Cat sitting on post looking forward.
Immediatelyafter breakfast on Monday morning Mr. Peaslee, in a mood of desperate self-sacrifice, started up-town to buy a knife—for Jim!
All day long on Sunday, when he had nothing to do but think, he had struggled between his fear ofexposure and his sorrow for the boy. The upshot was a determination to "make it up to him" by giving him a knife. He had in his mind's eye a marvel—stag-horn handle, four blades, saw, awl, file, hoof-hook, corkscrew! Such a knife as that, he felt, would console any boy for being arrested. "Most likely 't will end right there," he said to himself.
"I guess I'd better go to Farley's," he thought, as he walked along. "Farley owes money to the bank. He won't dare to stick it on like the rest."
But when he entered the storeand looked about, his face fell. Mr. Farley was not there! Willie Potter, Farley's clerk, a young man peculiarly distasteful to Solomon, lounged forward with a toothpick in his mouth. Mr. Peaslee had half a mind to go, but the thought of poor Jim held him back.
"What will you have to-day, Mr. Peaslee?" inquired Willie, affably. He winked at young Dannie Snow, who sat grinning on a keg of nails, as much as to say, "Watch me have some fun with the old man."
"I thought mebbe I'd look at some jack-knives," said Solomon, eyeing Willie distrustfully.
"Yes, sir, I guess you want the best, regardless of expense," said Willie, impudently. He well understood his customer's dislike for spending a penny. Stepping behind the counter, he drew from the show-case and held up admiringly the most costly knife in the store.
"Here, now, what do you say to this? Very superior article. Best horn, ten blades, best razor steel. Three-fifty, and cheap at the price. Can't be beat this side of Boston. Just the article for you, sir."
And he winked again at Dannie Snow, who was pink with suppressed merriment.
"Well, now, well, now," said Solomon, taking the knife in his hand and pretending to examine it closely. "That's a pretty knife, to be sure,—to—be—sure. Real showy, ain't it? Looks as if 't was made to sell—all outside and no money in the bank, like some young fellers ye see."
Dannie Snow giggling outright, Mr. Peaslee turned and gazed at him in mild inquiry. Young Potter turned a dull red. He was addicted to radiant cravats and gauzy silk handkerchiefs, and from his "salary" of eight dollars a week he did not save much.
But just the same, Mr. Peaslee had been staggered at the price. Pretending still to examine the knife which Willie had given him, he squinted past it at the contents of the glass show-case on which his elbows rested. There all sorts of knives confronted him, each in its little box, in which was stuck a card stating the price,—$1.50, $1.25, 90c, 45c. The cheapest one would eat up the proceeds of three dozen eggs at fifteen cents a dozen—a good price for eggs! He had forgotten that knives cost so much.
"A good knife ain't any use to a boy," he reflected. "Break it ina day, lose it in a week. 'T wouldn't be any real kindness to him. Just wastin' money."
He pointed finally to a stubby, wooden-handled knife with one big blade, marked 25c.
"There, now," said he, "that's what I call a knife. Good and strong, and no folderol. Guarantee the steel, don't ye?"
He opened the blade and drew it speculatively across his calloused old thumb, while with his mild blue eyes, which his spectacles enormously exaggerated, he fixed the humbled Willie.
"That's a good knife for themoney," said that young man. "Hand-forged."
"Sho now, ye don't say so," said Mr. Peaslee. "I guess ye give a discount, don't ye? Farley always allows me a little suthin'."
"You can have it for twenty-one cents," said Willie, much irritated. "Charge it?"
"Guess I better pay cash," Mr. Peaslee answered hastily. If it were charged, his wife would question the item.
Producing an enormous wallet—very worn and very flat—from his cavernous pocket, he deliberately searched until he found a Canadian ten-cent piece, and adding to it enough to make up the price, handed it to Potter, and left the store.
Mr. Peaslee, who remembered no gift from his father other than a very occasional big copper cent, thought himself pretty generous. Had he not spent pretty nearly the price of two dozen eggs?
But now a question occurred to him which he had not thought of before. How was he to get the knife to Jim? A gift from him would excite surprise, perhaps suspicion. It must not be known who had sent it. Ah, there was the postoffice! Going in, he pushed the little box through the barred window.
"Say, Cyrus," he said to the postmaster, "kinder weigh up this consignment for me, will ye?"
The postmaster weighed the box.
"That will cost you six cents," he said.
"Thank ye," returned Mr. Peaslee, and dropping the box into his deep pocket, departed. Half a dozen eggs more to get it to his next-door neighbor!
"'T ain't right," he muttered, "'t ain't right."
Uncertain what to do with his gift, but feeling, on the whole, prettyvirtuous, Mr. Peaslee now started home. He thought that Jim would not be going to school, but would wait at home for the threatened coming of the constable; but still he was not sure, and he wanted to keep the boy under his eye.
Suddenly he straightened. There was Judge Ames walking up the street, valise in hand, just from the early morning train. He had come a few days before the opening of court. Mr. Peaslee knew him slightly, and stood much in awe of him. He was greatly pleased when the judge stopped and shook hands with him.
