in his heart. He wanted to know what was going on beyond those woods
that separated him from the more thickly settled part of the community.
All morning, anxiously, he watched the road that led from the main
thoroughfare to his cabin. Then after dinner, no one having come along
the road, and his mind having grown weary of its own anxiety, he
bethought him of little Ella Carson, who had cried, and who wouldn’t
go to Sunday-school because they said he burned the store. And he went
into the cabin, and from underneath the table picked out a piece of
white pine boxing.
“I’ll carve her an Injun,” he said. “An Injun gal.”
And with the thought came relief. Hours he worked, sitting outside his
cabin on the bench, while the shavings, ever finer drawn, accumulated
at his feet and the formless fragment of dry-goods box took shape.
Now and then he whetted his keen multibladed knife; now and then, all
oblivious, he held the work up for his critical inspection.
Even the nose and chin he carved to a nicety, holding the little figure
close, smiling at it now and then, the while his mind, running ahead,
saw the completed work. She should have hair from the tip of a black
mink’s tail; stain from a pokeberry bush would color her; he would
strap a tiny papoose across her back with a bit of crimson cloth.
“The little gal will like that,” he chuckled. “Yes--she’ll like that!”
And as he worked, his face now knotted, now serene, he forgot the store
and the fire, he did not observe the lengthening shadows, he did not
feel the chill of late afternoon. The sun had dropped low when at last
he arose suddenly and, still oblivious, started across the field toward
the woods.
His old eyes burned with creative fires. This figure in his hand was
the best thing he had ever done. She was his humble masterpiece, this
Indian girl who had brought him forgetfulness in his trouble. She was
ready to be colored now; but no ordinary pokeberry stain would do for
her. Deep in the swamp grew bushes whose berries gave a finer and
richer tint than any close about. There was an eager smile on his face
as he entered the woods.
He had not seen the commotion among the watching negroes when he rose
and hurried across the field; he had not seen them beckoning to someone
coming along the road. Now, far in the woods, he did not hear the steps
behind him as he pushed through the undergrowth that fringed the swamp.
He found the bush he wanted and began his work. He had stained her to
the waist, a rich, dark-red color; he was all intent on his task, when
he heard the rustle of leaves behind him, and turned. What he saw made
him put the figure quickly in his pocket, as if to hide her from those
narrowed eyes. For there, straight at him, head and shoulders above the
bushes, came Tom Kelly, rural policeman.
“Tryin’ to git away, was you, ol’ man?” grinned Kelly. “Well, it’s bad
policy, an’ you’re old enough to know it.” Then solemnly, with eyes
still narrowed, as if within him resided all the dignity and all the
sternness of the law: “I’ve got a warrant here for you, swore out this
afternoon befo’ Magistrate Kirby by Frank Blainey. Come along now, an’
don’t raise no trouble.”
* * * * *
It might all have been different if the old man had listened to his
friends--to Squire Kirby, who next morning bound him over to court, and
to Bill Carson, who went on his bond, two thousand dollars it was, for
hadn’t he tried to make a get-away, and hadn’t Frank Blainey bitterly
opposed turning him loose at all?
The squire and Carson, in a conference after the preliminary trial,
advised him to employ to defend him Allen and Cathcart, both of them
young, energetic, and highly successful lawyers, and offered between
them to advance the money to pay the bill. It wasn’t because he doubted
their friendship, or was ungrateful, that he did not heed their advice.
But these lawyers were young, their minds were taken up with big
affairs. What was an old man to them?
Then Jeff had his prejudices, too. More than once, when he was in the
county seat, he had seen on the windows of the town skyscraper the
gilded sign of Allen and Cathcart. He had seen their big cars and
their handsome homes on Main Street. Now, in his extremity, and in his
ignorance also, he distrusted them with the poor man’s distrust of the
ostentatiously well-to-do. He did not want Allen and Cathcart.
Even while Kirby and Carson talked, his mind, in relief, had
turned to another lawyer, old like himself, and neither rich nor
ostentatious--old Colonel Donaldson, whom Sam Blainey used to employ to
look up deeds, who had come out one day to fish with him and Sam. This
was the lawyer he wanted.
* * * * *
He said nothing about it; he asked no one’s advice; but at four o’clock
on the morning after his release on bail he set out on foot to the
county seat, and at nine o’clock presented himself at the ancient
and shabby offices of Colonel Donaldson on Law Row, just behind the
courthouse. Heart pounding fast, he told his story to the dry and
pedantic old lawyer, who sat behind a littered table in a dingy
room where rows of dusty books, Shakespeares, Miltons, Thackerays,
Dickenses, and Scotts climbed upward to the cobwebby ceiling.
