it,” persisted Sol.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you seen it!” repeated Hammer, sweeping the jury a cunning look as if to apprise them that he had +found out just what he wanted to know, and that upon that simple admission he was about to turn the villainy of Sol +Greening inside out for them to see with their own intelligent eyes.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I said I seen it,” maintained Sol, bristling up a little.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I heard you say it, and now I want you to tell this jury how you <i>know</i>!”</p> + +<p>Hammer threw the last word into Sol’s face with a slam that made him jump. Sol turned red under the whiskers, +around the whiskers, and all over the uncovered part of him. He shifted in his chair; he swallowed.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t just know,” said he.</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t–just–know!” sneered Hammer, glowing in oily triumph. He looked at the +jury confidentially, as on the footing of a shrewd man with his equally shrewd audience.</p> + +<p>Then he took up the old rifle, and Isom’s bloody coat and shirt, which were also there as exhibits, and +dressed Sol down <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256'></a>256</span> on all of them, working hard to create +the impression in the minds of the jurors that Sol Greening was a born liar, and not to be depended on in the most +trivial particular.</p> + +<p>Hammer worked himself up into a sweat and emitted a great deal of perfume of barberish–and +barbarous–character, and glanced around the court-room with triumph in his eyes and satisfaction at the corners +of his mouth.</p> + +<p>He came now to the uncertainty of Sol’s memory on the matter of being bidden to enter the kitchen when he +knocked. Sol had now passed from doubt to certainty. Come to think it over, said he, nobody had said a word when he +knocked at that door. He remembered now that it was as still inside the house as if everybody was away.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening was standing against the wall, having that moment returned to the room from ministering to her +daughter’s baby. She held the infant in her arms, waiting Sol’s descent from the witness-chair so she might +settle down in her place without disturbing the proceedings. When she heard her husband make this positive declaration, +her mouth fell open and her eyes widened in surprise.</p> + +<p>“Why Sol,” she spoke up reprovingly, “you told me Joe––”</p> + +<p>It had taken the prosecuting attorney that long to glance around and spring to his feet. There his voice, in a loud +appeal to the court for the protection of his sacred rights, drowned that of mild Mrs. Greening. The judge rapped, the +sheriff rapped; Captain Taylor, from his post at the door, echoed the authoritative sound.</p> + +<p>Hammer abruptly ceased his questioning of Sol, after the judge had spoken a few crisp words of admonishment, not +directed in particular at Mrs. Greening, but more to the public at large, regarding the decorum of the court. Sam Lucas +thereupon took Sol in hand again, and drew him on to replace his former doubtful statement by his later <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257'></a>257</span> conclusion. As Sol left the witness-chair Hammer smiled. He handed +Mrs. Greening’s name to the clerk, and requested a subpoena for her as a witness for the defense.</p> + +<p>Sol’s son Dan was the next witness, and Hammer put him through a similar course of sprouts. Judge Maxwell +allowed Hammer to disport uncurbed until it became evident that, if given his way, the barber-lawyer would drag the +trial out until Joe was well along in middle life. He then admonished Hammer that there were bounds fixed for human +existence, and that the case must get on.</p> + +<p>Hammer was a bit uppish and resentful. He stood on his rights; he invoked the sacred constitution; he referred to +the revised statutes; he put his hand into his coat and spread his legs to make a memorable protest.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell took him in hand very kindly and led safely past the point of explosion with a smile of indulgence. +With that done, the state came to Constable Bill Frost and his branching mustaches, which he had trimmed up and soaped +back quite handsomely.</p> + +<p>To his own credit and the surprise of the lawyers who were watching the case, Hammer made a great deal of the point +of Joe having gone to Frost, voluntarily and alone, to summon him to the scene of the tragedy. Frost admitted that he +had believed Joe’s story until Sol Greening had pointed out to him the suspicious circumstances.</p> + +<p>“So you have to have somebody else to do your thinkin’ for you, do you?” said Hammer. “Well, +you’re a fine officer of the law and a credit to this state!”</p> + +<p>“I object!” said the prosecuting attorney, standing up in his place, very red around the eyes.</p> + +<p>The judge smiled, and the court-room tittered. The sheriff looked back over his shoulder and rapped the table for +order.</p> + +<p>“Comment is unnecessary, Mr. Hammer,” said the judge. “Proceed with the case.” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258'></a>258</span></p> + +<p>And so that weary day passed in trivial questioning on both sides, trivial bickerings, and waste of time, to the +great edifications of everybody but Joe and his mother, and probably the judge. Ten of the state’s forty +witnesses were disposed of, and Hammer was as moist as a jug of cold water in a shock of wheat.</p> + +<p>When the sheriff started to take Joe back to jail, the lad stood for a moment searching the breaking-up and moving +assembly with longing eyes. All day he had sat with his back to the people, not having the heart to look around with +that shameful handcuff and chain binding his arm to the chair. If Alice had been there, or Colonel Price, neither had +come forward to wish him well.</p> + +<p>There were Ollie and her mother, standing as they had risen from their bench, waiting for the crowd ahead of them to +set in motion toward the door, and here and there a face from his own neighborhood. But Alice was not among them. She +had withdrawn her friendship from him in his darkest hour.</p> + +<p>Neither had Morgan appeared to put his shoulder under the hard-pressing load and relieve him of its weight. Day by +day it was growing heavier; but a little while remained until it must crush out his hope forever. Certainly, there was +a way out without Morgan; there was a way open to him leading back into the freedom of the world, where he might walk +again with the sunlight on his face. A word would make it clear.</p> + +<p>But the sun would never strike again into his heart if he should go back to it under that coward’s reprieve, +and Alice–Alice would scorn his memory.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_17'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259'></a>259</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE BLOW OF A FRIEND</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Progress was swifter the next day. The prosecuting attorney, apparently believing that he had made his case, +dismissed many of his remaining witnesses who had nothing to testify to in fact. When he announced that the state +rested, there was a murmur and rustling in the room, and audibly expressed wonderment over what the public thought to +be a grave blunder on Sam Lucas’s part.</p> + +<p>The state had not called the widow of Isom Chase to the stand to give testimony against the man accused of her +husband’s murder. The public could not make it out. What did it mean? Did the prosecutor hold her more of an +enemy than a friend to his efforts to convict the man whose hand had made her a widow? Whispers went around, grave +faces were drawn, wise heads wagged. Public charity for Ollie began to falter.</p> + +<p>“Him and that woman,” men said, nodding toward Joe, sitting pale and inscrutable beside his blustering +lawyer.</p> + +<p>The feeling of impending sensation became more acute when it circulated through the room, starting from Captain +Taylor at the inner door, that Ollie had been summoned as a witness for the defense; Captain Taylor had served the +subpoena himself.</p> + +<p>“Well, in that case, Sam Lucas knew what he was doing,” people allowed. “Just wait!” It was +as good as a spirituous stimulant to their lagging interest. “Just you wait till Sam Lucas gets hold of +her,” they said.</p> + +<p>Hammer began the defense by calling his character witnesses <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_260'></a>260</span> and establishing Joe’s past reputation for “truth and veracity and general +uprightness.”</p> + +<p>There was no question in the character which Joe’s neighbors gave him. They spoke warmly of his past record +among them, of his fidelity to his word and obligation, and of the family record, which Hammer went into with free and +unhampered hand.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor passed these witnesses with serene confidence. He probably believed that his case was already made, +people said, or else he was reserving his fire for Isom’s widow, who, it seemed to everybody, had turned against +nature and her own interests in allying herself with the accused.</p> + +<p>The morning was consumed in the examination of these character witnesses, Hammer finishing with the last of them +just before the midday adjournment. The sheriff was preparing to remove the prisoner. Joe’s hand had been +released from the arm of the chair, and the officer had fastened the iron around his wrist. The proceeding always +struck Joe with an overwhelming wave of degradation and now he stood with bowed head and averted face.</p> + +<p>“Come on,” said the sheriff, goggling down at him with froggish eyes from his vantage on the dais where +the witness-chair stood, his long neck on a slant like a giraffe’s. The sheriff took great pleasure in the +proceeding of attaching the irons. It was his one central moment in the eyes of the throng.</p> + +<p>Joe looked up to march ahead of the sheriff out of the room, and his eyes met the eyes of Alice. She was not far +away, and the cheer of their quick message was like a spoken word. She was wearing the same gray dress that she had +worn on that day of days, with the one bright feather in her bonnet, and she smiled, nodding to him. And then the swirl +of bobbing heads and moving bodies came between them and she was lost. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_261'></a>261</span></p> + +<p>He looked for her again as the sheriff pushed him along toward the door, but the room was in such confusion that he +could not single her out. The judge had gone out through his tall, dark door, and the court-room was no longer an +awesome place to those who had gathered for the trial. Men put their hats on their heads and lit their pipes, and bit +into their twists and plugs of tobacco and emptied their mouths of the juices as they went slowly toward the door.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening was the first witness called by Hammer after the noon recess. Hammer quickly discovered his purpose in +calling her as being nothing less than that of proving by her own mouth that her husband, Sol, was a gross and +irresponsible liar.</p> + +<p>Hammer went over the whole story of the tragedy–Mrs. Greening having previously testified to all these facts +as a witness for the state–from the moment that Sol had called her out of bed and taken her to the Chase home to +support the young widow in her hour of distraction and fear. By slow and lumbering ways he led her, like a blind horse +floundering along a heavy road, through the front door, up the stairs into Ollie’s room, and then, in his own +time and fashion, he arrived at what he wanted to ask.</p> + +<p>“Now I want you to tell this jury, Mrs. Greening, if at any time, during that night or thereafter, you +discussed or talked of or chatted about the killing of Isom Chase with your husband?” asked Hammer.</p> + +<p>“Oh laws, yes,” said Mrs. Greening.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney was rising slowly to his feet. He seemed concentrated on something; a frown knotted his +brow, and he stood with his open hand poised as if to reach out quickly and check the flight of something which he +expected to wing in and assail the jury.</p> + +<p>Said Hammer, after wiping his glistening forehead with a yellow silk handkerchief: <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262'></a>262</span></p> + +<p>“Yes. And now, Mrs. Greening, I will ask you if at any time your husband ever told you what was said, if +anything, by any party inside of that house when he run up to the kitchen door that night and knocked?”</p> + +<p>“I object!” said the prosecutor sharply, flinging out his ready hand.</p> + +<p>“Don’t answer that question!” warned the judge.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening had it on her lips; anybody who could read print on a signboard could have told what they were shaped +to say. She held them there in their preliminary position of enunciation, pursed and wrinkled, like the tied end of a +sausage-link.</p> + +<p>“I will frame the question in another manner,” said Hammer, again feeling the need of his large +handkerchief.</p> + +<p>“There is no form that would be admissible, your honor,” protested the prosecutor. “It is merely +hearsay that the counsel for the defense is attempting to bring out and get before the jury. I object!”</p> + +<p>“Your course of questioning, Mr. Hammer, is highly improper, and in flagrant violation to the established +rules of evidence,” said the judge. “You must confine yourself to proof by this witness of what she, of her +own knowledge and experience, is cognizant of. Nothing else is permissible.”</p> + +<p>“But, your honor, I intend to show by this witness that when Sol Greening knocked on that +door––”</p> + +<p>“I object! She wasn’t present; she has testified that she was at home at that time, and in +bed.”</p> + +<p>This from the prosecutor, in great heat.</p> + +<p>“Your honor, I intend to prove–” began Hammer.</p> + +<p>“This line of questioning is not permissible, as I told you before,” said the judge in stern +reproof.</p> + +<p>But Hammer was obdurate. He was for arguing it, and the judge ordered the sheriff to conduct the jury from the room. +Mrs. Greening, red and uncomfortable, and all at <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263'></a>263</span> sea over +it, continued sitting in the witness-chair while Hammer laid it off according to his view of it, and the prosecutor +came back and tore his contentions to pieces.</p> + +<p>The judge, for no other purpose, evidently, than to prove to the defendant and public alike that he was unbiased and +fair–knowing beforehand what his ruling must be–indulged Hammer until he expended his argument. Then he +laid the matter down in few words.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greening had not been present when her husband knocked on the door of Isom Chase’s kitchen that night; +she did not know, therefore, of her own experience what was spoken. No matter what her husband told her he said, or +anybody else said, she could not repeat the words there under oath. It would be hearsay evidence, and such evidence was +not admissible in any court of law. No matter how important such testimony might appear to one seeking the truth, the +rules of evidence in civilized courts barred it. Mrs. Greening’s lips must remain sealed on what Sol said Joe +said, or anybody said to someone else.</p> + +<p>So the jury was called back, and Mrs. Greening was excused, and Hammer wiped off the sweat and pushed back his +cuffs. And the people who had come in from their farmsteads to hear this trial by jury–all innocent of the +traditions and precedents of practice of the law–marveled how it could be. Why, nine people out of nine, all over +the township where Sol Greening lived, would take his wife’s word for anything where she and Sol had different +versions of a story.</p> + +<p>It looked to them like Sol had told the truth in the first place to his wife, and lied on the witness-stand. And +here she was, all ready to show the windy old rascal up, and they wouldn’t let her. Well, it beat all two +o’clock!</p> + +<p>Of course, being simple people who had never been at a university in their lives, they did not know that Form and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264'></a>264</span> Precedent are the two pillars of Strength and Beauty, the +Jachin and Boaz at the entrance of the temple of the law. Or that the proper genuflections before them are of more +importance than the mere bringing out of a bit of truth which might save an accused man’s life.</p> + +<p>And so it stood before the jury that Sol Greening had knocked on the door of Isom Chase’s kitchen that night +and had not been bidden to enter, when everybody in the room, save the jury of twelve intelligent men–who had +been taken out to keep their innocence untainted and their judgment unbiased by a gleam of the truth–knew that he +had sat up there and lied.</p> + +<p>Hammer cooled himself off after a few minutes of mopping, and called Ollie Chase to the witness-chair. Ollie seemed +nervous and full of dread as she stood for a moment stowing her cloak and handbag in her mother’s lap. She turned +back for her handkerchief when she had almost reached the little gate in the railing through which she must pass to the +witness-chair. Hammer held it open for her and gave her the comfort of his hand under her elbow as she went forward to +take her place.</p> + +<p>A stir and a whispering, like a quick wind in a cornfield, moved over the room when Ollie’s name was called. +Then silence ensued. It was more than a mere listening silence; it was impertinent. Everybody looked for a scandal, and +most of them hoped that they should not depart that day with their long-growing hunger unsatisfied.</p> + +<p>Ollie took the witness-chair with an air of extreme nervousness. As she settled down in her cloud of black skirt, +black veil, and shadow of black sailor hat, she cast about the room a look of timid appeal. She seemed to be sounding +the depths of the listening crowd’s sympathy, and to find it shallow and in shoals.</p> + +<p>Hammer was kind, with an unctuous, patronizing gentleness. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_265'></a>265</span> He seemed to approach her with the feeling that she might say a great deal that would be +damaging to the defendant if she had a mind to do it, but with gentle adroitness she could be managed to his advantage. +Led by a question here, a helping reminder there, Ollie went over her story, in all particulars the same as she had +related at the inquest.</p> + +<p>Hammer brought out, with many confidential glances at the jury, the distance between Ollie’s room and the +kitchen; the fact that she had her door closed, that she had gone to bed heavy with weariness, and was asleep long +before midnight; that she had been startled by a sound, a strange and mysterious sound for that quiet house, and had +sat up in her bed listening. Sol Greening had called her next, in a little while, even before she could master her +fright and confusion and muster courage to run down the hall and call Joe.</p> + +<p>Hammer did well with the witness; that was the general opinion, drawing from her a great deal about Joe’s +habit of life in Isom’s house, a great deal about Isom’s temper, hard ways, and readiness to give a +blow.</p> + +<p>She seemed reluctant to discuss Isom’s faults, anxious, rather, to ease them over after the manner of one +whose judgment has grown less severe with the lapse of time.</p> + +<p>Had he ever laid hands on her in temper? Hammer wanted to know.</p> + +<p>“Yes.” Her reply was a little more than a whisper, with head bent, with tears in her sad eyes. Under +Hammer’s pressure she told about the purchase of the ribbon, of Isom’s iron hand upon her throat.</p> + +<p>The women all over the room made little sounds of pitying deprecation of old Isom’s penury, and when Hammer +drew from her, with evident reluctance on her part to yield it up, the story of her hard-driven, starved, and stingy +life under Isom’s roof, they put their handkerchiefs to their eyes. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_266'></a>266</span></p> + +<p>All the time Ollie was following Hammer’s kind leading, the prosecuting attorney was sitting with his hands +clasped behind his head, balancing his weight on the hinder legs of his chair, his foot thrown over his knee. +Apparently he was bored, even worried, by Hammer’s pounding attempts to make Isom out a man who deserved +something slower and less merciful than a bullet, years before he came to his violent end.</p> + +<p>Through it all Joe sat looking at Ollie, great pity for her forlorn condition and broken spirit in his honest eyes. +She did not meet his glance, not for one wavering second. When she went to the stand she passed him with bent head; in +the chair she looked in every direction but his, mainly at her hands, clasped in her lap.</p> + +<p>At last Hammer seemed skirmishing in his mind in search of some stray question which might have escaped him, which +he appeared unable to find. He turned his papers, he made a show of considering something, while the witness sat with +her head bowed, her half-closed eyelids purple from much weeping, worrying, and watching for the coming of one who had +taken the key to her poor, simple heart and gone his careless way.</p> + +<p>“That’s all, Missis Chase,” said Hammer.</p> + +<p>Ollie leaned over, picked up one of her gloves that had fallen to the floor, and started to leave the chair. Her +relief was evident in her face. The prosecutor, suddenly alive, was on his feet. He stretched out his arm, staying her +with a commanding gesture.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute, Mrs. Chase,” said he.</p> + +<p>A stir of expectation rustled through the room again as Ollie resumed her seat. People moistened their lips, +suddenly grown hot and dry.</p> + +<p>“Now, just watch Sam Lucas!” they said.</p> + +<p>“Now, Mrs. Chase,” began the prosecutor, assuming the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_267'></a>267</span> polemical attitude common to small lawyers when cross-examining a witness; “I’ll +ask you to tell this jury whether you were alone in your house with Joe Newbolt on the night of October twelfth, when +Isom Chase, your husband, was killed?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“This man Morgan, the book-agent, who had been boarding with you, had paid his bill and gone away?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“And there was absolutely nobody in the house that night but yourself and Joe Newbolt?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody else.”</p> + +<p>“And you have testified, here on this witness-stand, before this court and this jury”–that being +another small lawyer’s trick to impress the witness with a sense of his own unworthiness–“that you +went to bed early that night. Now, where was Joe Newbolt?”</p> + +<p>“I guess he was in bed,” answered Ollie, her lips white; “I didn’t go to see.”</p> + +<p>“No, you didn’t go to see,” repeated the prosecutor with significant stress. “Very well. +Where did your husband keep his money in the house?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; I never saw any of it,” Ollie answered.</p> + +<p>The reply drew a little jiggling laugh from the crowd. It rose and died even while Captain Taylor’s knuckles +were poised over the panel of the door, and his loud rap fell too late for all, save one deep-chested farmer in a far +corner, who must have been a neighbor of old Isom. This man’s raucous mirth seemed a roar above the quiet of the +packed room. The prosecutor looked in his direction with a frown. The sheriff stood up and peered over that way +threateningly.</p> + +<p>“Preserve order, Mr. Sheriff,” said the judge severely.</p> + +<p>The sheriff pounded the table with his hairy fist. “Now, I tell you I don’t want to hear no more of +this!” said he. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268'></a>268</span></p> + +<p>The prosecutor was shaken out of his pose a bit by the court-room laugh. There is nothing equal to a laugh for that, +to one who is laboring to impress his importance upon the world. It took him some time to get back to his former degree +of heat, skirmishing around with incidental questioning. He looked over his notes, pausing. Then he faced Ollie again +quickly, leveling his finger like a pointer of direct accusation.</p> + +<p>“Did Joe Newbolt ever make love to you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Joe’s face flushed with resentful fire; but Ollie’s white calm, forced and strained that it was, +remained unchanged.</p> + +<p>“No, sir; he never did.”</p> + +<p>“Did he ever kiss you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I tell you, he didn’t!” Ollie answered, with a little show of spirit.</p> + +<p>Hammer rose with loud and voluble objections, which had, for the first time during the proceedings, Joe’s +hearty indorsement. But the judge waved him down, and the prosecutor pressed his new line of inquisition.</p> + +<p>“You and Joe Newbolt were thrown together a good deal, weren’t you, Mrs. Chase–you were left there +alone in the house while your husband was away in the field, and other places, frequently?”</p> + +<p>“No, not very much,” said Ollie, shaking her head.</p> + +<p>“But you had various opportunities for talking together alone, hadn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I never had a chance for anything but work,” said Ollie wearily.</p> + +<p>Unawed by the sheriff’s warning, the assembly laughed again. The sound ran over the room like a scudding cloud +across a meadow, and when the sheriff stood again to set his censorious eye upon someone responsible, the last ripple +was on the farther rows. Nobody can catch a laugh in a crowd; it is as evasive as a pickpocket. Nobody can turn with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269'></a>269</span> watchful eye upon it and tell in what face the ribald +gleam first breaks. It is as impossible as the identification of the first stalk shaken when a breeze assails a field +of grain.</p> + +<p>The sheriff, not being deeper than another man, saw the fatuity of his labor. He turned to the court with a clownish +gesture of the hands, expressive of his utter inability to stop this thing.</p> + +<p>“Proceed with the case,” said the judge, understanding the situation better than the sheriff knew.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney labored away with Ollie, full of the feeling that something masked lay behind her pale +reticence, some guilty conspiracy between her and the bound boy, which would show the lacking motive for the crime. He +asked her again about Morgan, how long she had known him, where he came from, and where he went–a question to +which Ollie would have been glad enough to have had the answer herself.