OLLIE SPEAKS
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.
"I'll tell everything--if you'll let me--now," said she, rising to her
feet.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
"Considering this late hour in the proceedings, your honor----" he
began.
Judge Maxwell silenced him with a stern and reproving look.
"It is never too late for justice, Mr. Prosecutor," said he. "Let that
woman come forward and be sworn."
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.
"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."
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.
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 if they had condemned him under the accusation. Her
eyes were on Ollie's face, her lips were murmuring beneath her breath:
"Thank the Lord for His justice and mercy! Thank the Lord, thank the
Lord!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Now, Mrs. Chase, tell your story in your own way, and take your own
time for it," said Hammer, kindly patronizing.
"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."
"Yes; go on, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer as she hesitated there.
"Joe didn't shoot Isom. That happened just the way he's 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."
"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----"
"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."
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.
"Go ahead, Mrs. Chase," prompted Hammer. "You say you know about that
sack of money?"
"I was taking it away with me," said she, drawing a long breath and
expelling it with an audible sigh.
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."
She paused again, picking at her fingers nervously.
"You say that Joe stopped you--" Hammer began. She cut him off, taking
up her suspended narrative without spirit, as one resumes a burden.
"Yes, but let me tell you first." She looked frankly into Judge
Maxwell's eyes.
"Address the jury, Mrs. Chase," admonished Hammer. She turned and looked
steadily into the foreman's bearded face.
"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.
"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."
"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?"
Ollie's pale face grew scarlet; she hung her head.
"Yes," she answered, in voice shamed and low.
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.
"Go on," said he.
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.
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 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.
"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."
"You were not," Hammer assured her. "A wife cannot rob her husband, Mrs.
Chase. And then what did you do?"
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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. 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.
"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."
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.
"Yes, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer. "And then what did you do next?"
"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.
"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."
"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.
"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 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."
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.
"After Isom fell--after the gun went off and Isom fell--what did you and
Joe do?" he asked.
"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.
"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."
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.
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.
Mrs. Newbolt still clung to her son's hand. She nodded 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.
"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.
"One moment, Mr. Prosecutor," said he.
The prosecutor flushed, and sat down in ruffled dignity.
"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.
"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."
"Vindication is what we demand, your honor," said Hammer grandly;
"vindication before the world!"
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.
"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?"
The jurymen had been exchanging glances. Now the foreman rose, tall and
solemn, with beard upon his breast.
"Your honor, it will not be necessary for the jury to retire," said he.
"We are ready to return our verdict."
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:
"We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."
The judge looked down at Joe, who had turned to his mother, smiling
through his tears.
"You are free, God bless you!" said he.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
There, before their eyes, they had seen this uncouth grub transformed
into a glorious and noble thing, and the only 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The people had their quick eyes on Alice, also, and they 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.
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.
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.
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.
"Thank you! You're the bravest woman in the world!" she said.
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.
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.
"You didn't have to do that for me, Ollie," said he, kindly; "I could
have got on, somehow, without that."
"Both of you--" said Ollie, a sob shaking her breath; "it was for both
of you!"
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.
"I don't care now, I don't care what _anybody_ says!" said she.
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.
Ollie drew her cloak around her shoulders and rose to her feet.
"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."
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
Sam Lucas offered Joe his hand.
"No hard feeling, Joe, I hope?" said he.
"Well, not in particular--oh, well, you were only doing your duty, as
you saw it," said Joe.
"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.
"As for that--" began Colonel Price.
"You knew it, Miss Price," Lucas cut in. "Why didn't you make him
tell?"
"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 _make_ a
gentleman tell!"
"Just so," said Judge Maxwell, coming down from the bench with his books
under his arm.
"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!"
Colonel Price bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Newbolt.
"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!"