The first piece was what I may call a little Police Pastoral,
in recognition of the pretty touch of poetry which graced it. A
half-grown, baddish-looking boy was arraigned for assault and battery,
and took his place at one end of that long table on which rested the
clerk’s desk, while a young girl of thirteen or fourteen advanced from
the audience, and placed herself at the other end. She was dressed in a
well-fitting ready-made suit, which somehow suggested itself as having
been “marked down” to come within her means; and she wore a cheap yet
tasteful hat, under which her face, as honest as it was comely, looked
modestly up at the judge when he questioned her. It appeared that she
was passing the apple-stand which the defendant was keeping for his
mother, when he had suddenly abandoned his charge, followed her into a
gate where she had taken refuge, and struck her; her cries attracted
the police, and he was arrested. The officer corroborated her story,
and then the judge made a signal to the prisoner, by which it seemed
that he was privileged to cross-question his accuser. The injured
youth seized the occasion, and in a loud-bullying, yet plaintive tone
proceeded as best he could to damage the case against him.
_He_: “Didn’t you pass my mother’s stand with them girls the day
before?”
_She_, frankly: “Yes, I _did_.”
_He_: “And didn’t you laugh at me, and call me an apple-woman?”
_She_, as before: “Yes, I _did_.”
_He_: “And hain’t you hit _me_, sometimes, before this?”
_She_, evasively: “I’ve never hit you to hurt you.”
_He_: “Now, that hain’t the question! The question is whether you’ve
ever hit me.”
_She_: “Yes, I have--when you were trying to hold me. It was the other
girls called you names. I only called you names once.”
_He_: “I want to know whether I hurt you any when you hollered out that
way?”
_She_: “Yes, you _did_. And if I hadn’t screamed you _would_ have done
it. I don’t suppose you’d have hurt me a great _deal_, but you have
hurt _some_ of the girls.”
_The Judge_: “Did he bruise you severely when he struck you?”
_She_, with a relenting glance, full of soft compassion, at her enemy:
“Well, he didn’t bruise me _very_ much.”
_The Judge_: “Has he been in the habit of assaulting the other young
girls?”
_She_: “He never did _me_ before.” Then, with a sudden burst, “And I
think I was every bit as much to blame as he was! I had no business to
tease him.”
Here the judge, instead of joining the hands of these children, and
sending them forward with his blessing, to dance and sing a little duet
together, as would have happened on any other stage, said that he would
fine the defendant seven dollars. The defendant gave way to a burst
of grief, and the plaintiff, astonished at this untoward conclusion,
threw the judge a pathetic and reproachful look, and left the stand in
painful bewilderment. I felt sorry for her, but I could not share her
pity for the defendant, and my light mind was quickly distracted by the
next piece.