The moment of silence in the court room was followed by a confused
murmur of voices. People were moving about in their seats and craning
their necks, anxious to see. Charlie Pickett was on his feet, his face
flushed, his breast heaving with emotion, his eyes fixed on the two
figures at the witness stand. When Abner Pickett lifted his face from
Dannie’s neck, his eyes were filled with tears.
“Where did you come from, Dannie?” he asked; and Dannie answered:--
“I came from home, Gran’pap.”
“Not to-day?”
“Yes, to-day.”
“But, Dannie, how--how--?”
“I had to, Gran’pap. I had to tell you. I had to make it right as near
as I could, as quick as I could.”
Again the old man, leaning far out over the rail, drew the boy up to
his breast.
For the moment Marshall was at a loss how to act. He did not quite
know what was coming next. Then his long experience and his native
shrewdness came to his rescue, and he rose to the situation.
“That will do, Mr. Pickett,” he said. “Dannie, you may take the witness
stand.”
The next minute Dannie was in the place vacated by his grandfather, and
the old man, refusing to go far away, had dropped into a chair by the
defendant’s table, inside the bar.
Marshall began his questions with gentle emphasis.
“Your name is Dannie Pickett?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are a grandson of the witness last on the stand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And is it true that you pulled out the stakes set by the engineers of
the Delaware Valley and Eastern Railroad Company?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“When did you remove them?”
“The same night they were set.”
“At about what hour of the night?”
“I think it was about eleven o’clock when I began. I don’t know what
time it was when I got through.”
“How many stakes did you remove?”
“All of ’em. I began in the potato field where they left off surveying
that night, and I pulled ’em out all the way through the meadow, and
across the road, and in the graveyard, and down the gap, and along the
hill on the other side.”
“You made a clean sweep of it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir; I think I found every one, as far as I went.”
“Was any one there with you?”
“No, sir. I did it all alone. Oh, yes! there was some one with me
comin’ back. The other engineers. I met ’em in the gap.”
“You mean the engineers of the T. & W.?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So they were with you, were they?”
“Yes, sir. But not until after I was all through an’ comin’ home. Then
they made me go back with ’em.”
“Down through the gap?”
“Yes, sir, all the way.”
“Did you tell them you had removed the stakes?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Did they know it?”
“No, sir, they didn’t. Not one of ’em. I didn’t tell anybody, not even
Gran’pap.”
“Did any one ask you to remove those stakes?”
“No, sir, not any one.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Well, I just thought they had no right to set ’em where they did. I
thought they wouldn’t ’a’ done it if Gran’pap had been there. I thought
if I pulled ’em out, they couldn’t build any railroad through the
graveyard. And then, I got very angry at the engineer for what he said
to me when I asked him about the railroad.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Well, if you please, I’d rather not tell.”
“You needn’t. Now, Dannie, didn’t you know that you were doing wrong
when you removed those stakes, no matter what your motive might have
been?”
“I didn’t stop to think much about it then. I just went ahead and did
it. But I know now that it was wrong. I’ve known it ever since it was
done. I haven’t any excuse to make.”
“Do you want it understood that you alone are to blame, and that you
alone are responsible for this deed?”
“Yes, sir. That’s it exactly.”
“Well, let us see about that. Did you, on the evening of the night in
which you removed the stakes, hear your grandfather declare that no
person could do a better deed than to pull them all up and throw them
into the brook?”
“Why, yes, sir--yes; I heard him say somethin’ like that.”
“Very well. Did or did not that declaration have anything to do with
your subsequent conduct?”
Marshall saw that the sympathy of the audience, and possibly of the
court, was with the child, and he desired to trace the moral, if not
the actual responsibility for the deed back to shoulders that would not
be spared. Dannie looked hopelessly down at his questioner, and then
turned an appealing glance to his grandfather, who sat with bowed head
and eyes fixed on the floor, and did not see him.
“I’d rather not answer that question,” he said, at last, and then added
quickly: “If my grandfather’d had any idea of what I was goin’ to do,
he’d ’a’ stopped me. I know he would. Why, I stole out o’ the house in
my stockin’ feet, so he wouldn’t hear me. And I never told ’im what
I’d done till I told ’im here to-day. Never! never! never!”