Anybody would have told him this was not the man to go to; that it had
been years since he appeared in court in anything but civil cases; that
he might be the man to run down an old deed, but not to plead a case
before a jury; that such fires of youth as he might have possessed--and
it was said that he had known them once--had burned out long ago.
And yet old Jeff, looking at that thin old scholar surrounded by his
books, trembled lest his case be turned down; while his friends, had
they known, would have trembled lest it be accepted. And no one who
knew the colonel would have dreamed that he would take such a case. It
must have been some queer bond that exists between old men that moved
him.
“Very well, sir,” he said, dryly, “I’ll take the case. Yes, I recall
Sam Blainey quite distinctly--a fine man. I remember the fishing trip
to which you refer.”
He asked a number of questions, rather wearily, leaning back, tips of
fingers together. His eyes under his spectacles, that were dusty like
his window panes, did light up just a moment when his questions brought
out the fact that Jeff had seen a car in the woods. Then he copied down
the number in a notebook. He would look into that, he said without
conviction.
“God knows!” It broke from old Jeff, it was a cry for sympathy. “God
knows I never burned that sto’!”
The voice of the ancient lawyer was dry and unimpressed.
“Unfortunately, in a case of this kind it’s court and jury, not the
Almighty, which you have to convince.... The Indian, you say, you were
staining on that afternoon when you were arrested in the swamp--and by
the way, sir, it’s a bad thing to be arrested in a swamp--have you that
Indian with you?”
Trembling, the old man reached in the pocket of his ragged overcoat.
Because of some fear that in his absence his cabin would be searched,
he had brought his treasure with him.
“Here she is, Colonel,” he said eagerly.
The lawyer reached across the table, took the figure, and holding it up
looked at it with a smile strangely sweet. Then he arose and went over
to a rusty safe in the corner. He put her carefully away in the drawer,
closed the iron doors on her and turned the combination.
“I’ll just keep this,” he said. “And now that will be all this morning.
I’ll try and arrange for your case to be called as near the opening of
court as possible. Keep close at home. And remember--don’t tell anybody
anything.”
He turned to a shelf and got down a volume--probably he had already
dismissed the case from his mind; and Jeff came out into the alley,
above which towered the walls of the courthouse where soon he was to
appear before judge and jury, with only that dry old recluse to stand
between him and the penitentiary.
The terrible mistake he had made was duly impressed on him that night
by Kirby, who drove over to arrange to take him to town to consult
Allen and Cathcart in the morning. Jeff had to admit now what he had
done, and Kirby was dumfounded.
“You want to go to the pen?” he demanded, pointing his finger at his
tenant, his white beard thrust belligerently forward. “You think you’d
like it there, old man? Do you know how strong the evidence is against
you? Don’t you know, Jeff, I wouldn’t have sent you up if it hadn’t
been? Have you any notion how slim yo’ chance is? My God, man--old
Donaldson!”
“He’s smart, Mr. Kirby!” cried Jeff. “Ever seen his books? Piled up to
the ceilin’, clutterin’ up the winders and fireplaces?”
“An’ what kind of books? Ol’ law books in one room, yes. Novels an’
po’try in the other! It was the novels an’ po’try you saw; an’ it’s the
novels an’ po’try he reads. Jeff, listen to me--what made him take the
case, God only knows. He’s forgot about it by now. His mind is back
on them ol’ Romans an’ centurions. There’s been millions an’ billions
of people in the world he knows about--history an’ the like. What
difference does one ol’ feller in the pen make to him? He was thinkin’
about ancient Babylon an’ Sodom an’ Gomorrah this mornin’. He don’t
even know what he’s done. He’ll forget to come to the trial! Now let’s
get down to brass tacks. You let me go to town to-morrow an’ tell him
you’ve changed yo’ mind. It’s yo’ life you’re playin’ with, man! If you
go to the pen for arson you’ll die there! You’ll never come out again!
You’re too old!”
Jeff’s face knotted with pain. But he was true to his simple code.
“It--it’s too late, Squire. I’ve give him the case. It wouldn’t be
fair--no, it wouldn’t be fair.”
On the third day of the March term of court, at a quarter of nine in
the morning, pale and drawn of face, old Jeff climbed the spiral stairs
of the courthouse with Squire Kirby, grimly silent, beside him. Only
one communication, in all the weeks that had elapsed since Jeff’s visit
to him, had Colonel Donaldson sent. That was a crisp notice to appear
this morning in court.