</p> + +<p>He hung on to the subject of Morgan so persistently that Joe began to feel his throat drying out with a closing +sensation which he could not swallow. He trembled for Ollie, fearing that she would be forced into telling it all. That +was not a woman’s story, thought he, with a heart full of resentment for the prosecutor. Let him wait till Morgan +came, and then––</p> + +<p>But what grounds had he now for believing Morgan might come? Unless he came within the next hour, his coming might +be too late.</p> + +<p>“You were in bed and asleep when the shot that killed your husband was fired, you have told the jury, Mrs. +Chase?” questioned the prosecutor, dropping Morgan at last.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Then how did it come that when Mrs. Greening and her daughter-in-law arrived a few minutes later you were all +dressed up in a white dress?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270'></a>270</span></p> + +<p>“I just slipped it on,” said she.</p> + +<p>“You just slipped it on,” repeated the prosecutor, turning his eyes to the jury, and not even facing +Mrs. Chase as he spoke, but reading into her words discredit, suspicion, and a guilty knowledge.</p> + +<p>“It was the only one I had besides two old wrappers. It was the one I was married in, and the only one I could +put on to look decent in before people,” said she.</p> + +<p>A crowd is the most volatile thing in the world. It can laugh and sigh and groan and weep, as well as shout and +storm, with the ease of an infant, and then immediately regain its immobility and fixed attention. With Ollie’s +simple statement a sound rose from it which was a denunciation and a curse upon the ashes of old Isom Chase. It was as +if a sympathetic old lady had shaken her head and groaned:</p> + +<p>“Oh, shame on you–shame!”</p> + +<p>Hammer gave the jury a wide-sweeping look of satisfaction, and made a note on the tumbled pile of paper which lay in +front of him.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor was a man with congressional aspirations, and he did not care to prejudice his popularity by going +too far in baiting a woman, especially one who had public sympathy in the measure that it was plainly extended to +Ollie. He eased up, descending from his heights of severity, and began to address her respectfully in a manner that was +little short of apology for what his stern duty compelled him to do.</p> + +<p>“Now I will ask you, Mrs. Chase, whether your husband and this defendant, Joe Newbolt, ever had words in your +hearing?”</p> + +<p>“Once,” Ollie replied.</p> + +<p>“Do you recall the day?”</p> + +<p>“It was the morning after Joe came to our house to work,” said she. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_271'></a>271</span></p> + +<p>“Do you remember what the trouble was about and what said?”</p> + +<p>“Well, they said a good deal,” Ollie answered. “They fussed because Joe didn’t get up when +Isom called him.”</p> + +<p>Joe felt his heart contract. It seemed to him that Ollie need not have gone into that; it looked as if she was bent +not alone on protecting herself, but on fastening the crime on him. It gave him a feeling of uneasiness. Sweat came out +on his forehead; his palms grew moist. He had looked for Ollie to stand by him at least, and now she seemed running +away, eager to tell something that would sound to his discredit.</p> + +<p>“You may tell the jury what happened that morning, Mrs. Chase.”</p> + +<p>Hammer’s objection fell on barren ground, and Ollie told the story under the directions of the judge.</p> + +<p>“You say there was a sound of scuffling after Isom called him?” asked the prosecutor.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it sounded like Isom shook him and Joe jumped out of bed.”</p> + +<p>“And what did Joe Newbolt say?”</p> + +<p>“He said, ‘Put that down! I warned you never to lift your hand against me. If you hit me, I’ll +kill you in your tracks!’”</p> + +<p>“That’s what you heard Joe Newbolt say to your husband up there in the loft over your head?”</p> + +<p>The prosecutor was eager. He leaned forward, both hands on the table, and looked at her almost hungrily. The jurymen +shuffled their feet and sat up in their chairs with renewed interest. A hush fell over the room. Here was the motive at +the prosecutor’s hand.</p> + +<p>“That’s what he said,” Ollie affirmed, her gaze bent downward.</p> + +<p>She told how Isom had come down after that, followed by Joe. And the prosecutor asked her to repeat what she had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272'></a>272</span> heard Joe say once more for the benefit of the jury. He +spoke with the air of a man who already has the game in the bag.</p> + +<p>When the prosecutor was through with his profitable cross-examination, Hammer tried to lessen the effect of +Ollie’s damaging disclosure, but failed. He was a depressed and crestfallen man when he gave it up.</p> + +<p>Ollie stepped down from the place of inquisition with the color of life coming again into her drained lips and +cheeks, the breath freer in her throat. Her secret had not been torn from her fearful heart; she had deepened the cloud +that hung over Joe Newbolt’s head. “Let him blab now,” said she in her inner satisfaction. A man +might say anything against a woman to save his neck; she was wise enough and deep enough, for all her shallowness, to +know that people were quick to understand a thing like that.</p> + +<p>In passing back to her place beside her mother she had not looked at Joe. So she did not see the perplexity, +anxiety, even reproach, which had grown in Joe’s eyes when she testified against him.</p> + +<p>“She had no need to do that,” thought Joe, sitting there in the glow of the prosecutor’s +triumphant face. He had trusted Ollie to remain his friend, and, although she had told nothing but the truth concerning +his rash threat against Isom, it seemed to him that she had done so with a studied intent of working him harm.</p> + +<p>His resentment rose against Ollie, urging him to betray her guilty relations with Morgan and strip her of the +protecting mantle which he had wrapped about her at the first. He wondered whether Morgan had not come and entered into +a conspiracy with her to shield themselves. In such case what would his unfolding of the whole truth amount to, +discredited as he already was in the minds of the jurors by that foolish threat which he had uttered against Isom in +the thin dawn of that distant day? <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273'></a>273</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps Alice had gone away, also, after hearing Ollie’s testimony, in the belief that he was altogether +unworthy, and already branded with the responsibility for that old man’s death. He longed to look behind him and +search the throng for her, but he dared not.</p> + +<p>Joe bowed his head, as one overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and shame, yet never doubting that he had acted for the +best when he assumed the risk on that sad night to shield his master’s wife. It was a thing that a man must do, +that a man would do again.</p> + +<p>He did not know that Alice Price, doubting not him, but the woman who had just left the witness-stand and resumed +her place among the people, was that moment searching out the shallow soul of Ollie Chase with her accusing eyes. She +sat only a little way from Ollie, in the same row of benches, beside the colonel. She turned a little in her place so +she could see the young widow’s face when she came down from the stand with that new light in her eyes. Now she +whispered to her father, and looked again, bending forward a little in a way that seemed impertinent, considering that +it was Alice Price.</p> + +<p>Ollie was disconcerted by this attention, which drew other curious eyes upon her. She moved uneasily, making a +bustle of arranging herself and her belongings in the seat, her heart troubled with the shadow of some vague fear.</p> + +<p>Why did Alice Price look at her so accusingly? Why did she turn to her father and nod and whisper that way? What did +she know? What could she know? What was Joe Newbolt and his obscure life to Colonel Price’s fine daughter, +sitting there dressed better than any other woman in the room? Or what was Isom Chase, his life, his death, or his +widow, to her?</p> + +<p>Yet she had some interest beyond a passing curiosity, for Ollie could feel the concentration of these sober brown +eyes <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274'></a>274</span> upon her, even when she turned to avoid them. She +recalled the interest that Colonel Price and his daughter had taken in Joe. People had talked of it at first. They +couldn’t understand it any more than she could. The colonel and his daughter had visited Joe in jail, and carried +books to him, and treated him as one upon their own level.</p> + +<p>What had Joe told them? Had the coward betrayed her?</p> + +<p>Ollie was assailed again by all her old, dread fears. What if they should get up and denounce her? With all of +Colonel Price’s political and social influence, would not the public, and the judge and jury, believe Joe’s +story if he should say it was true? She believed now that it was all arranged for Joe to denounce her, and that timid +invasion of color was stemmed in her cheeks again.</p> + +<p>It was a lowering day, with a threat of unseasonable darkness in the waning afternoon. The judge looked at his +watch; Captain Taylor stirred himself and pushed the shutters back from the two windows farthest from the bench, and +let in more light.</p> + +<p>People did not know just what was coming next, but the atmosphere of the room was charged with a foreboding of +something big. No man would risk missing it by leaving, although rain was threatening, and long drives over dark roads +lay ahead of many of the anxious listeners.</p> + +<p>Hammer was in consultation with Joe and his mother. He seemed to be protesting and arguing, with a mighty spreading +of the hands and shaking of the head. The judge was writing busily, making notes on his charge to the jury, it was +supposed.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney took advantage of the momentary lull to get up and stretch his legs, which he did +literally, one after the other, shaking his shanks to send down his crumpled pantaloons. He went to the window with +lounging stride, hands in pockets, and pushed the sash a foot higher. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_275'></a>275</span> There he stood, looking out into the mists which hung gray in the maple trees.</p> + +<p>The jurymen, tired and unshaved, and over the momentary thrill of Ollie’s disclosure, lolled and sprawled in +the box. It seemed that they now accepted the thing as settled, and the prospect of further waiting was boresome. The +people set up a little whisper of talk, a clearing of throats, a blowing of noses, a shifting of feet, a general +preparation and readjustment for settling down again to absorb all that might fall.</p> + +<p>The country folk seated in the vicinity of Alice Price, among whom her fame had traveled far, whom many of their +sons had loved, and languished for, and gone off to run streetcars on her account, turned their freed attention upon +her, nudging, gazing, gossiping.</p> + +<p>“Purty as a picture, ain’t she?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. You set her ’longside of Bessie Craver over at Pink Hill”–and so +on.</p> + +<p>The judge looked up from his paper suddenly, as if the growing sound within the room had startled him out of his +thought. His face wore a fleeting expression of surprise. He looked at the prosecutor, at the little group in +conference at the end of the table below him, as if he did not understand. Then his judicial poise returned. He tapped +with his pen on the inkstand.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen, proceed with the case,” said he.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney turned from the window with alacrity, and Hammer, sweating and shaking his head in one last +gesture of protest to his client–who leaned back and folded his arms, with set and stubborn face–rose +ponderously. He wiped his forehead with his great, broad handkerchief, and squared himself as if about to try a high +hurdle or plunge away in a race.</p> + +<p>“Joseph Newbolt, take the witness-chair,” said he.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_18'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276'></a>276</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>A NAME AND A MESSAGE</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>When Hammer called his name, Joe felt a revival of his old desire to go to the witness-chair and tell Judge Maxwell +all about it in his own way, untenable and dangerous as his position had appeared to him in his hours of depression. +Now the sheriff released his arm, and he went forward eagerly. He held up his hand solemnly while the clerk +administered the oath, then took his place in the witness-chair. Ollie’s face was the first one that his eyes +found in the crowd.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if a strong light had been focused upon it, leaving the rest of the house in gloom. The shrinking +appeal which lay in her eyes moved him to pity. He strove to make her understand that the cunning of the sharpest +lawyer could set no trap which would surprise her secret from him, nor death itself display terrors to frighten it out +of his heart.</p> + +<p>It seemed that a sunbeam broke in the room then, but perhaps it was only the clearing away of doubt and vacillation +from his mind, with the respectable feeling that he had regained all the nobility which was slipping from him, and had +come back to a firm understanding with himself.</p> + +<p>And there was Alice, a little nearer to the bar than he had expected to see her. Her face seemed strained and +anxious, but he could not tell whether her sympathy was dearer, her feeling softer for him in that hour than it would +have been for any other man. Colonel Price had yielded his seat to a woman, and now he stood at the back of the room in +front of the inner door as a privileged person, beside Captain Taylor. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_277'></a>277</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt sat straight-backed and expectant, her hand on the back of Joe’s empty chair, while the eager +people strained forward to possess themselves of the sensation which they felt must soon be loosed among them.</p> + +<p>Joe’s hair had grown long during his confinement. He had smoothed it back from his forehead and tucked it +behind his ears. The length of it, the profusion, sharpened the thinness of his face; the depth of its blackness drew +out his pallor until he seemed all bloodless and cold.</p> + +<p>Three inches of great, bony arm showed below his coat sleeves; that spare garment buttoned across his chest, +strained at its seams. Joe wore the boots which he had on when they arrested him, scarred and work-worn by the stubble +and thorns of Isom Chase’s fields and pastures. His trousers were tucked into their wrinkled tops, which sagged +half-way down his long calves.</p> + +<p>Taken in the figure alone, he was uncouth and oversized in his common and scant gear. But the lofty nobility of his +severe young face and the high-lifting forehead, proclaimed to all who were competent in such matters that it was only +his body that was meanly clad.</p> + +<p>Hammer began by asking the usual questions regarding nativity and age, and led on with the history of Joe’s +apprenticeship to Chase, the terms of it, its duration, compensation; of his treatment at his master’s hands, +their relations of friendliness, and all that. There was a little tremor and unsteadiness in Joe’s voice at +first, as of fright, but this soon cleared away, and he answered in steady tones.</p> + +<p>The jurors had straightened up out of their wearied apathy, and were listening now with all ears. Joe did not appear +to comprehend their importance in deciding his fate, people thought, seeing that he turned from them persistently and +addressed the judge.</p> + +<p>Joe had taken the stand against Hammer’s advice and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_278'></a>278</span> expectation, for he had hoped in the end to be able to make his client see the danger of such +a step unless he should go forward in the intention of revealing everything. Now the voluble lawyer was winded. He +proceeded with extreme caution in his questioning, like one walking over mined ground, fearing that he might himself +lead his client into some fateful admission.</p> + +<p>They at length came down to the morning that Isom went away to the county-seat to serve on the jury, and all had +progressed handsomely. Now Joe told how Isom had patted him on the shoulder that morning, for it had been the aim of +Hammer all along to show that master and man were on the most friendly terms, and how Isom had expressed confidence in +him. He recounted how, in discharge of the trust that Isom had put in him, he had come downstairs on the night of the +tragedy to look around the premises, following in all particulars his testimony on this point before the +coroner’s jury.</p> + +<p>Since beginning his story, Joe had not looked at Ollie. His attention had been divided between Hammer and the judge, +turning from one to the other. He addressed the jury only when admonished by Hammer to do so, and then he frequently +prefaced his reply to Hammer’s question with:</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” as if he feared he might have hurt their feelings by his oversight.</p> + +<p>Ollie was cold with apprehension as Joe approached the point in his recital where the danger lay for her. He seemed +now to be unaware of her presence, and the fact that he did not seek to assure her with his eyes gave a somber color to +her doubts. She knew Hammer’s crafty reputation, and understood his eagerness to bring his client off clear. +Perhaps he had worked on Joe to make a clean breast of it. Maybe he was going to tell.</p> + +<p>All her confidence of a little while ago dissolved, the ease <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_279'></a>279</span> which followed her descent from the witness-chair vanished. She plucked at her dark vestments +with trembling hands, her lips half open, her burning eyes on Joe’s unmoved face. If he should tell before all +these people, before that stern, solemn judge–if he should tell!</p> + +<p>Joe went on with his story, Hammer endeavoring to lead him, to the best of his altogether inadequate ability, around +the dangerous shoals. But there was no avoiding them. When it came to relating the particulars of the tragedy, Hammer +left it all to Joe, and Joe told the story, in all essentials, just as he had told it under the questioning of the +coroner.</p> + +<p>“We had some words, and Isom started for the gun,” said he.</p> + +<p>He went over how he had grappled with Isom in an endeavor to prevent him turning the gun against him; told of the +accidental discharge of the weapon; the arrival of Sol Greening.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell leaned back in his chair and listened, his face a study of perplexity and interest. Now and then he +lifted his drooping lids and shot a quick, searching glance at the witness, as if seeking to fathom the thing that he +had covered–the motive for Isom Chase’s act. It was such an inadequate story, yet what there was of it was +undoubtedly true.</p> + +<p>After Hammer had asked further questions tending to establish the fact of good feeling and friendship between Joe +and Isom, he gave it over, knowing full well that Joe had set back his chances of acquittal further than he had +advanced them by his persistency in testifying as he had done.</p> + +<p>The jury was now in a fog of doubt, as anybody with half an eye could see, and there was Sam Lucas waiting, his eyes +glistening, his hard lips set in anticipation of the coming fight. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_280'></a>280</span></p> + +<p>“Take the witness,” said Hammer, with something in his manner like a sigh.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney came up to it like a hound on the scent. He had been waiting for that day. He proceeded +with Joe in a friendly manner, and went over the whole thing with him again, from the day that he entered Isom’s +house under bond service to the night of the tragedy. Sam Lucas went with Joe to the gate; he stood with him in the +moonlight there; then he accompanied him back to the house, clinging to him like his own garments.</p> + +<p>“And when you opened the kitchen door and stepped inside of that room, what did you do?” asked the +prosecutor, arranging the transcript of Joe’s testimony before the coroner’s jury in his hands.</p> + +<p>“I lit the lamp,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Yes; you lit the lamp. Now, <i>why</i> did you light the lamp?”</p> + +<p>“Because I wanted to see,” replied Joe.</p> + +<p>“Exactly. You wanted to see.”</p> + +<p>Here the prosecutor moved his eyes slowly along the two rows of jurors as if he wanted to make certain that none of +them had escaped, and as if he desired to see that every one of them was alert and wakeful for what he was about to +develop.</p> + +<p>“Now, tell the jury <i>what</i> you wanted to see.”</p> + +<p>“Object!” from Hammer, who rose with his right hand held high, his small finger and thumb doubled in his +palm, like a bidder at an auction.</p> + +<p>“Now, your honor, am I to be–” began the prosecutor with wearied patience.</p> + +<p>“Object!” interrupted Hammer, sweating like a haymaker.</p> + +<p>“To <i>what</i> do you object, Mr. Hammer?” asked the court mildly.</p> + +<p>“To anything and everything he’s about to ask!” said Hammer hotly. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281'></a>281</span></p> + +<p>The court-room received this with a laugh, for there were scores of cornfield lawyers present. The judge smiled, +balancing a pen between finger and thumb.</p> + +<p>“The objection is overruled,” said he.</p> + +<p>“When you lit that lamp, what did you want to see?” the prosecutor asked again.</p> + +<p>“I wanted to see my way upstairs,” Joe answered.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor threw off his friendly manner like a rustic flinging his coat for a fight. He stepped to the foot of +the dais on which the witness chair stood, and aimed his finger at Joe’s face.</p> + +<p>“What were you carrying in your hand?” he demanded, advancing his finger a little with every word, as if +it held the key to the mystery, and it was about to be inserted in the lock.</p> + +<p>“Nothing, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What had you hidden in that room that you wanted a light to find?”</p> + +<p>Ha, he’s coming down to it now! whispered the people, turning wise looks from man to man. Uncle Posen Spratt +set his horn trumpet to his ear, gave it a twist and settled the socket of it so firmly that not a word could leak out +on the way.</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t hidden anything, sir,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Where did Isom Chase keep his money?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Had you ever seen him putting any of it away around the barn, or in the haystack, maybe?”</p> + +<p>“No, I never did, sir,” Joe answered, respectfully.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor took up the now historic bag of gold-pieces and held it up before the witness.</p> + +<p>“When did you first see this bag of money?” he asked, solemn and severe of voice and bearing.</p> + +<p>“When Isom was lying on the floor, after he was shot.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_282'></a>282</span></p> + +<p>“You didn’t see it when he was trying to get the gun, and when you say you were struggling with him, +doing the best you could to hold him back?”</p> + +<p>Joe turned to the judge when he answered.</p> + +<p>“It might have been that Isom had it in his arm, sir, when he made for the place where the gun was hanging. I +don’t know. But he tried to keep me off, and he hugged one arm to his side like he was trying to hide something +he didn’t want me to see.”</p> + +<p>“You never saw that bag of money until the moment that Isom Chase fell, you say,” said the prosecutor, +“but you have testified that the first words of Isom Chase when he stepped into the kitchen and saw you, were +‘I’ll kill you!’ Why did he make that threat?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Isom was a man of unreasonable temper,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it a fact that Isom Chase saw you with that bag of money in your hand when he came in, and sprang +for the gun to protect his property?”</p> + +<p>Joe turned to the judge again, with an air of respectful patience.</p> + +<p>“I never saw that little pouch of money, Judge Maxwell, sir, until Isom fell, and lay stretched out there on +the floor. I never saw that much money before in my life, and I expect that I thought more about it for a minute than I +did about Isom. It all happened so quick, you know, sir.”</p> + +<p>Joe spoke the last words with a covert appeal in them, as if placing the matter before the judge alone, in the +confidence of his superior understanding, and the belief that he would feel their truth.</p> + +<p>The judge seemed to understand. He nodded encouragingly and smiled.</p> + +<p>“Do you recall the morning after your arrival at the home of Isom Chase to begin your service there, when you +threatened to kill him?” asked the prosecutor. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283'></a>283</span></p> + +<p>“I do recall that morning,” admitted Joe; “but I don’t feel that it’s fair to hold me +to account for words spoken in sudden anger and under trying circumstances. A young person, you know, +sir”–addressing the judge–“oftentimes says things he don’t mean, and is sorry for the +next minute. You know how hot the blood of youth is, sir, and how it drives a person to say more than he means +sometimes.”</p> + +<p>“Now, your honor, this defendant has counsel to plead for him at the proper time,” complained the +prosecutor, “and I demand that he confine himself to answering my questions without comment.”</p> + +<p>“Let the witness explain in his own way,” said the judge, who probably felt that this concession, at +least, was due a man on trial for his life. There was a finality in his words which did not admit of dispute, and the +prosecuting attorney was wise enough not to attempt it.</p> + +<p>“You threatened to kill Isom Chase that morning when he laid hands on you and pulled you out of bed. Your +words were, as you have heard Mrs. Chase testify under oath in that very chair where you now sit, ‘If you hit me, +I’ll kill you in your tracks!’ Those were your words, were they not?”</p> + +<p>“I expect I said something like that–I don’t just remember the exact words now–but that was +what I wanted him to understand. I don’t think I’d have hurt him very much, though, and I couldn’t +have killed him, because I wasn’t armed. It was a hot-blooded threat, that’s all it was.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t ordinarily pack a gun around with you, then?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir, I never did pack a gun.”