"I am glad to hear, Mr. Peaslee,"said the judge, in his precise, lawyer-like utterance, "that you are to be on the grand jury. We need men like you there."
"Thank ye, judge, thank ye," said Mr. Peaslee, overcome. And he walked on home, quite convinced that a person of his importance in the community should not be sacrificed to the comfort of any small boy.
"And I've done right by the little feller, I've done right," he assured himself, feeling the knife.
As he turned into his own yard, he cast an anxious eye over to the Edwards house. There sat Jim,elbows on knees, chin on hands, staring into space. Jim was thinking that his father, had he been a pirate chief, would not have wiped a filial tear from his eye whenever he thought of his mother; and the boy's face showed it. The spectacle greatly depressed Mr. Peaslee. The smallest, faintest question entered his mind whether a twenty-five-cent knife would console such melancholy.
To give himself a countenance while he watched events, Solomon got a rake and began gathering together the few autumn leaves which had fluttered down in his front yard.It was not useless labor, for they would "come in handy" later in "banking up" the house.
And so, presently, he saw Sam Barton, the constable, his big shoulders rolling as he walked, advancing down the street. Mr. Peaslee expected him; nevertheless his appearance gave him a disagreeable shock. Suppose the constable had been coming for him!
"Ain't arrestin' anybody down this way, be ye?" he called, with a feeble attempt at jocularity. Perhaps, after all—
"Looks like it," said Barton, succinctly.
Mr. Peaslee stepped to the fence. "'T aint likely they'll do much to a leetle feller like that, I guess," he said, searching the constable's face.
"Dunno," said Barton, passing on.
Solomon, much concerned, leaned on his rake and watched him enter the Edwards house. Jim had disappeared; there was some delay.
Mrs. Peaslee came to the door.
"Arrestin' that Ed'ards boy, be they, Solomon?" she said. "Well, serve him right,Isay, shootin' guns off so. Like father, like son.Idunno as't wasthe son. I'd as soon believe it of the father. Everybodyknows Lamoury and he's been mixed up together. Some of his smugglin' tricks, prob'ly."
Mrs. Peaslee had taken a violent dislike to her taciturn neighbor, and she did not care who knew it. Her shrill voice seemed to her husband painfully loud, and, indeed, it was beginning to attract the attention of the group of children who had gathered about the Edwards gate.
"Sh!" hissed Solomon. "Ed'ards might hear ye. 'T would hurt us if he should take his account out of the bank."
"Humph!" exclaimed Mrs. Peaslee. "Well," she added, "you goto the hearin'. Justice is suthin', I guess."
But she said no more, and with her husband and the children awaited events—a silent group in the silent street before the silent house. The children's eyes grew bigger and bigger with excitement. Was not Jimmy Edwards going to be arrested for mur-r-rder? the horrid whisper ran. One small boy, beginning to whimper, asked if Jimmy was "going to be hung."
The occasion was solemn even to the older eyes of Mr. Peaslee. "S'posin' it was me," he said to himself.
Presently Mr. Edwards, Jim, and the constable emerged from the house. Jim looked white and frightened, but was bravely trying to bear himself like a man. Mr. Edwards, his long, shaven upper lip stiff as a board, looked stern and uncompromising. Barton was as big and good-humored as ever.
He turned upon the little boys and girls, and, waving his arm, cried, "Scat!" They fell back—about ten feet. Thus the procession formed: Barton and Jim, then Mr. Edwards, and—at a barely respectful distance—the crowd of youngsters.
Mr. Peaslee, much moved, but trying hard not to show it, thrust his rake under the veranda with a great show of care, and joined Mr. Edwards—much to that gentleman's surprise. Solomon's heart was throbbing with a great resolution.
"I always aim to be neighborly," said he, nervously lowering his voice, for he was conscious of his wife, still standing on the veranda. "Thought I'd just step along, too. I cal'late mebbe you'd like comp'ny on his bail bond," and he jerked his thumb toward Jim.
It was out; he was committed,and Solomon heaved a great sigh, he knew not whether of relief or dismay. There was not indeed any risk in signing with Edwards, who was "good" for any bail that the justice was likely to require; but what would Mrs. Peaslee say if she knew! He glanced apprehensively toward the house.
His wife had gone in; but, evil omen! there, sitting on a fence-post, was the Calico Cat. She was placidly washing her face; and as her paw twinkled past the big black spot round her right eye, she appeared, at that distance, to be greeting him with a derisive wink.
Mr. Edwards, although his mouth shut tighter than ever at the mention of bail, was surprised and touched. "Thank you," he said. "It's kind of you to think of it."
In the village, Sam ushered them into the musty law office of Squire Tucker, justice of the peace. The squire was a large, fat man, clothed in rusty black, with a carelessly knotted string tie pendent beneath a rumpled turn-down collar. He had a smooth-shaven, fat face, lighted by shrewd and kindly eyes, which gleamed at you now through, now over, his glasses. When the party entered he was writing, andmerely looked up under his big eyebrows long enough to wave them all to chairs.