Behind them followed Bill Carson and his wife, and little Ella. A
strange postscript to the notice had read: “I’m requesting that Ella
Carson be present in court.”
“He’s all balled up,” Kirby had sneered when he read it. “He likely
thinks it was Ella Carson that was present at the sto’ that night
instead of Sam Raine’s wife!”
Down the aisle they passed, the crowd that was already filling the
court-room turning to look at them curiously. Kirby shot a quick glance
at the lawyers’ tables inside the bar rail.
“He ain’t even here!” he whispered to Jeff. “I hope to God he’s forgot.
Then the co’t will give you a _lawyer_!”
The sheriff pointed out the table for the defendant and his lawyer.
Kirby sat down beside Jeff; the Carsons found a place on the front
bench of the main court-room.
“Silence in the court!” cried the sheriff.
Overawed, and with a queer feeling that he was choking, old Jeff saw
the judge enter in his black robes, while the courthouse rose and
stood until His Honor was seated. Yonder in an ante-room, laughing and
chatting, he made out young Burton Evans, prosecuting attorney, strong,
ruddy, confident. And then, last, down the aisle came old Colonel
Donaldson, dressed like a preacher or an undertaker, in a long black
coat with a narrow white tie. He shook hands flabbily; he walked over
to the table below the clerk’s desk and carefully placed on it a small
bundle, wrapped in paper.
He came back and sat down at his table, with Jeff between him and
Kirby. The court grew quiet. In a haze the old man rose, Donaldson
beside him. Crisp, quick, accusing, Burton Evans, glancing fiercely
now and then into the old man’s eyes, read off the indictment, long,
meaningless, full of legal phrases. The jury was picked, Donaldson
after a few careless questions, discarding six of them, then relapsing
into his chair. The trial of old Jeff Potter was on.
* * * * *
It was in some respects the strangest case ever tried in that old
court-room; for Colonel Donaldson, sitting listless and abstracted
beside his client, lived up to the worst predictions of Kirby. He
just let everything slide. The judge, an old man himself, looked now
and then at this strange lawyer for the defense with something like a
frown. Jeff was too dazed to say anything. Only Kirby fought--fought in
angry whispers, leaning across Jeff, his eyes blazing into Donaldson’s.
Three witnesses for the State told the same story of the row in the
store. The negroes who had passed along the road described having seen
him going toward the store about twelve o’clock that night. He had
stopped, they said, as if to hide, and hadn’t answered when they called
him by name. No, he didn’t have a lantern, or if he had one it wasn’t
lit.
“Ask ’em,” whispered Kirby to Donaldson, “how they know it was Jeff
Potter in the dark. Ask ’em, sir. Ask ’em!”
“Why, my dear sir,” retorted Donaldson in a whisper hard and dry, “my
client here doesn’t even deny it.”
Then Jake testified that at daybreak he saw him coming back from the
direction of the store. And Tom Kelly declared that he had trailed the
old man into a swamp, and had arrested him there while he was trying to
make his get-away.
“Ask him, Colonel Donaldson,” whispered Kirby again, eyes fierce, “how
he knows Jeff was trying to get away.”
Old Donaldson didn’t even look at the magistrate now. “Well, just let
that pass,” he answered.
“My God!” gasped Kirby.
Likewise, every statement of Frank Blainey went unchallenged. He had
ordered the old man out because he was a nuisance, explained Frank.
He was just a loafer, who didn’t work for his living. He had hated to
do it--sure he had--never hated to do a thing so much in his life.
No, he wasn’t angry. He had closed up store and gone home right
afterward--about eleven o’clock. His wife had gone to spend the night
with her people, and there was no one at home. Yes, he had worried
about it a lot on the way home. It had been a disagreeable task, the
most disagreeable of his life. Nothing but the good of his business
could have made him do it. Jeff Potter wasn’t the kind of man he
wanted to have around the store. Women didn’t like to come where he was.
“What women--what women, Colonel Donaldson?” whispered Kirby.
“Quick--ask him what women!”
* * * * *
But Colonel Donaldson, sitting back in his chair, the tips of his thin
fingers together, his eyes--piercing eyes, too, they were--fastened on
the witness, did not seem even to hear; while old Jeff bowed his gray
head in shame, and his hands clasped and unclasped on the table before
him, and his collar choked him so that he opened it at the neck.
It was at lunch, which followed immediately after Frank’s testimony,
that Kirby broke loose. He and Jeff, Bill Carson and his wife and
little Ella, had eaten in a restaurant; and now Kirby rose to pay the
bill.