</p> + +<p>“But you said you’d kill old Isom up there in the loft that morning, and you said it in a way that made +him think you meant it. That’s what you wanted him to understand, wasn’t it?” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284'></a>284</span></p> + +<p>“I talked rough, but I didn’t mean it–not as bad as that anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“No, that was just a little neighborly joke, I suppose,” said the prosecutor sneeringly. He was playing +for a laugh and he got it.</p> + +<p>Captain Taylor almost skinned his knuckles rapping them down that time, although the mirth was neither general nor +boisterous. Joe did not add to Lucas’s comment, and he went on:</p> + +<p>“Well, what were you doing when Isom Chase opened the door and came into the kitchen that night when he came +home from serving on the jury?”</p> + +<p>“I was standing by the table,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“With your hat in your hand, or on your head, or where?”</p> + +<p>“My hat was on the table. I usually left it there at night, so it would be handy when I came down in the +morning. I threw it there when I went in, before I lit the lamp.”</p> + +<p>“And you say that Isom opened the door, came in and said, ‘I’ll kill you!’ Now, what did he +say before that?”</p> + +<p>“Not a word, sir,” insisted Joe.</p> + +<p>“Who else was in that room?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody, sir.”</p> + +<p>The prosecutor leaned forward, his face as red as if he struggled to lift a heavy weight.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to sit there and tell this jury that Isom Chase stepped right into that room and threatened to +kill you without any reason, without any previous quarrel, without seeing you doing something that gave him ground for +his threat?”</p> + +<p>Joe moved his feet uneasily, clasped and unclasped his long fingers where they rested on the arm of his chair, and +moistened his lips with his tongue. The struggle was coming now. They would rack him, and tear him, and break his +heart. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285'></a>285</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know whether they’ll believe it or not,” said he at last.</p> + +<p>“Where was Ollie Chase when Isom came into that room?” asked the prosecutor, lowering his voice as the +men who tiptoed around old Isom when he lay dead on the kitchen floor had lowered theirs.</p> + +<p>“You have heard her say that she was in her room upstairs,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“But I am asking you this question,” the prosecutor reminded him sharply. “Where was Ollie +Chase?”</p> + +<p>Joe did not meet his questioner’s eyes when he answered. His head was bowed slightly, as if in thought.</p> + +<p>“She was in her room, I suppose. She’d been in bed a long time, for it was nearly midnight +then.”</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney pursued this line of questioning to a persistent and trying length. He wanted to know all +about the relations of Joe and Ollie; where their respective rooms were, how they passed to and from them, and the +entire scheme of the household economy.</p> + +<p>He asked Joe pointedly, and swung back to that question abruptly and with sharp challenge many times, whether he +ever made love to Ollie; whether he ever held her hands, kissed her, talked with her when Isom was not by to hear what +was said.</p> + +<p>The people snuggled down and forgot the oncoming darkness, the gray forerunner of which already had invaded the room +as they listened. This was what they wanted to hear; this was, in their opinion, getting down to the thing that the +prosecutor should have taken up at the beginning and pushed to the guilty end. They had come there, day after day, and +sat patiently waiting for that very thing. But the great sensation which they expected seemed a tedious thing in its +development.</p> + +<p>Joe calmly denied the prosecutor’s imputations, and put <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_286'></a>286</span> them aside with an evenness of temper and dignity which lifted him to a place of high regard +in the heart of every woman present, from grandmother to high-school miss. For even though a woman believes her sister +guilty, she admires the man who knows when to hold his tongue.</p> + +<p>For two hours and more Sam Lucas kept hammering away at the stern front of the defendant witness. He had expected to +break him down, simple-minded country lad that he supposed him to be, in a quarter of that time, and draw from him the +truth of the matter in every detail. It was becoming evident that Joe was feeling the strain. The tiresome repetition +of the questions, the unvarying denial, the sudden sorties of the prosecutor in attempt to surprise him, and the +constant labor of guarding against it–all this was heaping up into a terrific load.</p> + +<p>Time and again Joe’s eyes had gone to the magnet of Alice Price’s face, and always he had seen her +looking straight at him–steadily, understandingly, as if she read his purpose. He was satisfied that she knew him +to be innocent of that crime, as well as any of the indiscretions with Ollie which the prosecutor had attempted to +force him to admit. If he could have been satisfied with that assurance alone, his hour would have been blessed. But he +looked for more in every fleeting glance that his eyes could wing to her, and in the turmoil of his mind he was unable +to find that which he sought.</p> + +<p>Sam Lucas, seeing that the witness was nearing the point of mental and physical strain at which men go to pieces, +and the vigil which they have held above their secrets becomes open to surprise, hung to him with his worriment of +questions, scarcely granting him time to sigh.</p> + +<p>Joe was pestered out of his calm and dignified attitude. He twisted in his chair, where many a confounded and beset +soul had writhed before him, and ran his fingers through <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287'></a>287</span> +his long hair, disturbing it into fantastic disorder. His breath came through his open lips, his shoulders sagged +wearily, his long back was bent as he drooped forward, whipping his fagged mind to alertness, guarding every word now, +weighing every answer a deliberate while. Sweat drenched his face and dampened the thick wisps of hair. He scooped the +welling moisture from his forehead with his crooked finger and flung it to the floor with a rustic trick of the +fields.</p> + +<p>Sam Lucas gave him no respite. Moment by moment he pressed the panting race harder, faster; moment by moment he grew +more exacting, imperative and pressing in his demands for unhesitating replies. While he harassed and urged the +sweating victim, the prosecutor’s eyes narrowed, his thin lips pressed hard against his teeth. The moment was +approaching for the final assault, for the fierce delivery of the last, invincible dart.</p> + +<p>The people felt it coming, and panted with the acute pleasures of expectation; Hammer saw its hovering shadow, and +rose to his feet; Mrs. Newbolt suffered under the strain until she rocked from side to side, unconscious of all and +everybody but herself and Joe, and groaned.</p> + +<p>What were they going to do to Joe–what were they going to do?</p> + +<p>Sam Lucas was hurling his questions into Joe’s face, faster and faster. His voice was shaded now with the +inflection of accusation, now discredit; now it rose to the pitch of condemnation, now it sank to a hoarse whisper of +horror as he dwelt upon the scene in Isom Chase’s kitchen, the body of old Isom stretched in its own blood upon +the floor.</p> + +<p>Joe seemed to stumble over his replies, to grope, to flounder. The agony of his soul was in his face. And then, in a +moment of tortured desperation he rose from his seat, tall, gaunt, disordered, and clasped his hand to his forehead as +if driven <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288'></a>288</span> to the utmost bound of his endurance and to the +outer brink of his resources.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor paused with leveled finger, while Joe, remembering himself, pushed his hair back from his brow like +one waking from a hot and troubled sleep, and resumed his seat. Then suddenly, in full volume of voice, the prosecutor +flung at him the lance for which he had been weakening Joe’s defenses through those long and torturing hours.</p> + +<p>“Tell this jury what the ‘words’ were which you have testified passed between you and Isom Chase +after he made the threat to kill you, and before he ran for the gun!”</p> + +<p>Hammer bellowed forth an objection, which was quietly overruled. It served its purpose in a way, even though it +failed in its larger intent, for the prosecutor’s headlong assault was checked by it, the force of his blow +broken.</p> + +<p>Joe sat up as if cold water had been dashed over him. Instead of crushing him entirely, and driving him to the last +corner shrinking, beaten and spiritless, and no longer capable of resistance, it seemed to give him a new grip on +himself, to set his courage and defiance again on the fighting line.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney resented Hammer’s interference at the moment of his victory–as he believed +it–and turned to him with an ugly scowl. But Hammer was imperturbable. He saw the advantage that he had gained +for Joe by his interposition, and that was more than he had expected. Only a moment ago Hammer had believed everything +lost.</p> + +<p>Sam Lucas repeated the question. Joe drew himself up, cold and forbidding of front. He met the prosecutor eye to +eye, challenge for challenge.</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell you that, sir,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“The time has come when you must tell it, your evasions and dodgings will not avail you any longer. What were +those words between you and Isom Chase?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry to have to refuse you–” began Joe. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_289'></a>289</span></p> + +<p>“Answer–my–question!” ordered the prosecutor in loud voice, banging his hand upon the table +to accent its terror.</p> + +<p>In the excitement of the moment people rose from their seats, women dropping things which they had held in their +laps, and clasping other loose articles of apparel to their skirts as they stood uncouthly, like startled fowls poising +for flight.</p> + +<p>Joe folded his arms across his chest and looked into the prosecutor’s inflamed face. He seemed to erect +between himself and his inquisitor in that simple movement an impenetrable shield, but he said nothing. Hammer was up, +objecting, making the most of the opportunity. Captain Taylor rapped on the panel of the old oak door; the crouching +figures in the crowd settled back to their seats with rustlings and sighs.</p> + +<p>Sam Lucas turned to the judge, the whiteness of deeper anger sweeping the flush of excitement from his face. His +voice trembled.</p> + +<p>“I insist, your honor, that the witness answer my question!”</p> + +<p>Hammer demanded that the court instruct his client regarding his constitutional privileges. Mrs. Newbolt leaned +forward and held out her hands in dumb pleading toward her son, imploring him to speak.</p> + +<p>“If the matter which you are withholding,” began the judge in formal speech, “would tend to +incriminate you, then you are acting within your constitutional rights in refusing to answer. If not, then you can be +lodged in jail for contempt of court, and held there until you answer the question which the prosecuting attorney has +asked you. Do you understand this?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; I understand,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Then,” said the judge, “would it incriminate you to reply to the prosecuting attorney’s +question?” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290'></a>290</span></p> + +<p>A faint flush spread on Joe’s face as he replied:</p> + +<p>“No, Judge Maxwell, it wouldn’t incriminate me, sir.”</p> + +<p>Free for the moment from his watchful sword-play of eyes with the prosecutor, Joe had sought Alice’s face when +he replied to the judge. He was still holding her eyes when the judge spoke again.</p> + +<p>“Then you must answer the question, or stand in contempt of court,” said he.</p> + +<p>Joe rose slowly to his feet. The sheriff, perhaps thinking that he designed making a dash for liberty, or to throw +himself out of a window, rushed forward in official zeal. The judge, studying Joe’s face narrowly, waved the +officer back. Joe lifted a hand to his forehead in thoughtful gesture and stroked back his hair, standing thus in +studious pose a little while. A thousand eyes were bent upon him; five hundred palpitating brains were aching for the +relief of his reply. Joe lifted his head and turned solemnly to the judge.</p> + +<p>“I can’t answer the prosecuting attorney’s question, sir,” he said. “I’m ready +to be taken back to jail.”</p> + +<p>The jurors had been leaning out of their places to listen, the older ones with hands cupped to their ears. Now they +settled back with disappointed faces, some of them shaking their heads in depreciation of such stubbornness.</p> + +<p>“You are making a point of honor of it?” said the judge, sharply but not unkindly, looking over his +glasses at the raw citadel of virtue which rose towerlike before him.</p> + +<p>“If you will forgive me, sir, I have no more to say,” said Joe, a flitting shadow, as of pain, passing +over his face.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” said the judge.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor, all on fire from his smothered attempt to uncover the information which he believed himself so +nearly in possession of, started to say something, and Hammer got the first syllable of his objection out of his mouth, +when the judge waved both of them down. He turned in his <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291'></a>291</span> +chair to Joe, who was waiting calmly now the next event.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell addressed him again. He pointed out to Joe that, since he had taken the witness-stand, he had thus +professed his willingness to lay bare all his knowledge of the tragedy, and that his reservation was an indication of +insincerity. The one way in which he could have withheld information not of a self-incriminating nature, was for him to +have kept off the stand. He showed Joe that one could not come forward under such circumstances and tell one side of a +story, or a part of it, confessing at the same time that certain pertinent information was reserved.</p> + +<p>“No matter who it hurts, it is your duty now to reveal the cause of your quarrel between yourself and Isom +Chase that night, and to repeat, to the best of your recollection, the words which passed between you.”</p> + +<p>He explained that, unless Joe should answer the question, it was the one duty of the court to halt the trial there +and send him to jail in contempt, and hold him there, his case undecided, until he would answer the question asked.</p> + +<p>Joe bowed respectfully when the judge concluded, conveying in that manner that he understood.</p> + +<p>“If anything could be gained by it, sir, by anybody–except myself, perhaps–or if it would bring +Isom back to life, or make anybody happier, I wouldn’t refuse a minute, sir,” said Joe. “What Mr. +Lucas asks me to tell I’ve refused to tell before. I’ve refused to tell it for my own mother and Mr. Hammer +and–others. I respect the law and this court, sir, as much as any man in this room, and it pains me to stand in +this position before you, sir.</p> + +<p>“But I can’t talk about that. It wouldn’t change what I’ve told about the way Isom was +killed. What I’ve told you is the truth. What passed between Isom and me before he took hold of the gun +isn’t mine to tell. That’s all there is to be said, Judge Maxwell, sir.” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292'></a>292</span></p> + +<p>“You must answer the prosecuting attorney’s question,” said Judge Maxwell sternly. “No +matter what motive of honor or fealty to the dead, or thought of sparing the living, may lie behind your concealment of +these facts, the law does not, cannot, take it into account. Your duty now is to reply to all questions asked, and you +will be given another opportunity to do so. Proceed, Mr. Prosecutor.”</p> + +<p>Hammer had given it up. He sat like a man collapsed, bending over his papers on the table, trying to make a front in +his defeat before the public. The prosecuting attorney resumed the charge, framing his attack in quick lunges. He was +in a clinch, using the short-arm jab.</p> + +<p>“After Isom Chase came into the room you had words?”</p> + +<p>“We had some words,” replied Joe slowly, weary that this thing should have to be gone over again.</p> + +<p>“Were they loud and boisterous words, or were they low and subdued?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Isom talked pretty loud when he was mad,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“Loud enough for anybody upstairs to hear–loud enough to wake anybody asleep up there?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Joe coldly, resentful of this flanking subterfuge.</p> + +<p>He must go through that turmoil of strain and suffering again, all because Morgan, the author of this evil thing, +had lacked the manhood to come forward and admit his misdeeds.</p> + +<p>The thoughts will travel many a thousand miles while the tongue covers an inch; even while Joe answered he was +thinking of this. More crowded upon him as he waited the prosecutor’s next question. Why should he suffer all +that public misjudgment and humiliation, all that pain and twisting of the conscience on Morgan’s account? What +would it avail in the end? Perhaps Ollie would prove unworthy his sacrifice for her, as she already had proved +ungrateful. Even then the echo of her testimony against him was in his ears. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_293'></a>293</span></p> + +<p>Why should he hold out faithfully for her, in the hope that Morgan would come–vain hope, fruitless dream! +Morgan would not come. He was safe, far away from there, having his laugh over the muddle that he had made of their +lives.</p> + +<p>“I will ask you again–what were the words that passed between you and Isom Chase that night?”</p> + +<p>Joe heard the question dimly. His mind was on Morgan and the white road of the moonlit night when he drove away. No, +Morgan would not come.</p> + +<p>“Will you answer my question?” demanded the prosecutor.</p> + +<p>Joe turned to him with a start. “Sir?” said he.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor repeated it, and stood leaning forward for the answer, his hands on the table. Joe bent his head as +if thinking it over.</p> + +<p>And there lay the white road in the moonlight, and the click of buggy wheels over gravel was in his ears, as he knew +it must have sounded when Morgan drove away, easy in his loose conscience, after his loose way. Why should he sacrifice +the promise of his young life by meekly allowing them to fasten the shadow of this dread tragedy upon him, for which +Morgan alone was to blame?</p> + +<p>It was unfair–it was cruelly unjust! The thought of it was stifling the breath in his nostrils, it was +pressing the blood out of his heart! They were waiting for the answer, and why should he not speak? What profit was +there in silence when it would be so unjustly interpreted?</p> + +<p>As Ollie had been thoughtless of Isom, so she might be thoughtless of him, and see in him only a foolish, weak +instrument to use to her own advantage. Why should he seal his lips for Ollie, go to the gallows for her, perhaps, and +leave the blight of that shameful end upon his name forever?</p> + +<p>He looked up. His mind had made that swift summing up while the prosecutor’s words were echoing in the room. +They were waiting for his answer. Should he speak? <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294'></a>294</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt had risen. There were tears on her old, worn cheeks, a yearning in her eyes that smote him with an +accusing pang. He had brought that sorrow upon her, he had left her to suffer under it when a word would have cleared +it away; when a word–a word for which they waited now–would make her dun day instantly bright. Ollie +weighed against his mother; Ollie, the tainted, the unclean.</p> + +<p>His eyes found Ollie’s as he coupled her name with his mother’s in his mind. She was shrinking against +her mother’s shoulder–she had a mother, too–pale and afraid.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt stretched out her hands. The scars of her toilsome years were upon them; the distortion of the labor +she had wrought for him in his helpless infancy was set upon their joints. He was placing his liberty and his life in +jeopardy for Ollie, and his going would leave mother without a stay, after her sacrifice of youth and hope and strength +for him.</p> + +<p>Why should he be called upon to do this thing–why, <i>why</i>?</p> + +<p>The question was a wild cry within his breast, lunging like a wolf in a leash to burst his lips. His mother drew a +step nearer, unstayed by the sheriff, unchecked by the judge. She spread her poor hands in supplication; the tears +coursed down her brown old cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my son, my son–my little son!” she said.</p> + +<p>He saw her dimly now, for tears answered her tears. All was silent in that room, the silence of the forest before +the hurricane grasps it and bends it, and the lightnings reave its limbs.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said he chokingly, “I–I don’t know what to do!”</p> + +<p>“Tell it all, Joe!” she pleaded. “Oh, tell it all–tell it all!”</p> + +<p>Her voice was little louder than a whisper, yet it was heard by every mother in that room. It struck down into their +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295'></a>295</span> hearts with a sharp, riving stab of sympathy, which +nothing but sobs would relieve.</p> + +<p>Men clamped their teeth and gazed straight ahead at the moving scene, unashamed of the tears which rolled across +their cheeks and threaded down their beards; the prosecutor, leaning on his hands, bent forward and waited.</p> + +<p>Joe’s mind was in a tornado. The débris of past resolutions was flung high, and swirled and dashed in a wild +tumult. There was nothing tangible in his reasoning, nothing plain in his sight. A mist was before his eyes, a fog was +over his reason. Only there was mother, with those soul-born tears upon her face. It seemed to him then that his first +and his most sacred duty was to her.</p> + +<p>The seconds were as hours. The low moaning of women sounded in the room. Somebody moved a foot, scraping it in rude +dissonance across the floor. A girl’s voice broke out in sudden sobbing, which was as quickly stifled, with sharp +catching of the breath.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell moved in his chair, turning slowly toward the witness, and silence fell.</p> + +<p>They were waiting; they were straining against his doubts and his weakening resolution of past days, with the +concentration of half a thousand minds.</p> + +<p>A moment of joy is a drop of honey on the tongue; a moment of pain is bitterer than any essence that Ignatius ever +distilled from his evil bean. The one is as transitory as a smile; the other as lingering as a broken bone.</p> + +<p>Joe had hung in the balance but a matter of seconds, but it seemed to him a day. Now he lifted his slim, white hand +and covered his eyes. They were waiting for the word out there, those uplifted, eager faces; the judge waited, the jury +waited, mother waited. They were wringing it from him, and honor’s voice was dim in its counsel now, and far +away.</p> + +<p>They were pressing it out of his heart. The law demanded <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_296'></a>296</span> it, justice demanded it, said the judge. Duty to mother demanded it, and the call of all that +lay in life and liberty. But for one cool breath of sympathy before he yielded–for one gleam of an eye that +understood!</p> + +<p>He dropped his hand at his side, and cast about him in hungry appeal. Justice demanded it, and the law. But it would +be ignoble to yield, even though Morgan came the next hour and cleared the stain away.</p> + +<p>Joe opened his lips, but they were dry, and no sound issued. He must speak, or his heart would burst. He moistened +his lips with his hot tongue. They were demanding his answer with a thousand burning eyes.</p> + +<p>“Tell it, Joe–tell it all!” pleaded his mother, reaching out as if to take his hand.</p> + +<p>Joe’s lips parted, and his voice came out of them, strained and shaken, and hoarse, like the voice of an old +and hoary man.</p> + +<p>“Judge Maxwell, your honor––”</p> + +<p>“No, no! Don’t tell it, Joe!”</p> + +<p>The words sounded like a warning call to one about to leap to destruction. They broke the tenseness of that moment +like the noise of a shot. It was a woman’s voice, rich and full in the cadence of youth; eager, quick, and +strong.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt turned sharply, her face suddenly clouded, as if to administer a rebuke; the prosecutor wheeled about +and peered into the room with a scowl. Judge Maxwell rapped commandingly, a frown on his face.</p> + +<p>And Joe Newbolt drew a long, free breath, while relief moved over his troubled face like a waking wind at dawn. He +leaned back in his chair, taking another long breath, as if life had just been granted him at a moment when hope seemed +gone.</p> + +<p>The effect of that sudden warning had been stunning. For a few seconds the principals in the dramatic picture held +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297'></a>297</span> their poses, as if standing for the camera. And then the +lowering tempest in Judge Maxwell’s face broke.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sheriff, find out who that was and bring him or her forward!” he commanded.</p> + +<p>There was no need for the sheriff to search on Joe’s behalf. Quick as a bolt his eyes had found her, and doubt +was consumed in the glance which passed between them. Now he knew all that he had struggled to know of everything. +First of all, there stood the justification of his long endurance. He had been right. She had understood, and her +opinion was valid against the world.</p> + +<p>Even as the judge was speaking, Alice Price rose.</p> + +<p>“It was I, sir,” she confessed, no shame in her manner, no contrition in her voice.</p> + +<p>But the ladies in the court-room were shocked for her, as ladies the world over are shocked when one of their +sisters does an unaccountably human thing. They made their feelings public by scandalized aspirations, suppressed +<i>oh-h-hs</i>, and deprecative shakings of the heads.</p> + +<p>The male portion of the audience was moved in another direction. Their faces were blank with stunned surprise, with +little gleams of admiration moving a forest of whiskers here and there whose owners did not know who the speaker +was.