Jim sat down, with the constable behind him and his father at his left, and studied the man in whose hands he thought that his fate rested. He watched the squire's pen go from paper to ink, ink to paper, and listened to its scratch, scratch, and to the buzz of a big fly against the dirty window-pane. Ashamed to look at any one, he looked at the lawyer's big ink-well—a great, circular affair of mottled brown wood. It had several openings, each one with its own littlecork attached with a short string to the side of the stand. He had never seen one like it before.
Then some one entered the room. Jim, looking sidewise, recognized Jake Hibbard, and began covertly to study his face. He knew that this flabby-faced, dirty man, with the little screwed-up eyes, and the big screwed-up mouth, stained brown at the corners with tobacco, was Pete Lamoury's lawyer. Familiar for many years to his contemptuous young eyes, Jake now looked sinister and dangerous. What were these men going to do to him?
Amid his fluttering emotions andrushing thoughts one thing only stood fixed and clear: he would not tell on his father. Some day, when all trouble was past, he would let his father know that he knew all the time. Then he guessed his father would be sorry and ashamed. Now, since his father would not take him into his confidence, he would not pretend he did the shooting. That would be his only revenge.
Finally, Squire Tucker, pushing his writing aside, ran his fingers through the great mass of his tumbled gray hair, and looked quizzically at Jim over his glasses. "So this," he said, "is the hardened ruffian of whom our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Lamoury, complains?"
And indeed Jim, although stubborn, did not seem very dangerous.
The squire looked about the room.
"Is he represented by counsel?" he asked.
"No, I represent him," said Mr. Edwards.
"The charge against him is assault with intent to kill, I believe?" and he looked with demure inquiry at Jake Hibbard, who nodded with a wrath-clouded face. Tucker was not taking the case seriously.
"Well, young man," said thejustice to Jim, "what's your explanation of this?"
"We'll waive examination," said Mr. Edwards, briefly.
The squire leaned back in his chair. "I suppose," he said, with evident reluctance, "I shall have to hold him for the grand jury. But I guess the safety of the community won't be greatly threatened if I let him out on bail. I should think a couple of hundred would do. I suppose there'll be no difficulty about the bond?"
The tone of the proceedings suited Mr. Peaslee well. In his nervousness and abstraction he had backedup to the rusty, empty iron stove at the end of the room, and stood there, with spread coat-tails, listening intently. On hearing the amount of bail, he gave a sigh of relief. His incautious offer had brought him no dangerous risk.
Mr. Edwards, however, did not answer. Instead, consulting the justice with a look, he turned and beckoned Jim to follow him into the hall.
"James," he said, "this is the last chance I shall give you. If you confess to me, I will see that you have proper bail. If you do not, I shall let the law take its course. You may choose."
Jim was exasperated. If his father wished to be mean, let himbemean; at least he might drop this farce, this irritating pretense. He lost his temper.
"I don't care what you do!" he said fiercely. "Send me to jail if you want to. I guess I can stand it!"
"Is that all you have to say?"
Jim replied with a rebellious glance.
"Very well," said his father. "Then we will go back." Once in the room, he stepped to the squire's desk, and talked with him in low tones.
Then the justice turned to Jim again, a new gravity in his jolly face.
"Your father," he said, "refuses to go on your bond. Have you any sureties of your own to offer?"
"No, sir," said Jim.
Mr. Peaslee was outraged. What kind of a father was this! He half started forward to offer to be one of the two sureties which the law required, but—no, he dare not. The second surety might prove to be any sort of worthless fellow. But Jim in jail! He had not for a moment dreamed of that. He was very indignant with Mr. Edwards.
Meanwhile, Jake Hibbard was studying Mr. Edwards's face with puzzled attention. He had supposed that the lumber dealer, whom he knew to be well-to-do, would have paid anything, signed any bond, to protect his boy from jail. He was disconcerted. He drew his one hand across his mouth nervously.
"Well, Mr. Barton," said Squire Tucker, "I don't see but what you'll have to take this young man over to Hotel Calkins."
"Hotel Calkins" was the name which local wit gave to the county jail. The words sent a cold shiver down Mr. Peaslee's back. Theystung him into generosity. As Barton and his prisoner, followed by Mr. Edwards and Jake, brushed by him on their way to the door, he slipped the knife into Jim's hand. When the boy, trying to keep back the tears, looked up inquiringly, he murmured, in agitation:—
"Don't ye care, sonny! Now don't ye care!"
He was greatly stirred—or he would not have been so incautious as to make his present in person and in public.
Cat lying on fence.
WhenNancy Ware, Jim's pretty teacher, heard that Mr. Edwards had let Jim go to jail, she was hotly indignant. She liked Jim, and laughed a little over him, for she knew he adored her. In her view he was a clumsy, nice boy; awkward and shy, to be sure, butrewarding her friendliness now and then with a really entrancing grin. She liked his imagination, she liked his loyalty, and she liked his dogged resolution.
She heard the news at the noon hour on Monday, and after her dinner she hurried at once to the store of Fred Farnsworth. To him she roundly declared that Mr. Edwards was a brute, a view of the man which struck Fred as a bit highly colored.