“There, Dannie; don’t get excited. Just keep cool and answer my
question. Would you have gone out that night and removed those stakes
if you had not heard your grandfather say it would be a good thing to
do?”
Again the boy looked hopelessly down at the lawyer and was silent. He
knew, in his heart, that it was his grandfather’s declaration that had
started him on his midnight errand; but he would rather have faced the
terrors of the jail than said so. He would not willingly shift any part
of the burden of responsibility to other shoulders than his own. In the
midst of the profound silence which followed Marshall’s question, Abner
Pickett rose slowly to his feet.
“I’ll answer that,” he said. “The boy ain’t to blame. He simply did
what he thought I wanted done. In his heart and soul the child is
innocent. If any crime has been committed, I’m the one who is guilty of
it.”
He spoke slowly, distinctly, yet with a tremor in his voice that
betrayed his deep emotion. It was all out of order, this declaration of
his, in the midst of the examination of another witness, but no one
interrupted him; even court and counsel listened with close attention
until he finished his appeal and dropped back into his chair. Then
Dannie himself was the first to speak.
“Oh, no, Gran’pap!” he exclaimed; “oh, no! Maybe I wouldn’t ’a’ done
it but for what you said; but I ought to ’a’ known you didn’t mean it.
I ought to ’a’ known you wouldn’t ’a’ let me done it. I ought to ’a’
known you wouldn’t permit anything wrong. And that was wrong, and I
knew it; only I didn’t stop to think. Oh, no, Gran’pap; I’m to blame!
I’m to blame!”
He held out his hands appealingly as he spoke, gazing alternately at
his grandfather and at the lawyer. Tears were coursing down the old
man’s cheeks; and out in the court room many an eye was moist watching
this little drama of love and protection, staged and played in the bar
of the court.
It was plain to the dullest understanding that the boy was frank and
truthful, and that the old man was not inclined to shirk his share
of the responsibility. But Marshall was not yet satisfied. He wanted
not only the truth, but the whole truth. It was due to his client
that every fact should be brought out in detail. He took up again the
regular order of examination.
“Were you subpœnaed as a witness in this case?” he asked.
“No,” replied Dannie, “I wasn’t.”
“Then what was it that led you to come here and make this remarkable
statement?”
“Well, I’ll tell you how it was. I got to thinkin’ about it yesterday,
after they’d all gone, and I thought an’ thought, till it seemed as
if it’d kill me if I didn’t tell somebody. An’ so, last night, I told
Aunt Martha. An’ she said the only way to make it right was by tellin’
those that had been injured by what I’d done. So we made it up between
us that I was to come up here the first thing this mornin’ an’ tell it
all. And I tried to get here before court began; but--but I couldn’t
make out to do it. I--I’m sorry I was so long comin’; but I hope it
ain’t too late?”
Marshall looked up at him incredulously.
“You haven’t come here from Pickett’s Gap to-day, my boy?”
“Yes, sir. I left there this mornin’ real early; before it began to
drift much.”
“But the roads are absolutely impassable!”
“I know. We had hard work. The roads were drifted full. I came in the
stage as far as the poor-house. The horses gave out there. Then the
stage driver and I, we footed it as far as Keene’s. From there I walked
on to Mooreville alone.”
As he recalled that awful journey Dannie looked up wearily, and out
over the sea of sympathetic faces turned toward him in the court room.
But he was too tired to see them. They floated indistinctly before him.
They seemed to advance and recede, to expand and contract, alternately
to fade and find form before his aching eyes.
“And did you think it necessary to come here at the risk of your life
to make this acknowledgment?” asked Marshall.