“He just don’t care--don’t care that!” And Kirby snapped his strong
fingers. “I’ve been in many a trial. I never befo’ saw a lawyer not
even raise a finger to save a client!”
A curious crowd had gathered round them. “That’s right,” some of them
said. “He ain’t done a thing.” And Mrs. Carson, face upraised, grabbed
old Jeff by the sleeve, while little Ella clung to her mother’s skirt.
“Oh, get another lawyer,” pleaded the woman, “before it’s too late.
Please--please!”
Jeff swallowed, but he shook his head. “It wouldn’t be fair,” he said.
“No--it wouldn’t be fair.”
Early in the afternoon the ancient and supine lawyer for the defense
showed the first spark. The testimony for the State was all in, and he
had put Kirby on the stand. His voice as he stood, stiff and formal
beside Jeff’s chair, was dry, matter of fact.
“How long, Squire Kirby, have you known the defendant, Jeff Potter?”
“Forty years.”
“You must know, then, his reputation for law and order. Is it good or
bad?”
“Good.”
Then Burton Evans, exuding confidence, was on his feet. “He’s a tenant
on your place, I believe, Mr. Kirby. Did he pay his rent last year?”
Kirby turned to the judge. “Your Honor,” he asked, “must I answer that
question?”
The judge looked at Colonel Donaldson. “Do I hear any objections from
the plaintiff’s lawyer? If so I may rule that question out. If not--”
The voice was dry. “No objection, Your Honor.” And Kirby, from the
witness chair, glared.
“He paid me what I asked,” snapped Kirby.
“And what did you ask, Mr. Kirby?” demanded Evans.
The judge was frowning now--frowning at Donaldson. Back in the
court-room a slight buzz of voices began. Two or three spectators left
benches in the rear and, bent double, as if to hide their progress,
darted to seats nearer the front. And when at last Donaldson spoke, it
was as if to further the case of the State.
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Kirby,” he asked, “did he not pay you, for
rent, one or more carved Indians, which you sent to your grandchildren
as Christmas presents?”
“Yes,” said Kirby.
“Silence in the court!” cried the sheriff.
Burton Evans turned away, a triumphant smile on his face. Then he
glanced at the jury. They were mostly men of family; and now he must
have remembered suddenly that Donaldson, in choosing the jury, had
thrown out unmarried men and men without children; and for the first
time now he must have noticed that the jury was mostly old men, some
of them plainly grandfathers. Anyway, Burton Evans’s smile suddenly
vanished!
“Jeff Potter,” said Donaldson, “will you take the stand?”
* * * * *
Old Jeff never knew how he got there. He only knew he was sitting in a
chair on a platform, his tattered hat between his knees; that before
him were thousands of faces; that thousands of eyes were turned upon
him; that to the left the jury were leaning forward; and that to the
right the judge’s swivel chair creaked as His Honor turned toward him.
Then he saw that Colonel Donaldson was still standing very erect by
his table. Colonel Donaldson was speaking.
“We will not now go into the happenings of that night, Jeff Potter,
the night on which it is alleged by the State that you burned the
store of this man.” He stopped and looked hard at Blainey. “The State
may question you on that if the State so wishes. But I want to get at
another matter. Mr. Kelly--I believe that is the officer’s name--has
stated that on the afternoon he came to arrest you, you tried to escape
by running to the woods. Now, Jefferson Potter, tell the judge and jury
why you went to the woods, sir. Talk loud, so they can hear.”
“I went”--old Jeff hardly knew his own voice--“I went to git some
pokeberry juice to color an Injun with.”
“And this Indian--for whom were you carving it?”
“Fer little Ella Kyarson.”
“And why were you carving an Indian for little Ella Carson? Talk loud,
so the jury there can hear you.”
Jeff turned toward them. They were leaning forward still farther now,
these old graybeards, their eyes on him, their faces suddenly all
kindly.
“I was carvin’ it fer her because she said she never believed I sot
that sto’ on fire.”
The prosecutor, face flushed, sprang to his feet. “I object to all
this, Your Honor! I contend, sir, that this is a patent attempt--”
But the judge checked him. “The evidence is admissible, sir,” he said.
“The officer testified that the defendant was trying to leave the
country. Now it is quite in order for the defense to show that some
other motive than escape induced the defendant to enter the swamp where
he was arrested.”
The dry voice resumed: “So you were carving an Indian maiden for the
little girl who did not believe you burned the store. Is that it?”
“Yes, sir. Her father said she was cryin’ an’ wouldn’t go to
Sunday-school.”