Fred was thirty-one or thirty-two years old, a sensible, humorous fellow, with considerable personal force. He was very proud of the handsomeshop over which hung the sign, "Frederick W. Farnsworth, Fine Crockery and Glassware," and still prouder of his engagement to Miss Ware. He was the second grand juryman from Ellmington.
"Oh," said he, "Edwards isn't a bad sort of man. He isn't very sociable. I guess he wouldn't take much impudence, even from that boy of his. They say Jim wouldn't own up, and the old man won't do anything for him till he does."
"If Jimmie Edwards says he didn't fire that gun, he didn't," said Nancy, positively. "Jimmie isn't the lying kind. I know Mr. Edwards. I ought not to call him a brute, I suppose. But he's one of these obstinate men who will do anything they've made up their minds to do, even if you prove to them that they're wrong, even if it hurts them more than it does any one else. He's just got it into his head that Jimmie ought to confess, and he'd let him go to the gallows before he'd back down."
Nancy spoke with animation, her color rose and her eyes grew bright, and Fred looked and listened admiringly. He was skeptical about Jim, but he was struck with the accuracy of the portrait of Edwards.
"I guess that's about so," he said.
"And when I think of that poor boy shut up in that awful jail, locked into a cell, when he ought to be out-of-doors playing ball and having a good time, it makes my blood boil!" continued Miss Ware. "Now, Fred," she concluded, with pretty decision, "you must stop it."
Fred laughed.
"Isn't that a pretty large order?" he asked. "Squire Tucker put him there. I guess it's legal."
"You can dosomething," said his betrothed. "Go to see Jimmie. See if you can't find out what'sthe matter. Jimmie likes you, perhaps he'll tell."
"I didn't know Jim had any particular partiality for me," said Fred, but he felt kindlier toward the boy in spite of himself.
"If you can only find out what really happened, I know we can get him out," averred Miss Ware.
"Why don't you go yourself?" said Farnsworth.
"I can't,—not till five o'clock. Of course I'm going then!"
"That's about four hours off," said Farnsworth.
"But I want something donenow!" exclaimed Nancy.
"Oh!" said Fred, humorously.
"Will you go?"
"Of course. I'll start at once." Fred dropped his banter. "I'll tell you what, Nancy. I may not be able to do much right off, but I'll promise you that he has a fair chance before the grand jury."
Farnsworth started at once for the jail. It was a poor place for a boy, he reflected, as he rang the jailer's private bell. Calkins himself was not there, and his wife came to the door. She knew Farnsworth; and when he asked if he might see Jim she laughed a little, and told him to "step right in."
"Hotel Calkins" was a brick building which looked pleasantly like a private dwelling, as, in fact, a good half of it was. In this front half dwelt the jailer; in the rear half, separated from the living quarters by a thick wall and heavy doors, was the jail proper. There Farnsworth expected to be led.
But not at all! Mrs. Calkins ushered him into her own kitchen, where a wash-tub showed what she was doing, where the afternoon sun and sweet September air poured in at the open windows, and where a canary in its cage was singing cheerily.
Here Farnsworth was much surprised to see Jim, curled up in Mrs. Calkins's own rocking-chair, eating a large red-cheeked apple which he was dividing with a brand-new knife!
"Squire Tucker told Mark," said Mrs. Calkins, enjoying the joke, "that he guessed James would like our society full as well as that of the prisoners."
As for Jim, he grinned affably, and took another slice of his apple.
The awful picture which Miss Ware had drawn of Jim's dreadful isolation and misery and her own indignant sympathy rushed uponFarnsworth's mind, and were so comically out of relation with the facts that he sank weakly into the nearest chair and roared.
"This—is—the way—you go to jail—is it?" he gasped.
Mrs. Calkins smiled in sympathy, and Jim, half-suspecting that he ought to be offended at this frank mirth, looked sheepishly at the floor.
Farnsworth recovered himself. "A mighty good friend of yours," he said, "sent me over here."
"Miss Ware?" asked Jim, much pleased.
"Yes. She's coming herself right after school, loaded down with thingsto console your desolate prison life, I believe," and Farnsworth had to stop to laugh again. "But she wanted me to start right in and help you out of this, and that's what I'm here for."
"Thank you," said Jim, embarrassed, but polite. But it struck Farnsworth, as he said afterward, that the boy "shied" a little.
"Miss Ware says," he went on, "that she doesn't believe you fired that shot, and she wants you to tell me exactly what did happen. Now if we can show that you didn't shoot, I can get you out of here quick."
"What they going to do to me?" said Jim.
"That depends. It makes a difference how much Lamoury's hurt. The penalty might be severe if he's got a bad wound. But even then, if we could show that you didn't know he was there, or that the gun went off by accident, or that you were firing at something else, it would make a big difference. And if you can show that you weren't there at all—why, out you go, scot-free. But, Jim, you can see yourself that if you don't tell what you know, everybody'll think that you shot and meant to hurt Lamoury, and then it might go pretty hard with you. Now come, tell me what happened."
"You'd better tell, Jimmie," said Mrs. Calkins, straightening up from her wash-tub. "You won't find any better friends than Mr. Farnsworth and Miss Ware."