</p> + +<p>But to everybody who knew Alice Price the thing was unaccountable. It was worse than interrupting the preacher in +the middle of a prayer, and the last thing that Alice Price, with all her breeding, blood and education would have been +expected to do. That was what came of leveling oneself to the plane of common people and “pore” folks, and +visiting them in jail, they said to one another through their wide-stretched eyes.</p> + +<p>Alice went forward and stood before the railing. The prosecuting attorney drew out a chair and offered it to Mrs. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298'></a>298</span> Newbolt, who sat, staring at Alice with no man knew what +in her heart. Her face was a strange index of disappointment, surprise, and vexation. She said nothing, and Hammer, +glowing with the dawning of hope of something that he could not well define, squared around and gave Alice a large, fat +smile.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell regarded her with more surprise than severity, it appeared. He adjusted his glasses, bowed his neck to +look over them, frowned, and cleared his throat. And poor old Colonel Price, overwhelmed entirely by this untoward +breach of his daughter’s, stood beside Captain Taylor shaking his old white head as if he was undone forever.</p> + +<p>“I am surprised at this demonstration, Miss Price,” said the judge. “Coming from one of your +standing in this community, it is doubly shocking, for your position in society should be, of itself, a guarantee of +your loyalty to the established organization of order. It should be your endeavor to uphold rather than defeat, the +ends of justice.</p> + +<p>“The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who is competent, we believe, to advise him. Your +admonition was altogether out of place. I am pained and humiliated for you, Miss Price.</p> + +<p>“This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be passed over simply with a reprimand. But, allowing for the +impetuosity of youth, and the emotion of the moment, the court will excuse you with this. Similar outbreaks must be +guarded against, and any further demonstration will be dealt with severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the +case.”</p> + +<p>Alice stood through the judge’s lecture unflinchingly. Her face was pale, for she realized the enormity of her +transgression, but there was neither fear nor regret in her heart. She met the judge’s eyes with honest courage, +and bowed her head in acknowledgment of his leniency when he dismissed her. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_299'></a>299</span></p> + +<p>From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her breast, to Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done, +she had no defense to make for her words. Love is its own justification, it wants no advocate to plead for it before +the bar of established usage. Its statutes have needed no revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until +the end.</p> + +<p>The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, demolished and beyond hope of repair, before a charge from the +soft lips of a simple girl. Long and hard as he had labored to build it up, and encompass Joe within it, it was in +ruins now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task of raising it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to +morning, which the weary judge granted readily.</p> + +<p>People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than usual, for the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had +heard and seen was over them.</p> + +<p>What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big, gangling, raw-boned boy’s mouth just when he was opening +it to speak, and to speak the very words which they had sat there patiently for days to hear? What was he to Alice +Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That +was what they wanted to know, and that was what troubled them because they could not make it out at all.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price made his way forward against the outpouring stream to Alice. He adjusted her cloak around her +shoulders, and whispered to her. She was very pale still, but her eyes were fearless and bright, and they followed Joe +Newbolt with a tender caress as the sheriff led him out, his handcuffs in his pocket, the prisoner’s long arms +swinging free.</p> + +<p>Ollie and her mother were standing near Colonel Price and Alice, waiting for them to move along and open the passage +to the aisle. As Alice turned from looking after Joe, the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300'></a>300</span> +eyes of the young women met, and again Ollie felt the cold stern question which Alice seemed to ask her, and to insist +with unsparing hardness that she answer.</p> + +<p>A little way along Alice turned her head and held Ollie’s eyes with her own again. As plain as words they said +to the young widow who cringed at her florid mother’s side:</p> + +<p>“You slinking, miserable, trembling coward, I can see right down to the bottom of your heart!”</p> + +<p>Joe returned to his cell with new vigor in his step, new warmth in his breast, and a new hope in his jaded soul. +There was no doubt now, no groping for a sustaining hand. Alice had understood him, and Alice alone, when all the world +assailed him for his secret, and would have torn it from his lips in shame. She had given him the sympathy, for the +lack of which he must have fallen; the support, for the want of which he must have been lost.</p> + +<p>For a trying moment that afternoon he had forgotten, almost, that he was a gentleman, and under a gentleman’s +obligation. There had been so much uncertainty, and fear, and so many clouded days. But a man had no excuse, he +contended in his new strength, even under the direst pressure, to lose sight of the fact that he was a gentleman. +Morgan had done that. Morgan had not come. But perhaps Morgan was not a gentleman at all. That would account for a +great deal, everything, in fact.</p> + +<p>There would be a way out without Morgan now. Since Alice understood, there would be shown a way. He should not +perish on account of Morgan, and even though he never came it would not matter greatly, now that Alice understood.</p> + +<p>He was serene, peaceful, and unworried, as he had not been for one moment since the inquest. The point of daylight +had come again into his dark perspective; it was growing and gleaming with the promise and cheer of a star.</p> + +<p>Colonel Price had no word of censure for his daughter as <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_301'></a>301</span> they held their way homeward, and no word of comment on her extraordinary and +immodest–according to the colonel’s view–conduct fell from his lips until they were free from the +crowd. Then the colonel:</p> + +<p>“Well, Alice?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Father.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you do it–why didn’t you let him tell it, child? They’ll hang him now, I tell you, +they’ll hang that boy as sure as sundown! And he’s no more guilty of that old man’s death than I +am.”</p> + +<p>“No, he isn’t,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Then why didn’t you let him talk, Alice? What do you know?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know anything–anything that would be evidence,” she replied. “But he’s +been a man all through this cruel trial, and I’d rather see him die a man than live a coward!”</p> + +<p>“They’ll hang that boy, Alice,” said the colonel, shaking his head sadly. “Nothing short of +a miracle can save him now.”</p> + +<p>“No, they’ll never do that,” said she, in quiet faith.</p> + +<p>The colonel looked at her with an impatient frown.</p> + +<p>“What’s to save him, child?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” she admitted, thoughtfully. Then she proceeded, with an earnestness that was +almost passionate: “It isn’t for himself that he’s keeping silent–I’m not afraid for +<i>him</i> on account of what they wanted to make him tell! Can’t you see that, Father, don’t you +understand?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said the colonel, striking the pavement sharply with his stick, “I’ll be switched if I +do! But I know this bad business has taken hold of you, Alice, and changed you around until you’re nothing like +the girl I used to have.</p> + +<p>“It’s too melancholy and sordid for you to be mixed up in. I don’t like it. We’ve done what +we can for the boy, and if <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302'></a>302</span> he wants to be stubborn and +run his neck into the noose on account of some fool thing or another that he thinks nobody’s got a right to know, +I don’t see where you’re called on to shove him along on his road. And that’s what this thing that +you’ve done today amounts to, as far as I can see.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry that you’re displeased with me, Father,” said she, but with precious little +indication of humility in her voice, “but I’d do the same thing over again tomorrow. Joe didn’t want +to tell it. What he needed just then was a friend.”</p> + +<p>That night after supper, when Colonel Price sat in the library gazing into the coals, Alice came in softly and put +her arm about his shoulders, nestling her head against his, her cheek warm against his temple.</p> + +<p>“You think I’m a bold, brazen creature, Father, I’m afraid,” she said.</p> + +<p>“The farthest thing from it in this world,” said he. “I’ve been thinking over it, and I know +that you were right. It’s inscrutable to me, Alice; I lack that God-given intuition that a woman has for such +things. But I know that you were right, and time and events will justify you.”</p> + +<p>“You remember that both Mr. Hammer and Mr. Lucas asked Joe and Mrs. Chase a good deal about a book-agent +boarder, Curtis Morgan?” said she.</p> + +<p>“Only in the way of incidental questioning,” he said. “Why?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember him? He was that tall, fair man who sold us the <i>History of the World</i>, +wasn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Why, it is the same name,” said the colonel. “He was a man with a quick eye and a most curious +jumble of fragmentary knowledge on many subjects, from roses to rattlesnakes. Yes, I remember the fellow very well, +since you speak of him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. And he had little fair curls growing close to his <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_303'></a>303</span> eyes,” said she. “It’s the same man, I’m certain of that.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what difference does it make?” asked he.</p> + +<p>“Not any–in particular–I suppose,” she sighed.</p> + +<p>The colonel stroked her hair.</p> + +<p>“Well, Alice, you’re taking this thing too much at heart, anyhow,” he said.</p> + +<p>Later that night, long after Joe Newbolt had wearied himself in pacing up and down his cell, with the glow of his +new hope growing brighter as his legs grew heavier, Alice sat by her window, gazing with fixed eyes into the dark.</p> + +<p>On her lips there was a name and a message, which she sent out from her heart with all the dynamic intensity of her +strong, young being. A name and a message; and she sped them from her lips into the night, to roam the world like a +searching wind.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_19'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304'></a>304</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>THE SHADOW OF A DREAM</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Judge Little was moving about mysteriously. It was said that he had found track of Isom’s heir, and that the +county was to have its second great sensation soon.</p> + +<p>Judge Little did not confirm this report, but, like the middling-good politician that he was, he entered no denial. +As long as the public is uncertain either way, its suspense is more exquisite, the pleasure of the final revelation is +more sweet.</p> + +<p>Riding home from the trial on the day that Joe made his appearance on the witness-stand, Sol Greening fell in with +the judge and, with his nose primed to follow the scent of any new gossip, Sol worked his way into the matter of the +will.</p> + +<p>“Well, I hear you’ve got track of Isom’s boy at last, Judge?” said he, pulling up close +beside the judge’s mount, so the sound of the horses’ feet sucking loose from the clay of the muddy road +would not cheat him out of a word.</p> + +<p>Judge Little rode a low, yellow horse, commonly called a “buckskin” in that country. He had come to town +unprovided with a rubber coat, and his long black garment of ordinary wear was damp from the blowing mists which +presaged the coming rain. In order to save the skirts of it, in which the precious and mysterious pockets were, the +judge had gathered them up about his waist, as an old woman gathers her skirts on wash-day. He sat in the saddle, +holding them that way with one hand, while he handled the reins with the other.</p> + +<p>“All things are possible,” returned the judge, his tight old mouth screwed up after the words, as if +more stood in the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305'></a>305</span> door and required the utmost vigilance +to prevent them popping forth.</p> + +<p>Sol admitted that all things were indeed possible, although he had his doubts about the probability of a great many +he could name. But he was wise enough to know that one must agree with a man if one desires to get into his warm favor, +and it was his purpose on that ride to milk Judge Little of whatever information tickling his vanity, as an ant tickles +an aphis, would cause him to yield.</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s got a right smart property waitin’ him when he comes,” said Sol, feeling +important and comfortable just to talk of all that Isom left.</p> + +<p>“A considerable,” agreed the judge.</p> + +<p>“Say forty or fifty thousand worth, heh?”</p> + +<p>“Nearer seventy or eighty, the way land’s advancing in this county,” corrected the judge.</p> + +<p>Sol whistled his amazement. There was no word in his vocabulary as eloquent as that.</p> + +<p>“Well, all I got to say is that if it was me he left it to, it wouldn’t take no searchin’ to find +me,” he said. “Is he married?”</p> + +<p>“Very likely he is married,” said the judge, with that portentous repression and caution behind his +words which some people are able to use with such mysterious effect.</p> + +<p>“Shades of catnip!” said Sol.</p> + +<p>They rode on a little way in silence, Sol being quite exhausted on account of his consuming surprise over what he +believed himself to be finding out. Presently he returned to his prying, and asked:</p> + +<p>“Can Ollie come in for her dower rights in case the court lets Isom’s will stand?”</p> + +<p>“That is a question,” replied the judge, deliberating at his pause and sucking in his cheeks, +“which will have to be decided.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306'></a>306</span></p> + +<p>“Does he favor Isom any?” asked Sol.</p> + +<p>“Who?” queried the judge.</p> + +<p>“Isom’s boy.”</p> + +<p>“There doubtless is some resemblance–it is only natural that there should be a resemblance between +father and son,” nodded the judge. “But as for myself, I cannot say.”</p> + +<p>“You ain’t seen him, heh?” said Sol, eyeing him sharply.</p> + +<p>“Not exactly,” allowed the judge.</p> + +<p>“Land o’ Moab!” said Sol.</p> + +<p>They rode on another eighty rods without a word between them.</p> + +<p>“Got his picture, I reckon?” asked Sol at last, sounding the judge’s face all the while with his +eager eyes.</p> + +<p>“I turn off here,” said the judge. “I’m takin’ the short cut over the ford and through +Miller’s place. Looks like the rain would thicken.”</p> + +<p>He gave Sol good day, and turned off into a brush-grown road which plunged into the woods.</p> + +<p>Sol went on his way, stirred by comfortable emotions. What a story he meant to spread next day at the county-seat; +what a piece of news he was going to be the source of, indeed!</p> + +<p>Of course, Sol had no knowledge of what was going forward at the county farm that very afternoon, even the very hour +when Joe Newbolt was sweating blood on the witness stand, If he had known, it is not likely that he would have waited +until morning to spread the tale abroad.</p> + +<p>This is what it was.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s lawyer was there in consultation with Uncle John Owens regarding Isom’s will. Consultation is +the word, for it had come to that felicitous pass between them. Uncle John could communicate his thoughts freely to his +fellow-beings again, and receive theirs intelligently.</p> + +<p>All this had been wrought not by a miracle, but by the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307'></a>307</span> +systematic preparation of the attorney, who was determined to sound the secret which lay locked in that silent mind. If +Isom had a son when that will was made a generation back, Uncle John Owens was the man who knew it, and the only living +man.</p> + +<p>In pursuit of this mystery, the lawyer had caused to be printed many little strips of cardboard in the language of +the blind. These covered all the ground that he desired to explore, from preliminaries to climax, with every pertinent +question which his fertile mind could shape, and every answer which he felt was due to Uncle John to satisfy his +curiosity and inform him fully of what had transpired.</p> + +<p>The attorney had been waiting for Uncle John to become proficient enough in his new reading to proceed without +difficulty. He had provided the patriarch with a large slate, which gave him comfortable room for his big characters. +Several days before that which the lawyer had set for the exploration of the mystery of Isom Chase’s heir, they +had reached a perfect footing of understanding.</p> + +<p>Uncle John was a new man. For several weeks he had been making great progress with the New Testament, printed in +letters for the blind, which had come on the attorney’s order speedily. It was an immense volume, as big as a +barn-door, as Uncle John facetiously wrote on his slate, and when he read it he sat at the table littered over with his +interlocked rings of wood, and his figures of beast and female angels or demons, which, not yet determined.</p> + +<p>The sun had come out for him again, at the clouded end of his life. It reached him through the points of his +fingers, and warmed him to the farthest spot, and its welcome was the greater because his night had been long and its +rising late.</p> + +<p>On that afternoon memorable for Joe Newbolt, and all who gathered at the court-house to hear him, Uncle John learned +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308'></a>308</span> of the death of Isom Chase. The manner of his death was +not revealed to him in the printed slips of board, and Uncle John did not ask, very likely accepting it as an event +which comes to all men, and for which he, himself, had long been prepared.</p> + +<p>After that fact had been imparted to the blind preacher, the lawyer placed under his eager fingers a slip which +read:</p> + +<p>“Did you ever witness Isom Chase’s will?”</p> + +<p>Uncle John took his slate and wrote:</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“When?”</p> + +<p>“Thirty or forty years ago,” wrote Uncle John–what was a decade more or less to him? “When +he joined the Order.”</p> + +<p>Uncle John wrote this with his face bright in the joy of being able to hold intelligent communication once more.</p> + +<p>More questioning brought out the information that it was a rule of the secret brotherhood which Isom had joined in +those far days, for each candidate for initiation to make his will before the administration of the rites.</p> + +<p>“What a sturdy old goat that must have been!” thought the lawyer.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember to whom Isom left his property in that will?” read the pasteboard under the old +man’s hands.</p> + +<p>Uncle John smiled, reminiscently, and nodded.</p> + +<p>“To his son,” he wrote. “Isom was the name.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know when and where that son was born?”</p> + +<p>Uncle John’s smile was broader, and of purely humorous cast, as he bent over the slate and began to write +carefully, in smaller hand than usual, as if he had a great deal to say.</p> + +<p>“He never was born,” he wrote, “not up to the time that I lost the world. Isom was a man of Belial +all his days that I knew him. He was set on a son from his wedding day.</p> + +<p>“The last time I saw him I joked him about that will, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_309'></a>309</span> told him he would have to change it. He said no, it would stand that way. He said he would +get a son yet. Abraham was a hundred when Isaac was born, he reminded me. Did Isom get him?”</p> + +<p>“No,” was the word that Uncle John’s fingers found. He shook his head, sadly.</p> + +<p>“He worked and saved for him all his life,” the old man wrote. “He set his hope of that son above +the Lord.”</p> + +<p>Uncle John was given to understand the importance of his information, and that he might be called upon to give it +over again in court.</p> + +<p>He was greatly pleased with the prospect of publicly displaying his new accomplishment. The lawyer gave him a +printed good-bye, shook him by the hand warmly, and left him poring over his ponderous book, his dumb lips moving as +his fingers spelled out the words.</p> + +<p>They were near the end and the quieting of all this flurry that had risen over the property of old Isom Chase, said +the lawyer to himself as he rode back to town to acquaint his client with her good fortune. There was nothing in the +way of her succession to the property now. The probate court would, without question or doubt, throw out that +ridiculous document through which old Judge Little hoped to grease his long wallet.</p> + +<p>With Isom’s will would disappear from the public notice the one testimony of his only tender sentiment, his +only human softness; a sentiment and a softness which had been born of a desire and fostered by a dream.</p> + +<p>Strange that the hard old man should have held to that dream so stubbornly and so long, striving to gain for it, +hoarding to enrich it, growing bitterer for its long coming, year by year. And at last he had gone out in a flash, +leaving this one speaking piece of evidence of feeling and tenderness behind. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_310'></a>310</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps Isom Chase would have been different, reflected the lawyer, if fate had yielded him his desire and given him +a son; perhaps it would have softened his hand and mellowed his heart in his dealings with those whom he touched; +perhaps it would have lifted him above the narrow strivings which had atrophied his virtues, and let the sunlight into +the dark places of his soul.</p> + +<p>So communing with himself, he arrived in town. The people were coming out of the court-house, the lowering gray +clouds were settling mistily. But it was a clearing day for his client; he hastened on to tell her of the turn fortune +had made in her behalf.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_20'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311'></a>311</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XX<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>“THE PENALTY IS DEATH!”</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>When court convened the following morning for the last act in the prolonged drama of Joe Newbolt’s trial, the +room was crowded even beyond the congestion of the previous day.</p> + +<p>People felt that Sam Lucas was not through with the accused lad yet; they wanted to be present for the final and +complete crucifixion. It was generally believed that, under the strain of Lucas’s bombardment, Joe would break +down that day.</p> + +<p>The interference of Alice Price, unwarranted and beyond reason, the public said, had given the accused a respite, +but nothing more. Whatever mistaken notion she had in doing it was beyond them, for it was inconceivable that she could +be wiser than another, and discover virtues in the accused that older and wiser heads had overlooked. Well, after the +rebuke that Judge Maxwell had given her, <i>she</i> wouldn’t meddle again soon. It was more than anybody expected +to see her in court again. No, indeed, they said; that would just about settle <i>her</i>.</p> + +<p>Such a fine girl, too, and such a blow to her father. It was a piece of forwardness that went beyond the imagination +of anybody in the town. Could it be that Alice Price had become tainted with socialism or woman’s rights, or any +of those wild theories which roared around the wide world outside Shelbyville and created such commotion and unrest? +Maybe some of those German doctrines had got into her head, such as that young Professor Gobel, whom the regents +discharged from the college faculty last winter, used to teach. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_312'></a>312</span></p> + +<p>It was too bad; nearly everybody regretted it, for it took a girl a long time to live down a thing like that in +Shelbyville. But the greatest shock and disappointment of all was, although nobody would admit it, that she had shut +Joe’s mouth on the very thing that the public ear was itching to hear. She had cheated the public of its due, and +taken the food out of its mouth when it was ravenous. That was past forgiveness.</p> + +<p>Dark conjectures were hatched, therefore, and scandalous hints were set traveling. Mothers said, well, they thanked +their stars that she hadn’t married <i>their</i> sons; and fathers philosophized that you never could tell how a +filly would turn out till you put the saddle on her and tried her on the road. And the public sighed and gasped and +shook its head, and was comfortably shocked and satisfyingly scandalized.</p> + +<p>The sheriff brought the prisoner into court that morning with free hands. Joe’s face seemed almost beatific in +its exalted serenity as he saluted his waiting mother with a smile. To those who had seen the gray pallor of his +strained face yesterday, it appeared as if he had cast his skin during the night, and with it his harassments and +haunting fears, and had come out this morning as fresh and unscarred as a child.</p> + +<p>Joe stood for a moment running his eyes swiftly over the room. When they found the face they sought a warm light +shot into them as if he had turned up the wick of his soul. She was not so near the front as on the day before, yet she +was close enough for eye to speak to eye.</p> + +<p>People marked the exchange of unspoken salutations between them, and nudged each other, and whispered: “There +she is!” They wondered how she was going to cut up today, and whether it would not end for her by getting herself +sent to jail, along with that scatter-feathered young crow whom she seemed to have taken into her heart. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313'></a>313</span></p> + +<p>Ollie was present, although Joe had not expected to see her, he knew not why. She was sitting in the first row of +benches, so near him he could have reached over and taken her hand. He bowed to her; she gave him a sickly smile, which +looked on her pale face like a dim breaking of sun through wintry clouds.</p> + +<p>To the great surprise and greater disappointment of the public in attendance upon the trial, Sam Lucas announced, +when court opened, that the state would not proceed with the cross-examination of the defendant. Hammer rose with that +and stated that the defense rested. He had no more witnesses to call.</p> + +<p>Hammer wore a hopeful look over his features that morning, a reflection, perhaps, of his client’s unworried +attitude. He had not been successful in his attempt to interview Alice Price, although he had visited her home the +night before. Colonel Price had received him with the air of one who stoops to contact with an inferior, and assured +him that he was delegated by Miss Price–which was true–to tell Mr. Hammer that she knew nothing favorable +to his client’s cause; that her caution in his moment of stress had nothing behind it but the unaccountable +impulse of a young and sympathetic girl.</p> + +<p>Hammer accepted that explanation with a large corner of reservation in his mind. He knew that she had visited the +jail, and it was his opinion that his client had taken her behind the door of his confidence, which he had closed to +his attorney. Alice Price knew something, she must know something, Hammer said. On that belief he based his intention +of a motion for a new trial in case of conviction. He would advance the contention that new evidence had been +discovered; he would then get Alice Price into a corner by herself somewhere and make her tell all she knew.</p> + +<p>That was why Hammer smiled and felt quite easy, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314'></a>314</span> +turned over in his mind the moving speech that he had prepared for the jury. He was glad of the opportunity which that +great gathering presented. It was a plowed field waiting the grain of Hammer’s future prosperity.</p> + +<p>Hammer kept turning his eyes toward Alice Price, where she sat in the middle of the court-room beside the colonel. +He had marked an air of uneasiness, a paleness as of suppressed anxiety in the girl’s face. Now and then he saw +her look toward the door where Captain Taylor stood guard, in his G. A. R. uniform today, as if it were a gala occasion +and demanded decorations.</p> + +<p>For whom could she be straining and watching? Hammer wondered. Ah, no doubt about it, that girl knew a great deal +more of the inner-working of his client’s mind than he did. But she couldn’t keep her secret. He’d +get it out of her after filing his motion for a new trial–already he was looking ahead to conviction, feeling the +weakness of his case–and very likely turn the sensation of a generation loose in Shelbyville when he called her +to the witness-stand. That was the manner of Hammer’s speculations as he watched her turning her eyes toward the +door.</p> + +<p>Ollie sat beside her mother, strangely downcast for all the brightening of her affairs. Joe had passed through the +fire and come out true, although he might have faltered and betrayed her if it had not been for the sharp warning of +Alice Price, cast to him like a rope to a drowning man. Like Hammer, like a thousand others, she wondered why Alice had +uttered that warning. What did she know? What did she suspect? It was certain, above everything else, that she knew Joe +was guiltless. She knew that he was not maintaining silence on his own account.</p> + +<p>How did she know? Had Joe told her? Ollie struggled with the doubt and perplexity of it, and the fear which lay deep +in her being made her long to cringe there, and shield <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315'></a>315</span> +her face as from fire. She could not do that, any more than she had succeeded in her desire to remain away from court +that morning. There was no need for her there, her testimony was in, they were through with her. Yet she could not stay +away. She must be there for the final word, for the last sight of Joe’s prison-white face.</p> + +<p>She must whip herself to sit there as boldly as innocence and cheat the public into accepting the blanched cheek of +fear for the wearing strain of sorrow; she must sit there until the end. Then she could rise up and go her way, no +matter how it turned out for Joe. She could leave there with her guilty secret in her heart and the shame of her +cowardice burning like a smothered coal in her breast.</p> + +<p>It would hurt to know that Joe had gone to prison for her sake, even though he once had stepped into the doorway of +her freedom and cut off her light. The knowledge that Alice Price loved him, and that Joe loved her, for she had read +the secret in their burning eyes, would make it doubly hard. She would be cheating him of liberty and robbing him of +love. Still, they would be no more than even, at that, said she, with a recurring sweep of bitterness. Had Joe not +denied them both to her? All of this she turned in her mind as she sat waiting for court to open that somber +morning.</p> + +<p>The rain in yesterday’s threat had come; it was streaking the windows gray, and the sound of the wind was in +the trees, waving their bare limbs as in fantastic grief against the dull clouds. There was no comfort in youth and +health and prettiness of face and form; no pride in possession of lands and money, when a hot and tortuous thing like +conscience was lying so ill-concealed behind the thin wall of her breast.</p> + +<p>She thought bitterly of Curtis Morgan, who had failed her so completely. Never again in the march of her years would +she need the support of his hand and comforting affection as <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_316'></a>316</span> she needed it then. But he had gone away and forgotten, like a careless hunter who leaves his +uncovered fire after him to spring in the wind and go raging with destructive curse through the forest. He had struck +the spark to warm himself a night in its pleasurable glow; the hands of ten thousand men could not quench its flame +today.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell had been conferring with the lawyers in the case these few minutes, setting a limit to their periods +of oration before the jury, to which both sides agreed after the usual protestations. The court-room was very quiet; +expectancy sat upon the faces of all who waited when Sam Lucas, prosecuting attorney, rose and began his address to the +jury.</p> + +<p>He began by calling attention to what he termed the “peculiar atrocity of this crime,” and the +circumstances surrounding it. He pointed out that there could have been no motive of revenge behind the act, for the +evidence had shown, even the testimony of the defendant himself had shown, that the relations between Chase and his +bondman were friendly. Isom Chase had been kind to him; he had reposed his entire trust in him, and had gone away to +serve his country as a juryman, leaving everything in his hands.</p> + +<p>“And he returned from that duty, gentlemen,” said he, “to meet death at the treacherous hands of +the man whom he had trusted, there upon his own threshold.</p> + +<p>“When Isom Chase was found there by his neighbor, Sol Greening, gentlemen, this bag of money was clasped to +his lifeless breast. Where did it come from? What was Isom Chase doing with it there at that hour of the night? This +defendant has testified that he does not know. Did Isom Chase carry it with him when he entered the house? Not +likely.</p> + +<p>“You have heard the testimony of the bankers of this city to the effect that he carried no deposit with any of +them. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317'></a>317</span> Isom Chase had returned to his home that fatal +night from serving on a jury in this court-house. That duty held him there until past ten o’clock, as the records +show. Where did that bag of gold come from? What was it doing there? This defendant has sworn that he never saw it +before, that he knows nothing at all about it. Yet he admits that ‘words’ passed between him and Isom Chase +that night.</p> + +<p>“What those words were he has locked up in the secret darkness of his guilty breast. He has refused to tell +you what they were, refused against the kindly counsel of the court, the prayers of his aged mother, the advice of his +own attorney, and of his best friends. Joe Newbolt has refused to repeat those words to you, gentlemen of the jury, but +I will tell you what the substance of them was.”</p> + +<p>The prosecutor made a dramatic pause; he flung his long, fair locks back from his forehead; he leveled his finger at +Joe as if he held a weapon aimed to shoot him through the heart.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt looked at the prosecutor searchingly. She could not understand why the judge allowed him to say a thing +like that. Joe displayed no indication of the turmoil of his heart. But the light was fading out of his face, the gray +mist of pain was sweeping over it again.</p> + +<p>“Those words, gentlemen of the jury,” resumed the prosecutor, “were words of accusation from the +lips of Isom Chase when he entered that door and saw this man, his trusted servant, making away with that bag of money, +the hoarded savings of Isom Chase through many an industrious year.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that this defendant, afraid of the consequences of his act when he found +himself discovered in the theft, and was compelled to surrender the money to its lawful owner–I tell you then, in +that evil moment of passion and disappointment, this defendant <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_318'></a>318</span> snatched that rifle from the wall and shot honest, hardworking old Isom Chase down like a +dog!”</p> + +<p>“No, no!” cried Mrs. Newbolt, casting out her hands in passionate denial. “Joe didn’t do +it!”</p> + +<p>“Your honor,” began the prosecutor, turning to the court with an expression of injury in his voice which +was almost tearful, “am I to be interrupted––”</p> + +<p>“Madam, you must not speak again,” admonished the judge. “Mr. Sheriff, see that the order is +obeyed.”</p> + +<p>The sheriff leaned over.</p> + +<p>“Ma’am, I’ll have to put you out of here if you do that agin,” said he.</p> + +<p>Joe placed his hand on his mother’s shoulder and whispered to her. She nodded, as if in obedience to his wish, +but she sat straight and alert, her dark eyes glowing with anger as she looked at the prosecutor.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor was composing himself to proceed.</p> + +<p>“This defendant had robbed old Isom Chase of his hoarded gold, gentlemen of the jury, and that was not all. I +tell you, gentlemen, Joe Newbolt had robbed that trusting old man of more than his gold. He had robbed him of his +sacred honor!”</p> + +<p>Hammer entered vociferous objections. Nothing to maintain this charge had been proved by the state, said he. He +insisted that the jury be instructed to disregard what had been said, and the prosecutor admonished by the court to +confine himself to the evidence.</p> + +<p>The court ruled accordingly.</p> + +<p>“There has been ample evidence on this point,” contended the prosecutor. “The conspiracy of +silence entered into between this defendant and the widow of Isom Chase–entered into and maintained throughout +this trial–is sufficient to brand them guilty of this charge before the world. More; when Sol Greening’s +wife arrived a few minutes after <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319'></a>319</span> the shooting, Mrs. Chase +was fully dressed, in a dress, gentlemen of the jury, that it would have taken her longer to put +on––”</p> + +<p>Merely surmises, said Hammer. If surmises were to be admitted before that court and that jury, said he, he could +surmise his client out of there in two minutes. But the court was of the opinion that the evidence warranted the +prosecutor there. He was allowed to proceed.</p> + +<p>“Ollie Chase could not have dressed herself that way in those few intervening minutes. She had made her +preparations long before that tragic hour; she was ready and waiting–waiting for what?</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen, I will tell you. Joe Newbolt had discovered the hiding-place of his employer’s money. He had +stolen it, and was preparing to depart in secrecy in the dead of night; and I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, he was +not going alone!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what a scandalous lie!” said Mrs. Newbolt in a horrified voice which, low-pitched and groaning that +it was carried to the farthest corner of that big, solemn room.</p> + +<p>The outburst caused a little movement in the room, attended by considerable noise and some shifting of feet. Some +laughed, for there are some to laugh everywhere at the most sincere emotions of the human breast. The judge rapped for +order. A flush of anger mounted to his usually passive face; he turned to the sheriff with a gesture of command.</p> + +<p>“Remove that woman from the room, Mr. Sheriff, and retain her in custody!” said he.</p> + +<p>The sheriff came forward hastily and took Mrs. Newbolt by the arm. She stood at his touch and stretched out her +hands to the judge.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to say it out loud, Judge Maxwell, but I thought it so hard, I reckon, sir, that it got +away. Anybody that knows my Joe––” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320'></a>320</span></p> + +<p>“Come on, ma’am,” the sheriff ordered.</p> + +<p>Joe was on his feet. The sheriff’s special deputy put his hands on the prisoner’s shoulders and tried to +force him down into his seat. The deputy was a little man, sandy, freckled, and frail, and his efforts, ludicrously +eager, threw the court-room into a fit of unseemly laughter. The little man might as well have attempted to bend one of +the oak columns which supported the court-house portico.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell was properly angry now. He rapped loudly, and threatened penalties for contempt. When the mirth +quieted, which it did with a suddenness almost tragic, Joe spoke. “I wish to apologize to you for mother’s +words, sir,” said he, addressing the judge, inclining his head slightly to the prosecuting attorney afterward, as +if to include him, upon second thought. “She was moved out of her calm and dignity by the statement of Mr. Lucas, +sir, and I give you my word of honor that she’ll say no more. I’d like to have her here by me, sir, if +you’d grant me that favor. You can understand, sir, that a man needs a friend at his side in an hour like +this.”</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell’s face was losing its redness of wrath; the hard lines were melting out of it. He pondered a +moment, looking with gathered brows at Joe. The little deputy had given over his struggle, and now stood with one hand +twisted in the back of Joe’s coat. The sheriff kept his hold on Mrs. Newbolt’s arm. She lifted her contrite +face to the judge, tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said the judge, “the court will accept your apology, and hold you responsible for her +future behavior. Madam, resume your seat, and do not interrupt the prosecuting attorney again.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt justified Joe’s plea by sitting quietly while the prosecutor continued. But her interruption had +acted like an explosion in the train of his ideas; he was so much <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_321'></a>321</span> disconcerted by it that he finished rather tamely, reserving his force, as people understood, +for his closing speech.</p> + +<p>Hammer rose in consequence, and plunged into the effort of his life. He painted the character of Isom Chase in +horrible guise; he pointed out his narrowness, his wickedness, his cruelty, his quickness to lift his hand. He wept and +he sobbed, and splashed tears all around him.</p> + +<p>It was one of the most satisfying pieces of public oratory ever heard in Shelbyville, from the standpoint of +sentiment, and the view of the unschooled. But as a legal and logical argument it was as foolish and futile as +Hammer’s own fat tears. He kept it up for an hour, and he might have gone on for another if his tears had not +given out. Without tears, Hammer’s eloquence dwindled and his oratory dried.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt blessed him in her heart, and the irresponsible and vacillating public wiped its cheeks clean of its +tears and settled down to have its emotions warped the other way. Everybody said that Hammer had done well. He had made +a fine effort, it showed what they had contended for all along, that Hammer had it naturally in him, and was bound to +land in congress yet.</p> + +<p>When the prosecutor resumed for the last word he seemed to be in a vicious temper. He seemed to be prompted by +motives of revenge, rather than justice. If he had been a near relative of the deceased, under the obligation of +exacting life for life with his own hands, he could not have shown more vindictive personal resentment against the +accused. He reverted to Joe’s reservation in his testimony.</p> + +<p>“There is no question in my mind, gentlemen of the jury,” said he, “that the silence behind which +this defendant hides is the silence of guilt, and that silence brands him blacker than any confession that his tongue +could make.</p> + +<p>“‘Words passed between us,’ and ‘it was between him and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_322'></a>322</span> me.’ That, gentlemen of the jury, is the explanation this defendant gives, the only, +the weak, the obviously dishonest explanation, that he ever has offered, or that the kindly admonishment of this court +could draw from his lips. Guilt sits on his face; every line of his base countenance is a confession; every brutal +snarl from his reluctant tongue is testimony of his evil heart. He was a thief, and, when he was caught, he murdered. +‘Out of his own mouth he has uttered his condemnation,’ and there is but one penalty fitting this hideous +crime–the penalty of death!</p> + +<p>“Never before has the fair name of our county been stained by such an atrocious crime; never before has there +been such a conspiracy between the guilty to defeat the ends of justice in this moral and respected community. I call +upon you, gentlemen of the jury, for the safety of our households and the sanctity of our hearths, to bring in your +verdict of guilty under the indictment.</p> + +<p>“It is a solemn and awful thing to stand here in the presence of the Almighty and ask the life of one of his +creatures, made by Him in His own image and endowed by Him with reason and superiority above all else that moves on the +earth or in the waters under it. But this man, Joe Newbolt, has debased that image and abused that reason and +superiority which raises him above the beasts of the field. He has murdered a defenseless old man; he has, by that act +and deed, forfeited his right to life and liberty under the law.”</p> + +<p>The prosecutor made one of his effective pauses. There was the stillness of midnight in the crowded court-room. The +sound of dashing rain was loud on the window-panes, the hoarse voice of the gray old elm which combed the wind with its +high-flung branches, was like the distant groan of the sea.</p> + +<p>In that aching silence Ollie Chase turned suddenly, as if she had heard someone call her name. She started, her +white face grew whiter. But nobody seemed conscious of her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_323'></a>323</span> presence, except the prosecutor, who wheeled upon her and leveled his accusing finger at her +where she sat.</p> + +<p>There was the bearing of sudden and reckless impulse in his act. He surely had not meditated that bold challenge of +one who had passed under his merciless hand, and was now, according to all accepted procedure, beyond his reach and his +concern. But Sam Lucas did that unusual thing. He stood pointing at her, his jaw trembling as if the intensity of his +passion had palsied his tongue.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, what part this woman played in that dark night’s work the world may never +know,” said he. “But the world is not blind, and its judgments are usually justified by time. This woman, +Ollie Chase, and this defendant have conspired to hold silence between them, in what hope, to what unholy end, God +alone knows. But who will believe the weak and improbable story this woman has told on the witness-stand? Who is so +blind that he cannot see the stain of her infidelity and the ghastly blight of that midnight shadow upon her quaking +soul?”</p> + +<p>He turned from her abruptly. Hammer partly rose, as if to enter an objection. He seemed to reconsider it, and sat +down. Ollie shrank against her mother’s shoulders, trembling. The older woman, fierce as a dragon in the sudden +focus of the crowd’s attention and eyes, fixed in one shifting sweep from the prosecuting attorney to her +daughter, put her arm about Ollie and comforted her with whispered words.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor proceeded, solemnly:</p> + +<p>“I tell you, gentlemen, that these two people, Ollie Chase and Joseph Newbolt, alone in that house that night, +alone in that house for two days before this tragedy darkened it, before the blood of gray old Isom Chase ran down upon +its threshold, these two conspired in their guilt to hide the truth. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_324'></a>324</span></p> + +<p>“If this woman would open her lips, if this woman would break the seal of this guilty compact and speak, the +mystery of this case would dissolve, and the heroic romance which this defendant is trying to put over the squalid +facts of his guilt would turn out only a sordid story of midnight lust and robbery. If conscience would trouble this +woman to speak, gentlemen of the jury–but she has no conscience, and she has no heart!”</p> + +<p>He turned again to Ollie, savagely; her mother covered her with her arm, as if to protect her from a blow.</p> + +<p>“There she cowers in her guilty silence, in what hope God alone knows, but if she would +speak––”</p> + +<p>“<i>I will speak!</i>” Ollie cried.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_21'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325'></a>325</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>OLLIE SPEAKS</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Ollie’s voice, low and steady in earnest determination, broke the current of his denunciation as a knife +severs a straining cord. The suddenness of her declaration almost made the prosecutor reel. She was sitting up, +straight and outwardly calm, pushing her cloak and other detached belongings away from her with an unconscious movement +of disencumbering herself for some desperate leap.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell everything–if you’ll let me–now,” said she, rising to her feet.</p> + +<p>She was white and cold, but steady, and sternly resolute. The prosecutor had not expected that; his challenge had +been only a spectacular play for effect. Her offer to speak left him mentally groping behind himself for a support. It +would have been different if he had been certain of what she desired to say. As she stood before him there, bloodless, +and in such calm of outward aspect that it was almost hysterical, he did not know whether she was friend or foe.</p> + +<p>Joe had not expected it; the hundreds of spectators had not looked for that, and Hammer was as much surprised as a +ponderous, barber-minded man could be. Yet he was the first, of all of them there, to get his wits in hand. The +prosecutor had challenged her, and, he argued, what she had to say must be in justification of both herself and Joe. He +stood up quickly, and demanded that Ollie Chase be put under oath and brought to the witness-stand.</p> + +<p>Ollie’s mother had hold of her hand, looking up into her face in great consternation, begging her to sit down +and keep still. In general, people were standing, and Uncle Posen <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_326'></a>326</span> Spratt was worming the big end of his steer-horn trumpet between shoulders of men and +headgear of women to hear what he could not see.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell commanded order. The prosecuting attorney began to protest against the fulfilment of the very thing +that, with so much feeling and earnestness, he had demanded but a minute before.</p> + +<p>“Considering this late hour in the proceedings, your honor––” he began.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell silenced him with a stern and reproving look.</p> + +<p>“It is never too late for justice, Mr. Prosecutor,” said he. “Let that woman come forward and be +sworn.”</p> + +<p>Hammer went eagerly to the assistance of Ollie, opening the little gate in the railing for her officiously, putting +his palm under her elbow in his sustaining fashion. The clerk administered the oath; Ollie dropped her hand wearily at +her side.</p> + +<p>“I lied the other day,” said she, as one surrendering at the end of a hopeless defense, “and +I’m tired of hiding the truth any more.”</p> + +<p>Joe Newbolt was moved by a strange feeling of mingled thankfulness and regret. Tears had started to his eyes, and +were coursing down his face, unheeded and unchecked. The torture of the past days and weeks, the challenge of his +honor, the doubt of his sincerity; the rough assaults of the prosecuting attorney, the palpable unfriendliness of the +people–none of these things ever had drawn from him a tear. But this simple act of justice on the part of Ollie +Chase moved the deep waters of his soul.</p> + +<p>His mother had taken his hand between her rough palms, and was chafing it, as if to call back its warmth and life. +She was not looking at her son, for her faith had not departed from him for one moment, and would not have diminished +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327'></a>327</span> if they had condemned him under the accusation. Her eyes +were on Ollie’s face, her lips were murmuring beneath her breath:</p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord for His justice and mercy! Thank the Lord, thank the Lord!”</p> + +<p>Ollie had settled in the witness-chair again, in the midst of her wide-skirted mourning habit, as on that other day. +Joe Newbolt prayed in his heart for the mitigation of public censure, and for strength to sustain her in her hour of +sacrifice.</p> + +<p>That Ollie had come forward to save him–unasked, unexpected–was like the comfort of a cloak against the +wintry wind. The public believed that she was going to “own up” to it now, and to clinch the case against +Joe. Some of them began to make mental calculations on the capacity of the jail yard, and to lay plans for securing +passes to the hanging.</p> + +<p>Hammer stepped forward to question the witness, and the prosecuting attorney sat down, alert and ready to interpose +in case things should start the wrong way. He had lost sight of justice completely, after the fixed habit of his kind, +in his eagerness to advance his own prospects by securing the conviction of the accused.