AT COURT AGAIN.
THE lawsuit to foreclose us out of our home is bein tried to-day. We
borrowed Ike Hill’s gray mare and driv to town airly, and found the
lawyers hangin around like buzzards waitin for the arrival of a dead
beast.
They begin to meet us and shake hands from the time we hitched in front
of Urfer’s big dry-goods store until we got clear inside the fence that
surrounds the judge’s seat and divides the high-toned cattle from the
low-toned breed. They all wanted to know if we had “ingaged counsel.”
When I told them that our family had counsel of its own blood, in the
person of myself, Betsy Gaskins, wife of Jobe Gaskins, the defendant,
they would kind a sneer and walk off. They looked hurt like, jist as a
feller does when he loses a ten-dollar bill.
These lawyers seem kind a anxious that the people who are bein
foreclosed should have “counsel,” but I could never see where “havin
counsel” changes the foreclosin act any.
Well, we got inside the lawyers’ field, the officer opened court and the
judge called the case of “Vinting, plaintiff, vs. Gaskins, defendant,
for money only.” Says he:
“Are the parties to the case ready for trial?”
Jim Patrick, the lawyer, nodded his head and says, “Ready,” without even
takin his feet off the table.
I dident have my feet on the table. But when the judge looked our way I
nodded and says, “Ready.”
I hadent that word out of my mouth till Lawyer Porter riz to his feet,
and, addressin the court, says:
[Illustration: “We hitched in front of Urfer’s big dry goods store.”]
“If your honor please, on behalf of the ‘bar’ of this county, I object
to Mrs. Betsy Gaskins a practicin law before this court.
“I object for three reasons: First, because she is a woman; second,
because she has not been admitted to practice in this court; third,
because it interferes with the legitimate profits of the legal
fraternity of this county.
“If your honor please, as you well know, the lawyers of this county have
no other source of income than from the parties to the cases brought to
this court, and if women and persons who have not been admitted to the
bar are permitted to practice in this court, our bizness will be ruined,
and some of us, at least, will have to go to workin for a livin;
therefore I object to permittin this woman to farther participate in
this case, and in doin so I voice the sentiment of every member of this
bar.”
I riz up.
[Illustration: “‘Ready.’”]
The judge looked at me, steady like, over his specks, as if he was a
goin to tell me to set down. Says I:
“Mistur Court, may I speak?”
He looked around at the bar. Several heads went east and west. The judge
thought a minit and says:
“You may speak.”
Perceedin, says I: “Mistur Court, I am the lawful wife of Jobe Gaskins,
the man you are asked to foreclose and turn out of the home he has tried
hard to hold. We are old people. We are poor. Times are hard and money
is scarce, and, bein called here without our choosin, we came without
money to pay anything toward the support of the ‘bar’ the lawyer spoke
about.
“All we ask, Mistur Court, is to be heard. We want to save our old home
if we can do so. All I ask is, if there is any speakin that can be done
to persuade you that we hadent ort to be turned out, that you let me do
that speakin, because I feel that I can tell you what we would suffer,
and why we hadent ort to be turned out, as honestly and as earnestly as
any lawyer could who was talkin for only a few dollars pay.
“God knows, Mistur Court, that what I shall say to you will not be
prompted by a few dollars, but by the love I have for the roof that has
sheltered us, for the fire that has warmed us, and those things about
the place that has caused a lump to come up in my throat whenever I
think we may soon have to leave them forever, or when I wonder where we
would go if you say, Mistur Court, that we must be foreclosed.
“I know I am a woman—a old woman. I haint a regular lawyer, but I ask to
do the speakin in this case, because we haint the money to pay any of
these regular lawyers to do it, and God knows we have always tried to
pay for everything we have ever got or had done for us.”
I sot down.
The judge set a studyin; finally says he:
“Mr. Sheriff, adjourn court until 1:30 o’clock p.m.”
And that is where the lawsuit is at this hour. I am waitin to see if I
will be allowed to speak. Yours at court.
[Illustration]