The young man, as he talked, watched the boy curiously. Jim flushed and squirmed, and looked now at the floor and now out at the window, with a marked uneasiness and embarrassment that greatly puzzled his friend. And when he stopped, and the boy had to answer, his distress became really pitiable.
"Can't you tell me, Jim?" Mr. Farnsworth hazarded, after a little, putting a kindly hand on the boy'sarm, while Mrs. Calkins stood quiet by her tub in friendly expectation.
But Jim remained dumb.
After waiting a little, Farnsworth, seeing the boy so miserable, took pity on him.
"Well, never mind, Jim," he said. "You needn't tell if you don't want to."
He would have to let Nancy coax it out of him. But he was puzzled, impressed with a sense of mystery and with a growing conviction that the boy was shielding some one else. He began to talk cheerfully of other things, hoping that Jim might perhaps drop a useful hint, or, at least,that the boy would gain confidence in him as a friend. By chance he asked:—
"Where did you get the knife, Jim?"
"Mr. Peaslee gave it to me."
"Peaslee!" exclaimed Farnsworth. He well knew the "closeness" of his fellow juror.
"It isn't much of a knife," said Jim, apologetic but pleased. Jim's views of the world were changing: his father, although a bandit chief, had let him go to jail, while this stingy old man, with no halo of adventure about him, gave him a knife; and here were Miss Ware and Mr.Farnsworth and Mrs. Calkins and the jailer, none of them smugglers, who were very kind.
Farnsworth rose to go. Then Jim, summoning all his courage, asked a question which had long been trembling on his lips.
"What do they do to smugglers, Mr. Farnsworth?"
"Fine 'em, or put 'em in jail, or both. Why?"
"Nothing much," said Jim, but obviously he was cast down.
Farnsworth walked thoughtfully toward his store. "By George!" he thought suddenly. "I wonder—"
The gossip about the senior Edwards had occurred to him, and at the same time he remembered the quarrel with Lamoury.
"But what nonsense!" he thought. "If Edwards wanted to shoot any one he wouldn't do it in his own back yard, and he wouldn't treat his own boy that way, either." Still, the idea clung to him.
And then he thought of Nancy, and chuckled. "If she comes to the store before she goes to the jail I won't tell her what she'll find there," he promised himself.
Meanwhile, Mr. Peaslee felt a growing discomfort. He ate his dinner and answered the briskquestions of his wife with increasing preoccupation. Like Miss Ware, he was picturing Jim solitary and suffering in his lonely cell. With the utmost sincerity and ingenuousness he condemned Mr. Edwards.
"Hain't he got any feelin' for his own flesh and blood?" he asked himself. "'T ain't right; somebody'd ought to deal with him."
As he pottered about his yard after dinner, he finally worked himself up to the point of speaking to Edwards himself.
Even his righteous indignation would not have led him to this undertaking had he known Mr. Edwards better, or realized the father's present mood. Hurt exceedingly by Jim's lying and contempt of his wishes, hurt even more through his disappointed desire to help his boy, Mr. Edwards was sore and sensitive, discontented both with Jim and with himself. He did not want Jim in jail, he told himself; and the neighbors who were so uniformly assuming that he did might better give their thoughts to matters that concerned them more. He would get the boy out of jail quick enough if the boy would only let him.
As he stepped out of the house to do an errand at the barn, Mr. Peasleehailed him over the dividing fence. Somewhat put out, Mr. Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr. Peaslee, leaning over the fence, began.
"Ed'ards," he said, reaching out an anxious, deprecatory hand, "don't ye think you're jest a leetle mite hard on that boy o' yourn—"
He got no further. Edwards gave him a look that made him shiver, and cut the conversation short by turning on his heel and marching toward the barn.
"Dretful ha'sh man, dretful ha'sh!" Mr. Peaslee muttered to himself. "Nice, likely boy as ever was. If Ihad a boy like that, I swan I wouldn't treat him so con-sarned mean!"
He turned away much shocked, and saw the Calico Cat watching him ironically from the chicken-house. "Drat that cat!" said he. "I ain't goin' to stay round here—not with that beast grinning at me."
He got his hat and started up-town, not knowing in the least what he intended to do there. He stopped, however, at every shop window and studied baseballs, bats, tivoli-boards, accordions. He was beginning to wonder if a twenty-five-cent knife was enough to console Jim for his unmerited incarceration.
He was gazing forlornly in at the window of Upham's drugstore, where some half-dozen harmonicas were displayed, and wondering if Jim would be allowed to play one in his dungeon cell, when Hibbard spoke to him.
He drew the lawyer aside, and, peering closely into his face with anxious eyes exaggerated by his spectacles, said insinuatingly:—
"Jest 'twixt you and me kinder confidential, Pete ain't hurt bad, is he? You don't mind sayin', do ye?"
Jake drew himself up, surprised and suspicious. Did the old fool think him as innocent as all that?
"He's hurt bad, Mr. Peaslee, bad," he said, with dignity. "Of course it isn't fatal—unless it should mortify." He waved his hand deprecatingly. "I can't imagine what that Edwards boy used in his gun."
Mr. Peaslee knew: the marble! He trembled. Still, he knew Jake's reputation. A shrewd thought visited his troubled mind.