“Do you see the little girl in court?”
“Yes, sir. That’s her. Settin’ thar on the front bench with her ma.”
There was a general commotion. People in the rear of the court-room
stood up. The jury all looked toward that front bench, while a mother
and a little girl in a blue dress both blushed scarlet.
And now a strange thing was happening: Old Colonel Donaldson, his
manner still perfectly impersonal, had walked over to the table below
the clerk’s desk and opened a bundle.
“I submit this in evidence, Your Honor. Here is the Indian girl he was
carving. Does Your Honor care to look at it? You will observe that it
is half stained, showing where the work was interrupted by the advent
of the officer.”
The judge took it and inspected it, a smile on his strong-lined face.
He handed it back, and the colonel walked over to the jury. “Pass it
around, gentlemen,” he directed, “from one to the other.”
And now the astonished old man in the witness box saw the whole
court-room seem to move forward, people leaving their seats to peer;
heard over and over the sheriff’s “Silence in the court!” and saw on
the faces of the jury that passed the carved bit of wood from hand to
hand the smiles of fathers and grandfathers who would like to take it
home to the children.
But his relief was short-lived: Burton Evans had pounced on him.
The questions came thick and fast, after the old man had told the story
of his movements that night. Cattle in the swamp? What cattle? Wasn’t
he a little over-anxious about another man’s cattle--a man he owed rent
to? (No objection from Colonel Donaldson.) Did he have owl’s eyes that
he could find his way about on a pitch-black night? If his mission were
an honest one, why didn’t he light a lantern? Was it his custom to draw
back and hide from passers-by? Was it his custom not to acknowledge
a friendly greeting in the road? Did he usually sleep as sound as he
slept that night?
But old Jeff, buffeted about like an untrained boxer standing before
a professional, managed somehow to keep on his feet, to stick to the
truth, though the sweat stood out on his face, and his limp old hat was
twisted into a rag, and the crowd and jury swam round and round before
him.
Groggy, he came down at last, though not until the judge himself had
interposed in his behalf, and not until the eyes of the jury were full
of compassion, and not until from the front bench came the voice of a
mother trying to quiet a sobbing child.
He sank down limp into his chair, to find Squire Kirby tugging at the
coat-tails of Colonel Donaldson, who had risen, and whispering over and
over, his voice full of respect now:
“Rest the case, Colonel! Rest the case, rest the case! You’ve brought
out the Injun! You give Evans rope, an’ he’s hung hisself! Colonel
Donaldson, Colonel Donaldson, give the case to the jury as quick as you
kin!”
* * * * *
But the ancient lawyer regarded not at all the frantic whispers or the
tugs at his coat-tails. Voice still dry and impersonal, he spoke to the
judge:
“May it please Your Honor, I want Mr. Blainey put on the stand once
more. I have just a few questions to ask him. There are some details
which I overlooked. I am sure, sir, that a man of Mr. Blainey’s humane
and just temperament will not mind going on the stand again. I am sure
the state attorney can have no possible objections, sir. Mr. Blainey?”
Followed a brief excited conference between Blainey and Evans. Then,
very pale, Blainey was in the witness chair, and Donaldson was standing
very straight by his table, the afternoon sun streaming through one of
the high gothic windows of the old courthouse, and shining full on his
thin, hawk-like face.
“Mr. Blainey, what time did you leave the store that night?”
“I’ve answered that once,” said Blainey.
“Well, answer it again!”
“I said eleven.”
“Wasn’t it later than that?”
Blainey looked at Evans, who nodded, his lips compressed.
“Oh, it might have been half past.”
“Was it as late as twelve?”
“No--it was not!”
And now once more the sheriff shouted “Silence in the court!” For
the old lawyer had advanced two quick steps toward the witness, and
suddenly his voice, shrill and grating, rang out, while a thrill like
an electric shock ran through the court-room.
“Wasn’t it two o’clock? Answer me, sir--wasn’t it two?... You do not
answer. Very well. Answer me this: Did some friends of yours drive out
to see you that night in a car? Did they park the car in the woods near
your store? Did they bring with them some liquor and some cards and
some chips? Did you have a game of poker in the basement of your store?
Did all of you imbibe freely of that liquor in the course of the game?
Did you, while under the influence of that liquor, throw lighted cigar
and cigarette stubs on the floor of the basement of that store that was
littered with packing of all sorts, and excelsior?”
Again Evans was on his feet, apoplectic with objections. But the old
lawyer went on, before the judge could speak, his voice high-pitched
and metallic, filling the excited court-room.