</p> + +<p>Ollie sat facing Judge Maxwell, who had turned in his swivel-chair; moved out of his bearing of studious +concentration, which was his usual characteristic on the bench.</p> + +<p>“Now, Mrs. Chase, tell your story in your own way, and take your own time for it,” said Hammer, kindly +patronizing.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want Joe to suffer for me,” she said, letting her sad eyes rest on him for a moment. +“What he kept back wasn’t for his own sake. It was for mine.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; go on, Mrs. Chase,” said Hammer as she hesitated there.</p> + +<p>“Joe didn’t shoot Isom. That happened just the way he’s <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_328'></a>328</span> said. I know all about it, for I was there. Joe didn’t know anything about that money. +I’ll tell you about that, too.”</p> + +<p>“Now, your honor,” began the prosecutor complainingly, “it seems to me that the time and place for +evidence of this nature has gone by. This witness has testified already, and to an entirely different set of facts. I +don’t know what influences have been at work to induce her to frame up a new story, but––”</p> + +<p>“Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor,” said the judge, “but it must not be allowed to obscure +the human rights at hazard in this case. Let the witness proceed.”</p> + +<p>Ollie shuddered like one entering cold water as she let her eyes take a flight out over the crowd. Perhaps she saw +something in it that appalled her, or perhaps she realized only then that she was about to expose the nakedness of her +soul before the world.</p> + +<p>“Go ahead, Mrs. Chase,” prompted Hammer. “You say you know about that sack of money?”</p> + +<p>“I was taking it away with me,” said she, drawing a long breath and expelling it with an audible +sigh.</p> + +<p>She seemed very tired, and she looked most hopeless, pitiable, and forlorn; still there was no wavering from the +task that she had set for herself, no shrinking from its pain. “I was going to meet Curtis Morgan, the book-agent +man that you’ve asked me about before. We intended to run off to the city together. Joe knew about it; he stopped +me that night.”</p> + +<p>She paused again, picking at her fingers nervously.</p> + +<p>“You say that Joe stopped you–” Hammer began. She cut him off, taking up her suspended narrative +without spirit, as one resumes a burden.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but let me tell you first.” She looked frankly into Judge Maxwell’s eyes.</p> + +<p>“Address the jury, Mrs. Chase,” admonished Hammer. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_329'></a>329</span> She turned and looked steadily into the foreman’s bearded face.</p> + +<p>“There never was a thing out of the way between me and Joe. Joe never made love to me; he never kissed me, he +never seemed to want to. When Curtis Morgan came to board with us I was about ready to die, I was so tired and lonesome +and starved for a kind word.</p> + +<p>“Isom was a hard man–harder than anybody knows that never worked for him. He worked me like I was only a +plow or a hoe, without any feeling or any heart. Morgan and me–Mr. Morgan, he–well, we fell in love. We +didn’t act right, and Joe found it out. That was the day that Mr. Morgan and I planned to run away together. He +was coming back for me that night.”</p> + +<p>“You say that you and Morgan didn’t act right,” said Hammer, not satisfied with a statement that +might leave the jurymen the labor of conjecture. “Do you mean to say that there were improper relations between +you? that you were, in a word, unfaithful to your husband, Isom Chase?”</p> + +<p>Ollie’s pale face grew scarlet; she hung her head.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered, in voice shamed and low.</p> + +<p>Her mother, shocked and astounded by this public revelation, sat as if crouching in the place where Ollie had left +her. Judge Maxwell nodded encouragingly to the woman who was making her open confession.</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said he.</p> + +<p>His eyes shifted from her to Joe Newbolt, who was looking at Ollie with every evidence of acute suffering and +sympathy in his face. The judge studied him intently; Joe, his attention centered on Ollie, was insensible to the +scrutiny.</p> + +<p>Ollie told how she and Morgan had made their plans in the orchard that afternoon, and how she had gone to the house +and prepared to carry out the compact that night, not knowing that Joe had overheard them and sent Morgan <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330'></a>330</span> away. She had a most attentive and appreciative audience. She spoke +in a low voice, her face turned toward the jury, according to Hammer’s directions. He could not afford to have +them lose one word of that belated evidence.</p> + +<p>“I knew where Isom hid his money,” said she, “and that night when I thought Joe was asleep I took +up the loose board in the closet of the room where Isom and I slept and took out that little sack. There was another +one like it, but I only took my share. I’d worked for it, and starved and suffered, and it was mine. I +didn’t consider that I was robbing him.”</p> + +<p>“You were not,” Hammer assured her. “A wife cannot rob her husband, Mrs. Chase. And then what did +you do?”</p> + +<p>“I went downstairs with that money in my hand and laid it on the kitchen table while I fixed my hat. It was +dark in the kitchen, and when I was ready to go to meet Mr. Morgan in the place agreed on between us, I struck a match +to find my way to the door without bumpin’ into a chair or something and making a noise that would wake up +Joe.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know he was already up and watching for me to start. He was at the door when I opened it, and +he told me to light the lamp. I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t want him to see me all dressed and ready to leave, +and I wanted to try to slip that sack of money off the table before he saw it, too. He came in; I guess he put his hat +down on the table in the dark, and it fell on top of the sack.</p> + +<p>“When he lit the lamp in a minute you couldn’t have told there was anything under the hat unless you +stood in a certain place, where it showed a little under the brim. Joe told me he knew all about Morgan and me, and +that he’d sent him away. He said it was wrong for me to leave Isom; he said that Isom was better than Morgan, bad +as he was.</p> + +<p>“I flared up and got mad at Joe, but he was gentle and kind, and talked to me and showed me where I was wrong. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_331'></a>331</span> I’d kind of tried to make love to Joe a little +before that,” she confessed, her face flushing hotly again, “before Mr. Morgan came, that was. I’ll +tell you this so you’ll know that there was nothing out of the way between me and Joe.</p> + +<p>“Joe didn’t seem to understand such things. He was nothing but a boy till the night Isom was killed. He +didn’t take me up on it like Morgan did. I know it was wrong in me; but Isom drove me to it, and I’ve +suffered for it–more than I can ever make you understand.”</p> + +<p>She appealed to the judge in her manner of saying that; appealed as for the absolution which she had earned by a +cruel penance. He nodded kindly, his face very grave.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mrs. Chase,” said Hammer. “And then what did you do next?”</p> + +<p>“Well, while Joe was persuading me to go back to bed I put my arms around his neck. I wanted to smooth it over +with him, so he’d go to bed first and I could take the money and put it back, for one thing; and because I really +was sorry for what I’d done, and was ashamed of it, and felt lonesome and kicked out, and like nobody +didn’t care.</p> + +<p>“Isom came in and saw us standing there that way, with my hands on Joe’s shoulders, and he rushed up and +said: ‘I’ll kill you!’ He said we was standing there hugging each other, and that we’d +disgraced him; but that wasn’t so. It was all my fault, but Joe didn’t tell him that.”</p> + +<p>“And what did Joe tell him, Mrs. Chase?” asked Hammer, aglow with the victory which he felt to be +already in his hand. He looked with gloating triumph at the prosecuting attorney, who sat at the table twirling a +pencil in his fingers, and did not lift his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Joe told Isom he was making a mistake, and then Isom ripped and swore and threatened to kill us both. He +looked around for something to do it with, and he saw that sack of money under Joe’s hat. He jumped for the table +and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332'></a>332</span> grabbed it, and then he made for the gun. I told Joe +to stop him, and Joe tried. But he was too late. The rest of it happened just like Joe’s already told +you.”</p> + +<p>Ollie’s head drooped forward wearily, and her hands lay passively in her lap. It seemed that she considered +the story concluded, but Hammer was not of that mind.</p> + +<p>“After Isom fell–after the gun went off and Isom fell–what did you and Joe do?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“We heard somebody coming in a minute. We didn’t know who it could be, but I was afraid. I knew if it +got out on me about my start to run off with Morgan, and all the rest of it, I’d be ruined and disgraced +forever.</p> + +<p>“Joe knew it too, better than I did. I didn’t have to tell him, and I never even hinted for him to do +what he did. I never even thought of that. I asked him what we’d do, and he told me to go upstairs and leave him +to do the talking. I went. I was coward enough to go and leave him to bear the blame. When Joe lied at the inquest to +save me, I backed him up in it, and I stuck to it up till now. Maybe I was a little mad at him for coming between me +and Mr. Morgan, but that was just a streak. That’s the only lie Joe’s told, and you can see he never would +have told that to save himself. I don’t want to see him suffer any more for me.”</p> + +<p>Ollie concluded her recital in the same low, dragging and spiritless voice in which she had begun it. Conscience +whipped her through, but it could not make her unafraid. Hammer turned to the prosecutor with questioning eyes. Lucas +announced that he did not desire to cross-examine the witness, and the judge dismissed her.</p> + +<p>Ollie went back to her mother. No demonstration accompanied her passing, but a great sigh sounded over the room as +the tenseness of the listening strain relaxed, and the fulness of satisfaction came in its place.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt still clung to her son’s hand. She nodded <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_333'></a>333</span> at the prosecuting attorney with glowing eyes, as if glorying over him in the moment of his +defeat. Alice Price smiled joyously, and leaned back from her posture of concentration. The colonel whispered to her, +bringing the palms of his hands together in silent but expressive applause. The prosecuting attorney stood.</p> + +<p>“Your honor–” he began, but Judge Maxwell, lifting his head from the reflecting pose into which he +had fallen when Ollie left the stand, silenced him with an impatient gesture.</p> + +<p>“One moment, Mr. Prosecutor,” said he.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor flushed, and sat down in ruffled dignity.</p> + +<p>“I merely wanted to make a motion for dismissal,” said he, sarcastically, as if it was only the merest +incidental in the day’s proceedings.</p> + +<p>“That is not the procedure,” said the judge. “The state owes it to this defendant to absolve him +before the public of the obloquy of this unfounded and cruel accusation.”</p> + +<p>“Vindication is what we demand, your honor,” said Hammer grandly; “vindication before the +world!”</p> + +<p>He spread his arms wide, as if the world stood before him, fat and big of girth like himself, and he meant to +embrace it with the next breath.</p> + +<p>“You shall have it, Mr. Hammer,” said the judge. He turned to the jury. “Gentlemen of the jury, +this case has come to a sudden and unexpected end. The state’s case, prosecuted with such worthy energy and +honorable intention, has collapsed. Your one duty now, gentlemen, is to return a verdict of not guilty. Will it be +necessary for you to retire to the jury room?”</p> + +<p>The jurymen had been exchanging glances. Now the foreman rose, tall and solemn, with beard upon his breast.</p> + +<p>“Your honor, it will not be necessary for the jury to retire,” said he. “We are ready to return +our verdict.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334'></a>334</span></p> + +<p>According to the form, the foreman wrote out the verdict on the blank provided by statute; he stood with his fellows +while the clerk of the court read it aloud:</p> + +<p>“We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.”</p> + +<p>The judge looked down at Joe, who had turned to his mother, smiling through his tears.</p> + +<p>“You are free, God bless you!” said he.</p> + +<p>When a judge says so much more upon the bench than precedent, form, and custom prescribe for him to say; when he +puts down the hard mask of the law and discovers his human face behind it, and his human heart moving his warm, human +blood; when a judge on the bench does that, what can be expected of the unsanctified mob in front of him?</p> + +<p>It was said by many that Captain Taylor led the applause himself, but there were others who claimed that distinction +for Colonel Price. No matter.</p> + +<p>While the house did not rise as one man–for in every house there are old joints and young ones, which do not +unlimber with the same degree of alacrity, no matter what the incitement–it got to its feet in surprising order, +with a great tossing of arms and waving of hats and coats. In the midst of this glad turmoil stood Uncle Posen Spratt, +head and shoulders above the crowd, mounted on a bench, his steer’s horn ear-trumpet to his whiskered lips, like +an Israelitish priest, blowing his famous fox-hound blast, which had been heard five miles on a still autumn night.</p> + +<p>Less than half an hour before, the public would have attended Joe Newbolt’s hanging with all the pleasurable +and satisfactory thrills which men draw from such melancholy events. Now it was clamoring to lift him to its shoulders +and bear him in triumph through the town.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell smiled, and adjourned court, which order nobody but his clerk heard, and let them have their noisy +way. When the people saw him come down from the bench <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_335'></a>335</span> +they quieted, not understanding his purpose; and when he reached out his hand to Joe, who rose to meet him, silence +settled over the house. Judge Maxwell put his arm around Joe’s shoulder in fatherly way while he shook hands with +Mrs. Newbolt. What he said, nobody but those within the bar heard, but he gave Joe’s back an expressive slap of +approval as he turned to the prosecuting attorney.</p> + +<p>People rushed forward with the suddenness of water released, to shake hands with Joe when they understood that the +court was in adjournment. They crowded inside the rail, almost overwhelming him, exclaiming in loud terms of +admiration, addressing him familiarly, to his excessive embarrassment, pressing upon him their assurances that they +knew, all the time, that he didn’t do it, and that he would come out of it with head and tail both up, as he had +come through.</p> + +<p>Men who would have passed him yesterday without a second thought, and who would no more have given their hands to +him on the footing of equality–unless they had chanced to be running for office–than they would have thrust +them into the fire, now stood there smiling and jostling and waiting their turns to reach him, all of them chattering +and mouthing and nodding heads until one would have thought that each of them was a prophet, and had predicted this +very thing.</p> + +<p>The old generals, colonels, majors, and captains–that was the lowest rank in Shelbyville–and the +noncommissioned substantial first citizens of the county, were shaking hands among themselves, and nodding and smiling, +full of the fine feeling of that moment. It was a triumph of chivalry, they said; they had witnessed the renaissance of +the old spirit, the passing of which, and the dying out and dwindling of it in the rising generation, they had so long +and lamentably deplored.</p> + +<p>There, before their eyes, they had seen this uncouth grub transformed into a glorious and noble thing, and the only +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_336'></a>336</span> discord in the miraculous harmony of it was the +deep-lying regret that it was not a son of Shelbyville who had thus proved himself a man. And then the colonels and +others broke off their self-felicitation to join the forward mob in the front of the room, and press their +congratulations upon Joe.</p> + +<p>Joe, embarrassed and awkward, tried to be genial, but hardly succeeded in being civil, for his heart was not with +them in what he felt to be nothing but a cheap emotion. He was looking over their heads, and peering between their +shoulders, watching the progress of a little red feather in a Highland bonnet, which was making its way toward him +through the confusion like a bold pennant upon the crest of battle. Joe pushed through the wedging mass of people +around, and went to the bar to meet her.</p> + +<p>In the time of his distress, these who now clamored around him with professions of friendliness had not held up a +hand to sustain him, nor given him one good word to shore up his sinking soul. But there was one who had known and +understood; one whose faith had held him up to the heights of honor, and his soul stood in his eyes to greet her as he +waited for her to come. He did not know what he would say when hand touched hand, but he felt that he could fall down +upon his knees as a subject sinks before a queen.</p> + +<p>Behind him he heard his mother’s voice, thanking the people who offered their congratulations. It was a great +day for her when the foremost citizens of the county came forward, their hats in their hands, to pay their respects to +her Joe. She felt that he was rising up to his place at last, and coming into his own.</p> + +<p>Joe heard his mother’s voice, but it was sound to him now without words. Alice was coming. She was now just a +little way beyond the reach of his arm, and her presence filled the world.</p> + +<p>The people had their quick eyes on Alice, also, and they <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_337'></a>337</span> fell apart to let her pass, the flame of a new expectation in their keen faces. After +yesterday’s strange act, which seemed so prophetic of today’s climax in the case, what was she going to do? +Joe wondered in his heart with them; he trembled in his eagerness to know.</p> + +<p>She was now at the last row of benches, not five feet distant from him, where she stood a second, while she looked +up into his face and smiled, lifting her hand in a little expressive gesture. Then she turned aside to the place where +Ollie Chase sat, shame-stricken and stunned, beside her mother.</p> + +<p>The women who had been sitting near Ollie had withdrawn from her, as if she had become unclean with her confession. +And now, as Alice approached, Ollie’s mother gave her a hard, resentful look, and put her arm about her daughter +as if to protect her from any physical indignities which Alice might be bent on offering.</p> + +<p>Ollie shrank against her mother, her hair bright above her somber garb, as if it was the one spot in her where any +of the sunshine of her past remained. Alice went to her with determined directness. She bent over her, and took her by +the hand.</p> + +<p>“Thank you! You’re the bravest woman in the world!” she said.</p> + +<p>Ollie looked up, wonder and disbelief struggling against the pathetic hopelessness in her eyes. Alice bent lower. +She kissed the young widow’s pale forehead.</p> + +<p>Joe was ashamed that he had forgotten Ollie. He saw tears come into Ollie’s eyes as she clung closer to +Alice’s hand, and he heard the shocked gasping of women, and the grunts of men, and the stirring murmur of +surprise which shook the crowd. He opened the little gate in the railing and went out.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t have to do that for me, Ollie,” said he, kindly; “I could have got on, somehow, +without that.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_338'></a>338</span></p> + +<p>“Both of you–” said Ollie, a sob shaking her breath; “it was for both of you!”</p> + +<p>There was a churchlike stillness around them. Colonel Price had advanced, and now stood near the little group, a +look of understanding in his kind old face. Ollie mastered her sudden gust of weeping, and shook her disordered hair +back from her forehead, a defiant light in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care now, I don’t care what <i>anybody</i> says!” said she.</p> + +<p>Her mother glanced around with the fire of battle in her eyes. In that look she defied the public, and uttered her +contempt for its valuation and opinion. Alice Price had lifted her crushed and broken daughter up. She had taken her by +the hand, and she had kissed her, to show the world that she did not hold her as one defiled. Judge Maxwell and all of +them had seen her do it. She had given Ollie absolution before all men.</p> + +<p>Ollie drew her cloak around her shoulders and rose to her feet.</p> + +<p>“Remember that; for both of you, for one as much as the other,” said she, looking into Alice’s +eyes. “Come on, Mother; we’ll go home now.”</p> + +<p>Ollie walked out of the court-room with her head up, looking the world in the face. In place of the mark of the +beast on her forehead, she was carrying the cool benediction of a virtuous kiss. Joe and Alice stood looking after her +until she reached the door; even the most careless there waited her exit as if it was part of some solemn ceremony. +When she had passed out of sight beyond the door, the crowd moved suddenly and noisily after her. For the public, the +show was over.</p> + +<p>Alice looked up into Joe’s face. There was uncertainty in his eyes still, for he was no wiser than those in +their generations before him who had failed to read a woman’s <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_339'></a>339</span> heart. Alice saw that cloud hovering before the sun of his felicity. She lifted her hands and +gave them to him, as one restoring to its owner something that cannot be denied.</p> + +<p>Face to face for a moment they stood thus, hands clasped in hands. For them the world was empty of prying eyes, +wondering minds, impertinent faces. For a moment they were alone.</p> + +<p>The jurors had come out of the box, and were following the crowd. Hammer was gathering up his books and papers, +Judge Maxwell and the prosecuting attorney were talking with Mrs. Newbolt. The sheriff was waiting near the bar, as if +he had some duty yet before him to discharge. A smile had come over Colonel Price’s face, where it spread like a +benediction as Joe and Alice turned to enter the world again.</p> + +<p>“I want to shake hands with you, Joe,” said the sheriff, “and wish you good luck. I always knowed +you was as innercent as a child.”</p> + +<p>Joe obliged him, and thanked him for his expression, but there were things in the past which were not so easily +wiped from the memory–especially a chafed ring around his left wrist, where the sheriff’s iron had galled +him when he had fretted against it during the tense moments of those past days.</p> + +<p>Sam Lucas offered Joe his hand.</p> + +<p>“No hard feeling, Joe, I hope?” said he.</p> + +<p>“Well, not in particular–oh, well, you were only doing your duty, as you saw it,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“You could have saved the county a lot of money, and yourself and your friends a lot of trouble and anxiety, +if you’d told us all about this thing at the beginning,” complained Lucas, with lingering severity.</p> + +<p>“As for that–” began Colonel Price.</p> + +<p>“You knew it, Miss Price,” Lucas cut in. “Why didn’t you make him tell?” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_340'></a>340</span></p> + +<p>“No,” said Alice, quietly, “I didn’t know, Mr. Lucas. I only believed in him. Besides that, +there are some things that you can’t <i>make</i> a gentleman tell!”</p> + +<p>“Just so,” said Judge Maxwell, coming down from the bench with his books under his arm.</p> + +<p>“Bless your heart, honey,” said Mrs. Newbolt, touching Alice’s hair with gentle, almost reverent +hand, “you knew him better than his old mother did!”</p> + +<p>Colonel Price bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Newbolt.</p> + +<p>“I want you and Joe to come home with us for some refreshment,” said he, “after which the boy and +I must have a long, long talk. Mr. Hammer, sir,” said he, giving that astonished lawyer his hand, “I beg +the honor of shaking hands with a rising gentleman, sir!”</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_22'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341'></a>341</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>A SUMMONS OF THE NIGHT</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>There was a voice of moaning abroad in the night. It sounded as the rain swept through the rocking trees and bent +its spears against Judge Maxwell’s study windows; it sighed in his chimney like an old man turning the ashes of +spent dreams. It was an unkind night for one to be abroad, for the rain seemed as penetrating as sorrow. Few passed +upon the street beneath the judge’s windows where his dim light glowed.</p> + +<p>Now and then the sound of hoofs and wheels rose above the wail of the storm, sharp for a moment as it passed, +quickly dimmed, quickly lost. It was a night to be beneath one’s own roof, beside one’s own fire, feeling +the thankfulness for such plain comforts which one passes over in the sunny days.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell had a fire of hickory wood in his chimney, and a tall, dark bottle on the small stand at his elbow. On +the long table at his other hand stood his shaded lamp, pouring its concentrated beams upon his papers and books, +leaving the corners of the room in shadows. The judge sat with his glass in his hand, studying the fire.</p> + +<p>All day, since the adjournment of court, the remarkable termination of and disclosures in the case of State against +Newbolt had been flowing through his mind; all day, all evening, the white, strong face of the defendant youth had +stood before his eyes. He could not turn from it, nor forget the appeal of those grave, gray eyes.