"What doctor's seein' him?" he asked.
"Doctor!" exclaimed Hibbard, irritated. "Doctor! You know these French Canadians. They're worse scared of a doctor than of the evil one himself. Pete's usin' some oldwoman's stuff on his wounds,—bear's grease, rattlesnake oil, catnip tea,—what do I know? I can't make him see a doctor."
"Some doctor'll have to testify to court, won't they?" persisted Mr. Peaslee.
"Oh, I'll look out for that, don't you fear!" the lawyer said easily; but nevertheless he made a pretext for leaving the old man.
Perhaps had Mr. Peaslee's fears not been so keen, he would have taken some comfort from this conversation; but as it was he felt that the lawyer was dangerous; he feared that Pete really was badly hurt. Itwould go hard, then, with Jim. It would, by the same token, go hard with himself should he confess.
Suddenly he turned and rushed into Upham's store.
"Upham," said he, "I wantthat!"
And he pointed straight at a big harmonica with a strange and wonderful "harp attachment"—bright-colored and of amazing possibilities.
Upham, a neat little gentleman with nicely trimmed side-whiskers, who was always fluttered by the unexpected, hesitated, half opened his mouth, and then forgot either to shut it or to speak.
"Why, Mr. Peaslee," he stammered at last, "it's real expensive! You—it's two dollars and seventy-five cents."
"Don't care nothin' what it costs," said Mr. Peaslee, who was in a hurry for fear lest he should think twice.
When he came out of the store with the harmonica in his hands, he almost stumbled into Miss Ware. She was on her way to Jim, and, of course, her mind was full of his affairs. Here was Mr. Edwards's next neighbor. She impulsively stopped to ask if the misguided father still held to his resolution about Jim.
Mr. Peaslee had reason to know that he did, and said so. "I tell ye,Miss Ware," said he, with much emotion, "he belongs to a stony-hearted generation, and that's a fact. He ain't got any compassion in him, seems though."
"It's a shame, a perfect shame!" exclaimed Nancy.
"'T ain't right," said Mr. Peaslee, with a warmth which surprised the young woman, and made her warm to this old man, whom she had always thought so selfish. "'T ain't right—your own flesh and blood so."
"Well," said Miss Ware, "I'm going to the jail now. I want to see Jimmie. It must be awful there."
"Well, now, that's real kind ofye," responded Mr. Peaslee. "I wonder now if you'd mind taking this along to him," and he offered her the paper parcel. "It's a harmonica, I guess they call it. It's real handsome. It cost consid'able—a pretty consid'able sum. I feel kinder sorry for the leetle feller, and I don't grudge it a mite." And he kept repeating, in a tone which suggested whistling to keep your courage up, "Not a mite, not a mite."
Miss Ware smothered a laugh on hearing what the present was. She must not hurt the feelings of this kind old man!
"Oh," said the little hypocrite,"that's nice! Jimmie'll be so pleased."
But perhaps the harmonica pleased Jim as much as the schoolbooks which the school-teacher, with a solicitous eye on her pupil's standing in his studies, was taking to him. Saying good-by to Mr. Peaslee, Miss Ware, books and harmonica in hand, went on her way to visit the afflicted boy in his dungeon. Meanwhile Jim, turning the wringer for Mrs. Calkins, and listening to her stories of "Mark's" prowess with all sorts of malefactors, was having an excellent time. He had decided to be a sheriff when he grew up.
Cat curled up on floor.
Theday of the assembling of the grand jury for the September term of the Adams County court finally dawned. How Mr. Peaslee had looked forward to that day! How often had he pictured the scene—the bustle about the court house; the agreeable crowdof black-coated lawyers, with their clever talk, their good stories; the grave judge, and the still graver side judges; the greetings and hand-shakings amid much joking and laughter; the county gossip among the grand jurors in the informal moments before they filed into the courtroom to be sworn and to receive the judge's charge; himself, finally, in his best black coat and cherished beaver hat, there in the midst of it—important, weighty, respected, a public man!
He had cherished the vision of himself walking up the village street on that first morning, a dignitary returning the cordial and admiring salutes of his village friends. He had seen himself later in the jury-room, shrewdly "leading" the reluctant witness, delivering weighty opinions on the bearing of testimony, and making all respect him as a marvel of conservatism, dignity, and wisdom. This was to be one of the most important and pleasurable days of his life, the rung in a ladder of preferment which reached as high as the state-house dome!
And when that day came, it rained; steadily, gloomily, fiercely rained. Solomon was not allowed to wear his best clothes. When, peering outof the window, he hopefully said he "guessed mebbe 't was goin' to clear," his wife invited him tartly to "wait till it did."
She insisted that he put on his every-day clothes, and thus arrayed, and without meeting a single villager to realize the importance of his errand, he waded up to the court house, the pelting rain rattling on his old umbrella, the fierce wind almost wrenching it inside out.
There was, of course, no parade on the courthouse steps for the benefit of a wondering village, as there would have been had the day been fine. Instead, the men, steaming with wet, stood about uncomfortably in the corridors, muddy with the mud from their feet, wet with the drip from their umbrellas. The air in the court house was close, and every one felt uncomfortable and depressed.
Mr. Peaslee, having greeted three or four men whom he knew, found himself jammed into a corner behind four or five jurors who were strangers to him, but he was too disheartened to try to scrape acquaintance with them. He felt lonely and helpless.
He looked enviously over to the other end of the corridor, where FredFarnsworth, Eben Sampson, and Albion Small were standing together. In contrast with the others, these men were laughing. Albion was "consid'able of a joker," Mr. Peaslee reflected gloomily.
Then old Abijah Keith stormed in, and in his high, shrill voice began immediately to utter his unfavorable opinion of everything and everybody.
"Well, if he ain't here again!" exclaimed, in disgust, Hiram Hopkins, one of the men in front of Solomon. "Cantankerest old lummux in the whole state—just lots on upsetting things. Abijah!" he snorted. "Can't Abijah, I call him!"
Mr. Peaslee shrank back into his corner nervously. He knew this old tyrant and dreaded him.
Not much was done that first day. The clerk swore them; the judge charged them, and appointed the sensible, steady Sampson foreman. Then they retired to the jury-room—a big, desolate place, wherein was a long, ink-spattered table surrounded by wooden armchairs and spittoons. The grand jurors seated themselves, and were solemnly silent while John Paige, the state's attorney, began the dull task of presenting cases. Mr. Peaslee found that he had nothing brilliant to say.
As a matter of fact, his own troubles were making him see everything yellow. The jurymen did not seem to him as agreeable a lot as he had expected, and as for Paige, he irritated Solomon beyond measure.
Paige was an able young man and a good lawyer, and was entitled to the position which he had attained so young; but, the son of a man of rather exceptional means, he had been educated at a city college, and had a sophistication which Solomon viewed with deep suspicion. Moreover, he discarded the garb which Mr. Peaslee regarded as sacred. He was not in black. Instead, he worea light gray business suit, his collar was very knowing in cut, and his cravat of dark blue was caught with a gold pin.
"Citified smart Aleck," was Mr. Peaslee's characterization. To tell the truth, he mistrusted the man's ability, and was afraid of him. If that fellow knew, Mr. Peaslee felt that it would go hard with him. Generally, Paige was popular.
Solomon had, of course, been painfully awake to every hint and intimation in regard to Jim's case. He had seen Jake Hibbard, that carrion crow of the law, loafing about the corridors, and the sight had madehim shiver. He had next heard that Jim's case would be quickly called,—probably on the next day,—news producing a complex emotion, the elements of which he could not distinguish. Furthermore, a remark or so which he overheard indicated that the out-of-town men were inclined to take a harsh view of the matter. And reflecting on all these things, he paddled home through the depressing wet.
And the next day it rained.
More and more perturbed, as the climax approached, Mr. Peaslee took his place in the jury-room, and sat there with unhearing ears. He satand thought and delivered battle with his conscience, which was growing painfully vigorous and aggressive. But, after all, perhaps they would not find a true bill, and then Jim would go free, and he could breathe again. Mr. Peaslee clung to the hope, and hugged it. It was the one thing which gave him courage.
"Gentlemen of the grand jury," suddenly he heard Paige saying, "the next case for you to consider is that of James Edwards, aged fifteen, of Ellmington, charged with assault, with intent to kill, upon one Peter Lamoury, also of Ellmington."
And he proceeded to read the complaint, which, in spite of the monotonous rapidity with which he rattled it off, scared Mr. Peaslee badly with its solemn-sounding legal phraseology.
"Gentlemen," said Paige, laying down the paper, "there was no eyewitness to the actual assault; and only three people have any personal knowledge of the event—Mr. Edwards, the defendant's father, the accused himself, and the complainant. Mr. Lamoury, his counsel tells me, is in no condition to appear. But I have here," lifting a paper, "his affidavit, properly executed,giving his version of the matter. The boy's father, however, is at hand. Probably the jury would like to question him."
"It seems to me," said Mr. Sampson, "that Mr. Edwards would be pretty apt to know the rights of it, if he's willing to talk. I guess we'd better hear him."
The state's attorney stepped to the door.
"This way, please!" he called, and Mr. Edwards entered the room.
Farnsworth and Peaslee both studied the man's face closely, although for very different reasons, and both found it sternly uncompromising.
"Please take a chair, Mr. Edwards," said Paige, and in a swift glance rapidly estimated the man. "Here's some one who won't lie," he thought, impressed.
"Now," he resumed, "will you kindly tell the members of the grand jury what you know of the case?"
Mr. Edwards cleared his throat painfully. Determined as he was to let his rebellious boy take whatever punishment his mistaken course might bring, he now began to wish that the punishment would be light. His confidence that Jim needed only to be pushed a little to confess was somewhat shaken, and the chargewas really serious. He felt a desire to explain, to palliate, to minimize.
"Gentlemen," he said, "my boy's always been a good boy. I can't believe that he meant to hurt Lamoury or any one else. It must have been some accident—"
"Facts, please," said Paige, crisply.