</p> + +<p>Never before, in his long and honorable life, had the judge been moved by a case as this had moved him. There was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_342'></a>342</span> nothing in all his rich experience to equal it. In all +his reading––</p> + +<p>“<i>Hum-m-m</i>,” said the judge, reflectively, remembering. He rose slowly and went to the bookcase +nearest the fire. He took down a leather-bound volume and returned to his chair, where he sat with his legs crossed, +supporting the heavy book upon his knee. Reflectively he turned the pages, reflectively he read, shaking his head when +he had done.</p> + +<p>“No, it is not a parallel,” said he. “The matter involved has only a remote similitude. I do not +believe the annals of jurisprudence contain another case to compare with that of our own Joe Newbolt.”</p> + +<p>The judge put the volume back in its place, pausing at the table as he returned to his chair to turn down the flame +of the lamp. It was too bright for the judge’s mood; it was inharmonious with the penitential night. Almost like +a voice, strident and in discord above the sobbing music of an orchestra, thought the judge. The firelight was better +for a mood such as his.</p> + +<p>One can see farther back by the soft glow of wood coals, leaning over and looking into them, than under the gleam of +the strongest lamp. Judge Maxwell had a long vista behind him to review, and it seemed to him that night that it was a +picture with more shadow than gleam. This day’s events had set him upon the train of retrospection, of moody +thought.</p> + +<p>He had seen that boy, Joe Newbolt, leap out of the obscurity of his life into the place of heroes, as he would have +had his own son do, if he could have kept him by his side and fashioned his life. But that boy was gone; long years ago +he had left him, and none had come after him to stand in his place. His little, worn books, which he used to sprawl +upon the floor and read, were treasured there on their sacred shelf behind the bookcase glass. The light had failed out +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343'></a>343</span> of the eyes which had found wonders in them, more than +thirty years ago.</p> + +<p>The lad’s mother had followed him; nobody remained to the judge now out of those days of his struggle and +slow-mounting hope, save old Hiram, his negro man, a family servitor since the times of slavery, and he was trembling +on the limb to fall.</p> + +<p>Yes, that was the way that he would have had his own boy stand, true to a trust, faithful in his honor, even under +the beam of the gallows-tree; stand as that lad Joe Newbolt had stood, unschooled though he was in everything but that +deep sense of duty devolving on one born free. Such nobility was the peculiar birthright of the true American.</p> + +<p>Scarcely behind Joe Newbolt stood that hitherto weak woman, Ollie Chase. It called for courage to do what she had +done. She had only to keep her peace, and hide whatever pity she felt and pain she suffered on account of the lad who +stood ready to sacrifice his life for her, to proceed upon her way clean in the eyes of men. She must have endured the +tortures of hidden fires through those weeks of uncertainty and suspense, thought he.</p> + +<p>Yes, Ollie Chase had her own nobility; the laurel was due her poor, smirched brow, just as much as it was to Joe +Newbolt’s lofty forehead. Contrition doubtless played its part in driving her to open confession, and the pain of +concealment must have been hard to bear. But there was an underlying nobility in that woman’s heart which had +urged her on stronger than all. It is a spark in the breast of even the most debased, thought the judge, which +abnegation and sacrifice often kindle into a beautiful flame.</p> + +<p>And there was Alice Price, with her fine intuition and sublime faith. What a white soul that strong young woman had, +said he; what a beautiful and spotless heart. In that kiss which she had stooped to press on the young widow’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344'></a>344</span> forehead she had wiped away the difference which +Ollie’s sin had set between her and other women. It was an act of generosity without ostentation, which he +doubted whether Alice Price herself was aware of in its farthest significance. It was the spontaneous act of womanly +sympathy and unconscious charity.</p> + +<p>What Ollie Chase had said to them as they stood before her, Judge Maxwell did not know, but what was written in +their young faces as they turned from watching her go, the whole world might have read–if it had been as watchful +and wise as he. What a fitting mate she was for that young lion, Joe Newbolt, thought the judge; such a mate, indeed, +as he would have chosen for his own son if God had seen fit to give him that transcendent joy.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell found himself greatly concerned about Joe Newbolt’s future. He wondered what he would make of it +if left to go about it in his own way; what he would make of it if properly armed and encouraged. He followed that +speculation a long way down the future, building dimly, but pleasantly, in his dream.</p> + +<p>A ring sounded at the front door.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell did not even withdraw his eyes from the fire. Some lawyer over in one of the other two counties +embraced in that circuit telegraphing to ask some favor of delay, or favor of something else. To ask a favor, +certainly; lawyers never telegraphed to confer favors. Old Hiram, dozing by the kitchen stove, would hear.</p> + +<p>Presently old Hiram’s shuffling feet sounded along the hall outside Judge Maxwell’s study door. The +outer door opened and closed. Old Hiram came into the judge’s room, a candle in his hand.</p> + +<p>“There’s a man wishin’ to see you, judge, sah,” he announced.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell started from his reverie. In the minute <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_345'></a>345</span> +that had passed between the ring at the door and the entry of Hiram, he had put the visitor out of his head.</p> + +<p>“A gentleman to see me, Hiram? Who is it?”</p> + +<p>“No, sah; I don’t think he’s ’zactly a gentleman, sah. I don’t know who he is; he +nevah give me no card, sah, but he’s moughty sploshed and blustery lookin’.”</p> + +<p>“Well–” the judge rose, halting his speech as if thinking of one thing and speaking of +another–“fetch him in here, Hiram.”</p> + +<p>“He’s drippin’ and drappin’ like a leaky pail, sah,” said Hiram, shaking his cottony +old head.</p> + +<p>“No matter; he’ll do no harm, Hiram.”</p> + +<p>Hiram brought the visitor in. The judge advanced to meet him.</p> + +<p>The stranger’s rubber coat glistened in the light, and the hat that he carried in his hand trickled a little +stream on the carpet as he crossed the room. Old Hiram lingered at the door, holding his candle aloft.</p> + +<p>The stranger stopped midway between Judge Maxwell and the door, as if uncertain of his welcome, or conscious just at +that moment of his drenched and dripping state. He was a tall man and sparely built, and his light-colored wet hair lay +in little ringlets against his temples. His mustache was short and stubby. His garments were splashed with mud, as if +he had come a long distance over rough roads. There was a haggard and harried look in the man’s eyes; he seemed +at the highest pitch of nervous tension. His lips were set in a grim line, as if he struggled to hold something from +utterance. His eyes were wide and wild.</p> + +<p>“Judge Maxwell,” he began, looking around him from side to side in quick starts, “I must apologize +to you for coming into your house in this condition, and for this late call. But I’m here on important business; +I ask you to give me a few minutes of your time alone.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_346'></a>346</span></p> + +<p>The judge nodded to Hiram, who closed the door after him.</p> + +<p>“Take off that wet coat–give me your hat, and sit here,” said the judge, pulling a chair around to +the fire.</p> + +<p>The visitor drew off his rubber garment.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir,” said he. “My name is Morgan, and I’ve come over hell’s highway, as +the man said, to get to Shelbyville tonight.”</p> + +<p>“Not Curtis Morgan?” said Judge Maxwell, lifting his eyes in startled surprise, staying the stream of +liquor that he was decanting into a glass.</p> + +<p>“Yes. You’ve heard my name before tonight, I see,” the visitor said.</p> + +<p>“Just so,” replied the judge, in his studious way. “Drink this, unless you have +scruples?”</p> + +<p>“It looks to me like a life-preserver to a drowning man,” said Morgan, with a glimmer of his every-day +facetiousness. He drained the glass; the judge motioned for him to sit down. Morgan did so, and stretched his wet feet +to the fire.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got a story to tell you, Judge Maxwell,” said he, again casting his quick, almost fearful +look around, “that will sound to you, maybe, like a wild-eyed dream. But I want to tell you right now, it +ain’t no dream–not by a million miles! I wish it was,” he added, with a serious twist of the +head.</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said the judge.</p> + +<p>“I’ve hurried here, Judge Maxwell, to do what I can in the name of justice and humanity,” Morgan +said. “That boy, Joe Newbolt, on trial here before you for the murder of old man Chase, is innocent. That boy is +telling the truth, Judge, and I’ll stake my neck on that. I’ve got a story to tell you that will clear up +all he’s holding back, and I’ll tell it, if I swing for it!”</p> + +<p>Morgan was greatly agitated. He stopped there, looking earnestly into the judge’s face. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_347'></a>347</span></p> + +<p>“Why have you waited so long?” asked the judge, sternly.</p> + +<p>Morgan leaned over, clutching at the judge’s arm.</p> + +<p>“Am I too late–is it over–have they convicted him?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s over,” nodded the judge, studying Morgan’s face narrowly.</p> + +<p>“Merciful heavens!” said Morgan, springing to his feet, looking around for his coat and hat. “We +must stop this thing before it’s too late, Judge–I tell you we must stop it! Isn’t there some +way–have they convicted Joe?”</p> + +<p>“Sit down, Morgan, and calm yourself. Hold your feet out to the blaze and dry them,” the judge +admonished, kindly.</p> + +<p>“What’s happened?” asked Morgan, wildly, not heeding the command.</p> + +<p>“You shall hear it all in time,” promised the judge. “Sit down here and tell me what you’ve +been doing all these weeks. Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>“Judge, I’ve been over in Saint Joe selling books,” said Morgan, “and I’ll tell you +the truth, Judge, I never intended to come back here.” He turned and faced the judge, leaning forward earnestly, +his face white. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “But I had to come back–I was sent back +by–by a voice!”</p> + +<p>“Just so,” nodded Judge Maxwell.</p> + +<p>“You may think it’s a pipe-dream, Judge, but it ain’t. It’s the solemn truth, if I ever told +it in my life. I intended to let Joe Newbolt go on and carry what he’d picked up, and then when he was out of the +way in the pen, or worse, maybe, I intended to hunt Ollie up and marry her. I didn’t want that business that Joe +Newbolt’s been keeping back let out on her, don’t you see, Judge? It concerns her and me, Judge; it +ain’t the kind of a story a man’s folks would want told around about his wife, you understand?”</p> + +<p>The judge nodded. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_348'></a>348</span></p> + +<p>“All right,” said Morgan, wiping his forehead, which was beaded with sweat, “Last night along +about ten o’clock I was in my room reading the account in the paper of how Joe had refused on the stand yesterday +to tell anything, and how a young woman had stood up in the court-room and backed him up and encouraged him in his +stand. I was reading along comfortable and all right, when I seemed to hear somebody call me by my name.</p> + +<p>“I tell you I seemed to hear it, for there wasn’t a soul in that room but myself, Judge. But that voice +seemed to sound as close to my ear as if it come out of a telephone. And it was a woman’s voice, too, believe me +or not, Judge!”</p> + +<p>“Yes?” said the judge, encouragingly, still studying Morgan’s face, curiously.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. She repeated my name, ‘Curtis Morgan,’ just that way. And then that voice seemed to say +to me, ‘Come to Shelbyville; start now, start now!’</p> + +<p>“Say, I got out of my chair, all in a cold sweat, for I thought it was a call, and I was slated to pass in my +checks right there. I looked under everything, back of everything in that room, and opened the door and took a dive +down the hall, thinkin’ maybe some swift guy was tryin’ to put one over. Nobody there. As empty, Judge, I +tell you, as the pa’m of my hand! But it’s no stall about that voice. I heard it, as plain as I ever heard +my mother call me, or the teacher speak to me in school.</p> + +<p>“I stood there holding onto the back of my chair, my legs as weak under me as if I’d stayed in +swimmin’ too long. I didn’t think anything about going to Shelbyville, or anywhere else, but hell, I guess, +for a minute or two. I tell you, Judge, I thought it was a call!”</p> + +<p>Morgan was sweating again in the recollection of that terrible experience. He wiped his face, and looked around the +room, listened as the rain splashed against the window, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_349'></a>349</span> the wind bent the branches of the great trees beside the wall.</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Judge Maxwell, leaning forward in his turn, waiting for Morgan’s next word.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Judge, I kept hearing that thing in my ear that way, every little while, till I threw some things +in my grip and started for the depot. There wasn’t any train out last night that’d fetch me within fifty +miles of here. I went back to my room and went to bed. But it didn’t let up on me. Off and on, all night, just +about the time I’d doze off a little, I’d seem to hear that voice. I went to the depot this morning, and +caught the eight o’clock train out. I’d ’a’ made it in here at two this afternoon if it +hadn’t been for a washout between here and the junction that put the trains on this branch out of service.</p> + +<p>“I took a rig and I started to drive over. I got caught in the rain and lost the road. I’ve been miles +out of my way, and used up three horses, but I was bound to come. And I’m here to take my medicine.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said the judge. “Well, Morgan, I think it was the voice of conscience that you heard, but +you’re no more to blame than any of us, I suppose, because you failed to recognize it. Few of us pay enough +attention to it to let it bother us that way.”</p> + +<p>“Believe me or not, it wasn’t any pipe-dream!” said Morgan, so earnestly that the flippancy of his +slangy speech did not seem out of place. “It was a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t the voice of any +woman in this world!”</p> + +<p>“It’s a strange experience,” said the judge.</p> + +<p>“You can call it that!” shuddered Morgan, expressive of the inadequacy of the words. “Anyhow, I +don’t want to hear it again, and I’m here to take my medicine, and go to the pen if I’ve got to, +Judge.”</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell put out his hand, impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Don’t try to make yourself out a martyr, Morgan,” said <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_350'></a>350</span> he. “You knew–and you know–very well that you hadn’t done anything +for which you could be punished, at least not by a prison sentence.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know,” said Morgan, twisting his head argumentatively, as if to imply that there +was more behind his villainy than the judge supposed, “but I thought when a feller got to foolin’ with +another man’s wife––”</p> + +<p>“Oh, pshaw!” cut in the judge. “You’re thinking of it as it should be, not as it is. The +thing that you’re guilty of, let me tell you for your future guidance and peace, is only a misdemeanor in this +state, not a felony. In a case like this it ought to be a capital offense. You’ve shown that there’s +something in you by coming back to take your medicine, as you say, and voice or no voice, Morgan, I’m going to +give you credit for that.”</p> + +<p>“If the devil ever rode a man!” said Morgan.</p> + +<p>“No, it was far from that,” reproved the judge.</p> + +<p>“It got me goin’, Judge,” said Morgan, scaring up a little jerky laugh, “and it got me +goin’ <i>right</i>! It stuck to me till I got on that train and headed for this town, and I’ll hear the +ring of it in my ear to my last–what’s that?”</p> + +<p>Morgan started to his feet, pale and shaking.</p> + +<p>“It was the wind,” said the judge.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m here, anyhow, and I came fast as I could,” said Morgan, appealingly. “Do you +think it’ll stick to me, and keep it up?”</p> + +<p>“Why should it?” said the judge. “You’ve done your duty, even though whipped to +it.”</p> + +<p>“If the devil ever whipped a man!” breathed Morgan, “I’m that man.”</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell had doubted the man’s sanity at first, when he began to talk about the voice. Now he only +marveled at this thing, so elusive of all human science to explain, or human philosophy to define. He recalled an +experience <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_351'></a>351</span> of a friend–one who had been for many +years court stenographer–who, in a distant city, had been impelled to seize his pencil on a certain night, and +write a message which he seemed to hear plainly dictated into his ear by one in Shelbyville. As soon as the post could +carry a message to the man whose voice the stenographer had heard, he was asked about the telepathic communication. He +at once mailed to the man who had taken it down, more than two thousand miles away, the identical message, word for +word. It had been an experiment, he said.</p> + +<p>Perhaps something like that had occurred in Morgan’s case, or perhaps the man merely had dreamed, a recurring +dream such as everybody has experienced, and the strong impression of his vision had haunted him, and driven him to the +act. And perhaps someone of vigorous intellect and strong will had commanded him. Perhaps–no matter. It was +done.</p> + +<p>Morgan was there, and the record of justice in the case of state against Newbolt was about to be made final and +complete.</p> + +<p>“You say it’s all over, Judge,” spoke Morgan. “What did they do with Joe?”</p> + +<p>“What happened in court today,” said Judge Maxwell, rising to his feet, “you would have heard if +you had been there. But as you were not, it is not for me to relate. That is the privilege of another, as the matter of +your condemnation or acquittal is in other hands than mine.”</p> + +<p>“I know I acted like a dog,” admitted Morgan, sincerely contrite, “both to Ollie and to Joe. But +I’m here to take my medicine, Judge. I thought a lot of that little woman, and I’d ’a’ made a +lady of her, too. That was it. Judge; that was at the bottom of this whole business. Ollie and I planned to skip out +together, and Joe put his foot in the mess and upset it. That’s what the fuss between him and old <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352'></a>352</span> Isom was over, you can put that down in your book, Judge. I’ve +got it all lined out, and I can tell you just––”</p> + +<p>“Never mind; I think I understand. You’d have made a lady of her, would you? But that was when she was +clean, and unsuspected in the eyes of the world. How far would your heroism go, Morgan, if you met her in the street +tonight, bespattered with public scorn, bedraggled with public contempt, crushed by the discovery of your mutual sin +against that old man, Isom Chase? Would you take her to your heart then, Morgan? Would you be man enough to step out +into the storm of scorn, and shoulder your part of the load like a man?”</p> + +<p>“If I found her in the lowest ditch I’d take her up, Judge, and I’d marry her–if she’d +have me then!” said Morgan, earnestly. “When a man’s careless and free, Judge, he sees things one +way; when he comes up on a short rope like this, he sees them another.”</p> + +<p>“You are right, Morgan,” said the judge.</p> + +<p>He walked the length of the room, hands clasped behind his back, his head bent in thought. When he came back to the +fire he stood a little while before Morgan, looking at him with intent directness, like a physician sounding for a +baffling vagary which lies hidden in the brain.</p> + +<p>There was a question in his face which Morgan could not grasp. It gave him a feeling of impending trouble. He +shifted uneasily in his chair.</p> + +<p>“Stay here until I return,” commanded the judge. “I shall not be long.”</p> + +<p>“I’m here to take my medicine,” reiterated Morgan, weakly. “I wouldn’t leave if the +road was open to me, Judge.”</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell went to the door, calling for Hiram. Hiram was not far away. His candle was still burning; he came +bobbing along the hall with it held high so he could look <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_353'></a>353</span> +under it, after the manner of one who had been using candles all his life.</p> + +<p>“My overcoat, Hiram, and my neck shawl,” ordered the judge. He turned to Morgan, who was standing on the +hearth.</p> + +<p>“Wait for me, I’ll not be long away.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a blusterin’ and a blowin’ mighty bad, Judge. I’ll get my +coat––”</p> + +<p>“No, no, Hiram; there’s something for you to do here. Watch that man; don’t let him +leave.”</p> + +<p>“He ain’t gwine a-leave, Judge, sah,” said Hiram with calm significance.</p> + +<p>Hiram held up the great frieze coat, and the judge plunged his arms into it. Then the old negro adjusted the shawl +about his master’s shoulders, and tucked the ends of it inside the coat, buttoning that garment over them, to +shield the judge’s neck from the driving rain.</p> + +<p>The judge turned back into the room to throw another stick on the fire. The lamp was burning low; he reached over to +turn up the wick. The flame jumped, faltered, went out.</p> + +<p>“Hah, I’ve turned it out, Morgan. Well, no matter. You’ll not need more light than the fire +throws. Make yourself comfortable, Morgan.”</p> + +<p>With a word to Hiram, the judge opened the door and stepped out into the night.</p> + +<p>On the pavement the wind met him rudely, and the rain drove its cold arrows against his kind old face. Wonderful are +the ways of Providence, thought Judge Maxwell, bending his head to bring his broad hat-brim to shield his face, and +complete are the accounts of justice when it is given that men may see them down to the final word.</p> + +<p>The wind laid hold of the judge’s coat, and tugged at it like a vicious dog; it raged in the gaunt trees, and +split in long sighs upon the gable-ends and eaves. There was nobody <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_354'></a>354</span> abroad. For Shelbyville the hour was late; Judge Maxwell had the street to himself as he held +on his way.</p> + +<p>Past the court-house he fought the wind, and a square beyond that. There he turned down a small street, where the +force of the blast was broken, looking narrowly about him to right and left at the fronts of houses as he passed.</p> + +<p>Simeon Harrison, Ollie Chase’s father, lately had given over his unprofitable struggle with the soil. He had +taken a house near the Methodist church and gone into the business of teaming. He hauled the merchants’ goods up +from the railroad station, and moved such inhabitants of Shelbyville as once in a while made a change from one abode to +another.</p> + +<p>Sim had come to Shelbyville with a plan for setting up a general livery business, in which ambition he had been +encouraged by Ollie’s marriage to Isom Chase, to whom he looked, remotely, for financial backing. But that had +turned out a lean and unprofitable dream.</p> + +<p>Since Isom’s death Ollie had returned to live with her parents, and Sim’s prospects had brightened. He +had put a big sign in front of his house, upon which he had listed the many services which he stood ready to perform +for mankind, in consideration of payment therefor. They ranged from moving trunks to cleaning cisterns, and, by grace +of all of them, Sim was doing very well.</p> + +<p>When Sim Harrison heard of his daughter’s public confession of shameful conduct with her book-agent boarder, +he was a highly scornful man. He scorned her for her weakness in yielding to what he termed the +“dally-faddle” of the book-agent, and he doubly scorned her for repudiating her former testimony. The moral +side of the matter was obscure to him; it made no appeal.</p> + +<p>His sense of personal pride and family honor was not touched by his daughter’s confession of shame, any more +than his soul was moved to tenderness and warmth for her honest <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_355'></a>355</span> rescue of Joe Newbolt from his overhanging peril. He was voluble in his declarations that +they would “put the screws” to Ollie on the charge of perjury. Sim would have kept his own mouth sealed +under like circumstances, and it was beyond him to understand why his daughter had less discretion than her parent. So +he bore down on the solemn declaration that she stood face to face with a prison term for perjury.</p> + +<p>Sim had made so much of this that Ollie and her mother were watching that night out in fear and trembling, sitting +huddled together in a little room with the peak of the roof in the ceiling, a lamp burning between them on the stand. +Their arms lay listlessly in their laps, they turned their heads in quick starts at the sound of every footfall on the +board walk, or when the wind swung the loose-jointed gate and flung it against its anchorings. They were waiting for +the sheriff to come and carry Ollie away to jail.</p> + +<p>In front of Sim Harrison’s house there was a little porch, not much bigger than a hand held slantingly against +its weathered side, and in the shadow of it one who had approached unheard by the anxious watchers through the +blustering night, stood fumbling for the handle of a bell. But Sim Harrison’s door was bald of a bell handle, as +it was bare of paint, and now a summons sounded on its thin panel, and went roaring through the house like a blow on a +drum.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Harrison looked meaningly at Ollie; Ollie nodded, understandingly. The summons for which they had waited had +come. The older woman rose in resigned determination, went below and opened the door.</p> + +<p>“It is Judge Maxwell,” said the dark figure which stood large and fearful in Mrs. Harrison’s +sight. “I have come to see Mrs. Chase.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; I’ll call her,” said the trembling woman.</p> + +<p>Ollie had heard from the top of the stairs. She was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356'></a>356</span> +descending in the darkness, softly. She spoke as her mother turned from the door.