Mr. Peaslee caught his breath indignantly. He had been entirely in sympathy with Mr. Edwards's soft mode of approaching his story. Paige seemed to him unfeeling.
"I will answer any questions," said Mr. Edwards, stiffening.
"Did you hear any shot fired?" began Paige.
"Yes."
"Where were you?"
"I was asleep in the room above Jim's."
"Was Jim in his room?"
"I suppose so."
"You suppose so. Don't you know?"
"No, I don't know."
"But to the best of your knowledge and belief he was there?"
"Yes."
"And the shot waked you?"
"Yes."
"What did you do on hearing the shot?"
"I jumped to the window."
"Tell what you saw, please."
"I saw a man fall in the orchard, and hurried out to see if he was hurt. But he was gone when I got there."
"Then what?"
"I went to speak to Jim."
"He was in his room, then, immediately after the shot?"
"Yes."
"Ah! And when you spoke to him, did he admit firing the shot?"
"No."
"Did he deny it?"
"Yes."
"Where was his gun?"
"In the rack over the mantel."
"In the rack over the mantel," repeated Paige, slowly, glancing at the jurors. "Did you examine it?"
"Yes."
"What was its condition? Did it show that it had been fired?"
"No; it was clean."
"It was clean," repeated Paige. "I understand that it was a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun. Were there any rags about?"
"Yes."
"Where were they?"
"One was in the ashes of the fireplace."
"Look as if some one had tried to hide it?"
"Yes"—reluctantly.
"If it was that sort of gun, there must have been a shot-pouch and powder-flask. Where were they?"
"In the drawer where Jim keeps them."
"Everything looked, then, as if no shot had been fired?"
"Yes."
"Was there any one besides yourself and your son in the house?"
"No."
"Your housekeeper?"
"She had stepped out."
"To the best of your knowledge, then, there was no one about to fire the shot except your son?"
"No."
"That will do," said Paige, with an accent of finality. "That is," he added, with the air of one who observes a courteous form, "unless some of the grand jurors wish to ask a question."
There were various things which were new to Mr. Peaslee in this testimony. He had supposed that Jim had been picked as the guilty person by a process of mere exclusion; he had had no idea that the case against him was so strong. How had the boy got to the room so soon after he himself had left, and why had he gone there? Andwhy, why had he cleaned the shotgun? The grand jury must believe in his guilt. And when the case came to trial, what could Jim say to clear himself? It was going hard, hard with the boy.
Mr. Peaslee's mouth grew dry, his palms moist; he moved uneasily in his chair. Once or twice he felt sure that the next instant he would find himself on his feet, but the minutes passed and he still was seated.
And Farnsworth, anxious, for the sake of his betrothed, Miss Ware, to help Jim, was nonplussed. There were two possible explanations ofJim's cleaning the gun, if he did clean it: the first, that Jim was protecting himself; the second, that he was shielding some one else.
But the second theory seemed quite untenable. Farnsworth had made some cautious but well-directed inquiries about Mr. Edwards, and had satisfied himself that the rumors about his smuggling were nothing but malicious gossip. There was not a man of greater honesty in the state. The boy must have done the shooting. Miss Ware would have to give it up. Still, he would hazard a question.
"Mr. Edwards," he said, "Lamoury worked for you once, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"You quarreled, didn't you?"
"I discharged him for intemperance."
"There was no bad blood?"
"Lamoury was angry, I believe."
Farnsworth stopped; there was nothing to be gained by this course of questioning in the way of clearing Jim. Of course later, the point that Lamoury had a grudge against the family might have importance, although he could not see just how. Some one else surely heard that gunshot. It was incredible that theneighborhood should be so deserted. If only there were another witness!
The other jurors had no questions. They were, to tell the truth, a little impatient. It was near the dinner-hour, and they were hungry. The case seemed perfectly plain to them. It was not likely, they argued, that the boy's father could be mistaken.
"You may go," said Paige to Mr. Edwards.
"I don't see," he began, when the witness had left the room, "any need for our going further into this case. Whatever we may think of the animus of the complainant,—I take it that was what you wished to bringout, Mr. Farnsworth,—there seems to be no question but that the boy fired the shot. The presumption seems strong also that he intended to hit. Were there any accident or any good excuse, the boy could, of course, have no motive not to tell it. I suggest that a true bill be found at once, and that we proceed to more important matters. I want to remind you that we have a great deal of work before us."
"Well, gentlemen," said Sampson, "I guess we're pretty much of a mind about this. If no one has any objections, I guess we'll call it a vote." He looked round.
"As we're all agreed—" he began.
"Just a moment, Sampson!" suddenly exclaimed Farnsworth. It had just then flashed over him that Mr. Peaslee, the kind Mr. Peaslee, who gave Jim knives and harmonicas, was next-door neighbor to the Edwardses. If he had been at home when the shot was fired, he must have heard it, and he might have seen some significant thing which questioning might bring out. Of course, if Peaslee had seen anything, he would have spoken, but he might have overlooked the importance of some fact or other.
"Just a moment, Sampson!" hesaid, and put up his hand. Then he swung sharply in his chair and put the question:—
"Peaslee, where were you when that shot was fired?"