</p> + +<p>“I was expecting you–some of you,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then,” said Judge Maxwell, wondering if that mysterious voice had worked another miracle. +“Get your wraps and come with me.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Harrison began to groan and wail. Couldn’t they let the poor child stay there till morning, under her own +mother’s roof? It was a wild and terrible night, and Lord knew the poor, beaten, bruised, and weary bird would +not fly away!</p> + +<p>“Save your tears, madam, until they are needed,” said the judge, not feeling that he was called upon to +explain the purpose of his visit to her.</p> + +<p>“I’m ready to go,” announced Ollie, hooded and cloaked in the door.</p> + +<p>Sim Harrison was stirring about overhead. He came to the top of the stairs with a lamp in his hand, and wanted to +know what the rumpus was about.</p> + +<p>“It’s Judge Maxwell–he’s come for Ollie!” said his wife, in a despairing wail.</p> + +<p>“I knowed it, I knowed it!” declared Sim, with fatalistic resignation, above which there was perhaps a +slight note of triumph in seeing his own prediction so speedily fulfilled.</p> + +<p>To Harrison and his wife there was no distinction between the executive and judicial branches of the law. Judge or +sheriff, it was all one to them, each being equally terrible in their eyes.</p> + +<p>“When can she come home, Judge, when can she come back?” appealed Mrs. Harrison, in anguished +pleading.</p> + +<p>“It rests with her,” returned the judge.</p> + +<p>He gave Ollie his arm, and they passed together in silence up the street. They had proceeded a square before the +judge spoke. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357'></a>357</span></p> + +<p>“I am calling you on an unusual mission, Mrs. Chase,” he said, “but I did not know a better way +than this to go about what I felt it my duty to do.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said she. He could feel her tremble as she lightly touched his arm.</p> + +<p>They passed the court-house. There was a light in the sheriff’s office, but they did not turn in there, and a +sigh for that temporary respite, at least, escaped her. The judge spoke again.</p> + +<p>“You left the court-room today before I had a chance to speak to you, Mrs. Chase. I wanted to tell you how +much I admired your courage in coming forward with the statement that cleared away the doubt and tangles from Joe +Newbolt’s case. You deserve a great deal of credit, which I am certain the public will not withhold. You are a +brave little woman, Ollie Chase.”</p> + +<p>There it was again! Twice in a day she had heard it, from eminent sources each time. The world was not a bleak +desert, as she had thought, but a place of kindness and of gentle hearts.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you don’t blame me,” she faltered, not knowing what to make of this unexpected +turn in the night’s adventure.</p> + +<p>“A brave little woman!” repeated the judge feelingly. “And I want you to know that I respect and +admire you for what you have done.”</p> + +<p>Ollie was silent, but her heart was shouting, leaping, and bounding again in light freedom, as it had lifted that +morning when Alice Price had spoken to her in her despair. At last, she said, with earnestness:</p> + +<p>“I promise you I’ll be a good woman, too, from now on, Judge Maxwell, and I’m thankful to you for +your kind words.”</p> + +<p>“We turn in here–this is my door,” said the judge.</p> + +<p>Mystified, wondering what the next development of this <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_358'></a>358</span> +strange excursion into the night would be, but satisfied in her mind that it meant no ill for her now, Ollie waited +while the judge found the keyhole, for which he groped in the dark.</p> + +<p>“And the matter of the will was all disposed of by the probate judge today, I hear,” said the judge, his +hand on the door.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Then your life is all before you, to make of it what you will,” said he, placing his hand on her +shoulder, as she stood with him in the dim hall. He opened the study door. The wood on the grate was blazing brightly. +Ollie saw someone standing before it, bending slightly forward in the pose of expectation. He was tall and of familiar +figure, and the firelight was playing in the tossed curls of his short, fair hair.</p> + +<p>“In there,” said the judge, “if you care to go.”</p> + +<p>Ollie did not stir. Her feet felt rooted to the floor in the wonder and doubt of this strange occurrence.</p> + +<p>“Ollie!” cried the man at the hearthstone, calling her name imploringly. He came forward, holding out +pleading hands.</p> + +<p>She stood a moment, as if gathering herself to a resolution. A sob rose in her throat, and broke from her lips +transformed into a trembling, sharp, glad cry. It was as if she had cast the clot of sorrow from her heart. Then she +passed into the room and met him.</p> + +<p>Judge Maxwell closed the door.</p> +</div> + +<div class='header'> +<hr class='pb' /> +<a id='link_23'></a> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359'></a>359</span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII<br /> +<span class='h2fs'>LEST I FORGET</span></h2></div> + +<div class='text'> +<p>Mrs. Newbolt was cutting splints for her new sun-bonnet out of a pasteboard box. She hitched her chair back a little +farther into the shadow of the porch, for the impertinent sun was winking on her bright scissors, dazzling her +eyes.</p> + +<p>It was past the turn of the afternoon; a soft wind was moving with indolence among the tender leaves, sleepy from +the scents of lilac and apple bloom which it had drunk on its way. And now it loitered under the eaves of the porch to +mix honeysuckle with its stream of drowsy sweets, like a chemist of Araby the Blest preparing a perfume for the +harem’s pride.</p> + +<p>There was the gleam of fresh paint on the walls of the old house. The steps of the porch had been renewed with +strong timber, the rotting siding had been replaced. Mrs. Newbolt’s chair no longer drew squeaks and groans from +the floor of the porch as she rocked, swaying gently as her quick shears shaped the board. New flooring had been laid +there, and painted a handsome gray; the falling trellis between gate and door had been plumbed and renewed.</p> + +<p>New life was everywhere about the old place, yet its old charm was undisturbed, its old homeliness was unchanged. +Comfort had come to dejection, tidiness had been restored to beauty. The windows of the old house now looked upon the +highway boldly, owing the world nothing in the way of glass.</p> + +<p>Where the sprawling rail fence had lain for nearly forty years, renewed piecemeal from time to time as it rotted +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_360'></a>360</span> away, its corners full of brambles, its stakes and riders +overrun with poison-vine; where this brown, jointed structure had stretched, like a fossil worm, a great transformation +had come. The rails were gone, the brambles were cleared away, and a neat white fence of pickets stretched in front of +the house. This was flanked on either hand by a high fence of woven wire, new to that country then, at once the wonder +of the old inhabitants, the despair of prowling hogs and the bewilderment of hens. There was a gate now where the old +gap had been; it swung shut behind one with an eager little spring, which startled agents and strangers with the +sharpness of its click.</p> + +<p>The shrubbery had been cleared of dead wood, and the underlying generations of withered honeysuckle vines which had +spread under the green upon the old trellis, had been taken away. Freshness was there, the mark of an eager, vigorous +hand. The matted blue grass which sodded the yard had been cut and trimmed to lines along the path. A great and happy +change had come over the old place, so long under the shadow. People stopped to admire it as they passed.</p> + +<p>“Well, well; it’s the doin’s of that boy, Joe Newbolt!” they said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt paused in her clipping of bonnet slats to make a menacing snip at a big white rooster which came +picking around the steps. The fowl stretched his long neck and turned his bright eye up to his mistress with a slanting +of the head.</p> + +<p>“How did you git out of that pen, you old scalawag?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>The rooster took a long and dignified step away from her, where he stood, with little appearance of alarm, turning +his head, questioning her with his shining eye. She made a little lunge with her shears. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361'></a>361</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m goin’ to tell Joe on you, you scamp!” she threatened.</p> + +<p>“<i>Coo-doot-cut!</i>” said the rooster, looking about him with a long stretching of the neck.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you better begin to cackle over it,” said she, speaking in solemn reproof, as if addressing a +child, “for Joe he’ll just about cut your sassy old head clean off! If he don’t do that, he’ll +trim down that wing of yourn till you can’t bat a skeeter off your nose with it, you redick-lous old +critter!”</p> + +<p>But it was not the threat of Joe that had drawn the cry of alarm from the fowl. The sound of steps was growing along +the path from the front gate, and the fowl scampered off to the cover of the gooseberry vines, as Mrs. Newbolt turned +to see who the visitor was. The scissors fell from her lap, and her spool trundled off across the porch.</p> + +<p>“Laws, Sol Greening, you give me a start, sneakin’ up like that!”</p> + +<p>Sol laughed out of his whiskers, with a big, loose-rolling sound, and sat on the porch without waiting to be +asked.</p> + +<p>“I walked up over the grass,” said he. “It’s as soft under your feet as plowed ground. They +say Joe’s got one of them lawn-cutters to mow it with?”</p> + +<p>“Well, what if he has?” she wanted to know. “He’s got a good many things and improvements +around here that you folks that’s lived here for seventy years and more never seen before, I reckon.”</p> + +<p>“He sure is a great feller for steppin’ out his own way!” marveled Sol. “I never seen such a +change in a place inside of a year as Joe’s made in this one–never in my mortal borned days. It was a lucky +day for Joe when Judge Maxwell took a likin’ to him that way.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt was looking away toward the hills, a dreamy cast in her placid face. <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_362'></a>362</span></p> + +<p>“Yes,” said she, “there’s no denyin’ that. But Joe he’d ’a’ got +along, Judge Maxwell or no Judge Maxwell. Only it’d ’a’ been slower and harder for him.”</p> + +<p>“He would ’a’,” nodded Sol, without reservation. “No discountin’ on that. That +boy beats anything this here country ever perduced, barrin’ none, and I ain’t sayin’ that, either, +ma’am, just to please you.”</p> + +<p>“Much thanks I owe you for what you think of Joe!” said she, scornfully. “You was ready enough, +not so very long ago, to set the whole world ag’in’ him if you could.”</p> + +<p>“Well, circumstantial evidence–” began Sol.</p> + +<p>“Oh, circumstantial nest-eggs!” said she, impatiently. “You’d known Joe all his life, and +you know very well he didn’t shoot Isom Chase any more than you done it yourself!”</p> + +<p>“Well, mistakes is humant,” sighed Sol, taking advantage of that universal absolution. “They say +Judge Maxwell’s goin’ to leave everything he’s got to Joe, and he’s got a considerable, I +reckon.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know as Joe’d take it,” said she, folding her hands in her lap. “Judge +Maxwell had a hard time to git Joe to let him put in the money to do things around here, and send him to college over +in Shelbyville last winter. Joe let him do it on the understandin’ that it was a loan, to be paid interest on and +paid back when he was able.”</p> + +<p>“Well, from the start he’s makin’ it don’t look like the judge ’d have very long to +wait for his money,” said Sol. “Twenty acres of apple trees all in a orchard together, and twenty acres of +strawberries set out betwixt and between the rows!”</p> + +<p>He looked over the hillside and little apron of valley where Joe’s young orchard spread. Each tiny tree was a +plume of leaves; the rows stretched out to the hilltop, and over.</p> + +<p>“I can figger out how twenty acres of apples can be picked and took care of,” reflected Sol, as if going +over with <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363'></a>363</span> himself something which he had given thought to +before, “but I’ll be durned if I can figger out how any man’s goin’ to pick and take care of +twenty acres of strawberries!”</p> + +<p>“Joe knows,” said his mother.</p> + +<p>“Well, I hope he does,” sighed Sol, the sigh being breathed to give expression of what remained +unspoken. No matter what his hopes, his doubts were unshaken.</p> + +<p>No man had ever taken care of twenty acres of strawberries–nor the twentieth part of one acre, for that +matter–in that community. No man could do it, according to the bone-deep belief of Sol and his kind.</p> + +<p>“Joe says that’s only a little dab of a start,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Cree-mo-nee!” said Sol, his mouth standing open like a mussel shell in the sun. “When’ll +they be ripe?”</p> + +<p>“Next spring.”</p> + +<p>“Which?” queried Sol, perking his head in puzzled and impertinent way, very much as the rooster had done +a little while before him.</p> + +<p>“Next spring, I said,” she repeated, nodding over her bonnet, into which she was slipping the +splints.</p> + +<p>“No crop this year?”</p> + +<p>“No; Joe says it weakens the plants to bear the first year they’re set. It takes the strength away from +the roots, he says. He goes through the field and snips off every bloom he sees when he’s hoein’ among +’em, and I help him between times. We don’t git all of ’em, by a mighty sight, though.”</p> + +<p>Sol shook his head with wise depreciation.</p> + +<p>“Throwin’ away money,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever raise any strawberries?” she inquired, putting down the bonnet, bringing Sol up with a +sharp look.</p> + +<p>“Reckon I raised as many as Joe ever did, and them mainly with a spoon,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>The joke was not entirely new; it could not have been original with Sol by at least three hundred years. But it did +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364'></a>364</span> very well as an excuse for Sol to laugh. He was always +looking for excuses to laugh, that was the one virtue in him. Without his big laugh he would have been an empty sack +without a bottom.</p> + +<p>“Joe got them rows mighty purty and straight,” said Sol, squinting along the apple trees.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he set ’em out accordin’ to geog’aphy,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Which?” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Ge-og’a-phy, I said. Didn’t you never hear tell of that before neither, Sol Greening?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Sol, lightly, as if that made it all as plain to him as his own cracked thumbs. “How +much does Joe reckon he’ll git off of that patch of berries when it begins to bear?”</p> + +<p>“I never heard him say he expected to make anything,” said she, “but I read in one of them +fruit-growin’ papers he takes that they make as much as three hundred dollars an acre from ’em back in +Ellinoi.”</p> + +<p>Sol got up, slowly; took a backward step into the yard; filled his lungs, opened his mouth, made his eyes round. +Under the internal pressure his whiskers stood on end and his face grew red. “Oh, you git <i>out</i>!” said +he.</p> + +<p>“I can show it to you in the paper,” she offered, making as if to put aside her sewing.</p> + +<p>Sol laid a finger on his palm and stood with his head bent. After a bit he looked up, his eyes still round.</p> + +<p>“If he even makes a hundred, that’ll be two thousand dollars a year!”</p> + +<p>It was such a magnificent sum that Sol did not feel like taking the familiarity with it of mentioning it aloud. He +whispered it, giving it large, rich sound.</p> + +<p>“Why, I reckon it would be,” said she, offhand and careless, just as if two thousand a year, more or +less, mattered very little to Joe. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_365'></a>365</span></p> + +<p>“That’s more than I ever made in my whole dad-blame life,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“Well, whose fault is it, Sol?” asked she.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe it can be done!”</p> + +<p>“You’ll see,” she assured him, comfortably.</p> + +<p>“And Joe he went and stuck to the old place,” reflected Sol. “He might ’a’ got some +better land for his sperimentin’ and projeckin’ if he’d ’a’ looked around.”</p> + +<p>“He was offered land, all the land a man could want,” said she. “Ollie wanted him to take over the +Chase home place and farm it when she and Morgan married and left, but Joe he said no; the Newbolts had made their +failures here, he said, and here they was goin’ to make their success. He had to redeem the past, Joe said, and +wipe out the mistakes, and show folks what a Newbolt can do when he gits his foot set right.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll do it, too,” said Sol, without a reserved grudge or jealousy; “he’s doin’ +it already.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I always knew Joe would,” said she. “When he was nothing but a little shaver he’d read +the <i>Cottage Encyclopedy</i> and the <i>Imitation</i> and the Bible, from back to back. I said then he’d be +governor of this state, and he will.”</p> + +<p>She spoke confidently, nodding over her work.</p> + +<p>“Shucks! How do you know he will?”</p> + +<p>Sol’s faith was not strong in this high-flying forecast. It seemed to him that it was crowding things a little +too far.</p> + +<p>“You’ll live to see it,” said she.</p> + +<p>Sol sat with his back against a pillar of the porch, one foot on the ground, the other standing on the boards in +front of him, his hands locked about his doubled knee. He sat there and looked up at the Widow Newbolt, raising his +eyebrows and rolling his eyes, but not lifting his head, which was slightly bent. “Well, what’s to +be’s to be,” said he. “When’s he goin’ to marry?” <span class= +'pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366'></a>366</span></p> + +<p>“When he’s through goin’ to college.”</p> + +<p>“That’ll be two or three years, maybe?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe.”</p> + +<p>“Hum; Alice Price she’ll be gettin’ purty well along by that time.”</p> + +<p>“She’s not quite a year older than Joe,” Mrs. Newbolt corrected him, with some asperity, +“and she’s one of the kind that’ll keep. Well, I was married myself, and had a baby, when I was +nineteen. But that’s no sign.”</p> + +<p>“Joe’ll build, I reckon, before then?” guessed Sol.</p> + +<p>“No; Alice don’t want him to. She wants to come here a bride, to this house, like I come to it long, +long ago. We’ll fix up and make ready for her, little by little, as we go along. It’ll be bringin’ +back the pleasure of the old days, it’ll be like livin’ my courtship and marriage over. This was a fine +house in the days that Peter brought me here, for Peter, he had money then, and he put the best there was goin’ +into it.”</p> + +<p>“It looks better than any house around here now, since you fixed it up and painted it,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“It’s better inside than outside,” said she, with a woman’s pride in a home, which justifies +her warmth for it. “We had it all plastered and varnished. The doors and casin’s and all the +trimmin’s are walnut, worth their weight in gold, now, almost, Judge Maxwell says.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the curly walnut’s all gone, years and years ago,” said Sol.</p> + +<p>“It passed away with the pioneers,” sighed she.</p> + +<p>“I suppose they’ll build in time, though?” Sol said.</p> + +<p>“I ’low they will, maybe, after I’m gone,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, well!” said Sol. He sat silent a little while. “Folks never have got over wonderin’ +on the way she took up with Joe,” he said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newbolt flashed up in a breath.</p> + +<p>“Why should anybody wonder, I’d like for you to tell <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_367'></a>367</span> me?” she demanded. “Joe he’s good enough for her, and too good for anybody +else in this county! Who else was there for Joe, who else was there for Alice?”</p> + +<p>Sol did not attempt to answer. It was beyond him, the way some people figgered, he thought in the back of his mind. +There was his own girl, Tilda Bell. He considered her the equal to any Newbolt that ever straddled a horse and rode +over from Kentucky. But then, you never could tell how tastes run.</p> + +<p>“Well, reckon I’ll have to be rackin’ out home,” said he, getting up, tiptoeing to take the +cramp out of his legs.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and I’ll have to be stirrin’ the pots to get supper for my boy Joe,” she said.</p> + +<p>The smoke from her kitchen fire rose white as she put in dry sumac to give it a start. It mounted straight as a +plume for a little way, until it met the cool air of evening which was beginning to fall. There it spread, like a +floating silken scarf, and settled over the roof. It draped down slowly over the walls, until it enveloped the old home +like the benediction of a loving heart.</p> + +<p>The sun was descending the ladder of the hills; low now it stood above them, the valley in shadow more than half its +breadth, a tender flood of gold upon the slope where the new orchard waved its eager shoots; the blessing of a day was +passing in the promise of a day to come.</p> + +<p>Out of the kitchen came the cheerful sound of batter for the corn bread being beaten in the bowl, and with it Sarah +Newbolt’s voice in song:</p> + +<div style='margin:0.5em 2em; text-align:justify;'><i>Near the cross, O Lamb of God</i>––</div> + +<p>The beating of the batter dimmed the next line. Then it rose to the close––</p> + +<div style='margin:0.5em;'><span style='margin-left: 1.0em;'><i>Let me walk from day to day,</i></span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1.0em;'><i>With its shadow o’er me.</i></span><br /> +</div> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_368'></a>368</span> +<p>The clamp of the oven door was heard, and silence followed.</p> + +<p>Sarah was standing on the porch again wiping her hands on her apron, looking away toward the fields. The sun was +dipping now into the forest cresting the hills; the white rooster was pacing the outside of the wire enclosure from +which he had escaped, in frantic search of an opening to admit him to his perch, his proud head all rumpled in his +baffled eagerness, his dangling wattles fiery red.</p> + +<p>The smoke had found the low places in garden and lawn, where it hovered; a dove wailed from the old orchard, where a +pair of them nested year after year; a little child-wind came with soft fingers, and laid them on the waiting +woman’s hair.</p> + +<p>Her face quickened with a smile. Joe was coming home from the field. Over his shoulder he carried his hoe, and as he +came on toward her in yard-long strides his mother thought of the young soldiers she had seen march away to the war, +carrying their guns in that same free confidence of careless strength. His hat was pushed back from his forehead, the +collar of his blue flannel shirt was open. His boyish suspenders had been put away in favor of a belt, which was +tight-drawn about his slim waist.</p> + +<p>Very trim and strong, and confident he looked, with the glow of youth in his cheeks, and the spark of happiness in +his gray eyes. He was well set in the form of a man now, the months since his imprisonment having brought him much to +fasten upon and hold.</p> + +<p>Joe made the same great splashing that he had made on that spring evening of a year gone by, when he came home from +work to step into the shadow which so quickly grew into a storm. But there was no shadow ahead of him this night; there +was no somber thing to bend down the high serenity of his happy heart.</p> + +<p>He stood before the glass hung above the wash bench and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_369'></a>369</span> smoothed his hair. Mrs. Newbolt was standing by the stove, one of the lids partly removed, +some white thing in her hand which she seemed hesitating over consigning to the flames.</p> + +<p>“What’ve you got there, Mother?” he asked cheerily as he turned to take his place at the waiting +table.</p> + +<p>“Laws,” said she, in some perturbation, her face flushed, holding the thing in her hand up to his better +view, “it’s that old paper I got from Isom when I–a year ago! I mislaid it when the men was +paintin’ and plasterin’, and I just now run across it stuck back of the coffee jar.”</p> + +<p>For a moment Joe stood behind her, silently, looking over her shoulder at the signature of Isom Chase.</p> + +<p>“It’s no use now,” said she, her humiliation over being confronted with this reminder of her past +perfidy against her beloved boy almost overwhelming her. “We might as well put it in the stove and git it out of +sight.”</p> + +<p>Joe looked at her with a smile, his face still solemn and serious for all its youth and the fires of new-lit hope +behind his eyes. He laid his hand upon her shoulder assuringly, and closed the stove.</p> + +<p>“Give it to me, Mother,” said he, reaching out his hand.</p> + +<p>She placed the bond of his transference to Isom Chase in it, and those old heart-wrung tears of hers, which had been +dry upon her cheeks now for many a happy day, welled, and flowed down silently.</p> + +<p>Joe folded the paper.</p> + +<p>“I’ll keep it, Mother,” said he, “so that it will stand as a reminder to me in prosperity +that I was once poor and in bondage; and in my happiness that it may tell me of the days when I was forsaken and in +prison, with only my mother’s faithful hand to comfort me.</p> + +<p>“I’ll put it away and keep it, Mother, lest in my prosperity some day I may forget the Lord; forget that +He giveth, and that He taketh away, also; that His hand chastiseth in the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id= +'page_370'></a>370</span> same measure that it bestows blessings upon us. I’ll leave it up here, Mother, on the +old shelf; right where I can see it every time I take down the Book.”</p> + +<div style='margin:.5em auto; text-align:center;'>W. B. C.<br /></div> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BONDBOY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 30567-h.txt or 30567-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/5/6/30567">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/5/6/30567</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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