“Why, I didn’t think just that way about it,” replied the boy; “but I
knew I’d done wrong to keep it to myself so, an’ I felt that I ought
to get here an’ tell about it as soon as I could. I wanted Gran’pap
to know. I never kept anything from him before, an’ I wanted to tell
him first, because he’s done more for me, an’ been kinder to me than
anybody else. An’ then--an’ then I’d heard that the engineer who made
the night survey had been accused o’ pullin’ out those stakes, or
havin’ ’em pulled out; an’ I was afraid they’d try to prove it on ’im
here, an’ maybe find ’im guilty of it before I could get here an’ set
’em right. And I wouldn’t ’a’ had that happen--why, I’d sooner ’a’ died
in the snow than had ’em do that. He was so good to run his line around
the graveyard. He was so gentle, an’ kind, an’--an’, oh, he couldn’t
’a’ been kinder an’ gentler an’ sweeter to me if he’d ’a’ been my own
father.”
Charlie Pickett, sitting back among the spectators, felt the hot blood
surge into his face, and the paternal passion flood his heart. He
longed to take this boy at once in his arms,--this boy whose frank
acknowledgment of his fault had brought tears to a hundred eyes, whose
simple story of dreadful daring for conscience’ sake had thrilled every
breast in the court room,--to take him at once into the shelter of his
love, and keep him and protect him against all the world.
But Marshall was asking his last question.
“Have you anything more to say, Dannie, in extenuation of your conduct?
I do not know what action, if any, the officers of the D. V. & E. will
take against you. Your offence was certainly a serious one. But, in
view of any possible punishment they may have in mind for you, I want
to give you this opportunity for any further explanation you may wish
to make.”
“I’ve nothing more to say,” replied Dannie, wearily; “I’ve told you
all. I’m ready to be punished for what I’ve done. I made up my mind to
that before I came here. I’m willin’ to go to jail; except that I’d be
sorry for the disgrace I’d brought on Gran’pap an’ Aunt Martha. They
brought me up to be honest an’ good. An’ I’d be sorry on account of my
father, too, very sorry, if he should ever know about it. But I’ve no
complaint to make, an’ I’ll try to stand whatever comes without cryin’.”
Yet even as he spoke, the boy’s lips trembled, and great tears filled
his eyes. He could not help thinking of those gloomy and forbidding
cells in the county jail.
A gentleman who had been sitting inside the bar, listening intently
to the testimony, came over hurriedly and whispered to Marshall. The
latter rose at once from his chair, and said to Dannie:--
“Mr. Rayburn, the general manager of the D. V. & E. just informs me
that his company will not prosecute you for your offence against the
law. He says he believes that your conscience, has already punished
you with sufficient severity to say nothing of what you have endured
in forcing your way here through this terrible storm to set us right
on what has been, heretofore, an unexplainable mystery. Moreover, he
wishes me to thank you for your frank and manly statement of the facts.
That is all. You may leave the stand.”
But Dannie did not move. The revulsion of feeling on learning that,
after all, he was not to be punished, that the iron doors of the grim
old jail were not to open for his admittance, was too strong to be
controlled. His face flushed with sudden joy, and then the color all
went out and he grew white as death. The lashes of his eyelids drooped
upon his cheeks, his hands fell to his sides, his chin sank upon his
breast, and those who looked on him saw that he had been stricken with
sudden faintness. A court attendant hurried into a side room for a
glass of water. Abner Pickett and Marshall were on their feet in an
instant hurrying toward the fainting boy. But before either of them
could reach his chair, Charlie Pickett, with great strides, had swung
himself from the bench where he was sitting to the boy’s side, and had
caught him in his arms. He held him to his breast, looking about for
an instant to see what he should do. Then, without waiting to follow
any of the dozen suggestions that were given to him simultaneously by
lawyers and officers of the court, he started with his burden down the
crowded aisle. People gave way before him, looking with sympathetic
eyes on the limp little body borne so tenderly in the strong parental
arms. When he reached the long corridor, Charlie saw the door of a jury
room standing invitingly open, and into that he hurried and laid the
unconscious boy at full length on a convenient bench. A court attendant
bustled in with a glass of water. A young physician, who had been
sitting in the court room, hurried in and offered his services.
“I am a doctor,” he said; “perhaps I can be of some assistance.”
He felt the boy’s pulse, touched his cheek, and listened to his
breathing.
“It is only a fainting spell,” he said; “he will come out of it in a
minute. Brought on by excitement and exhaustion, I presume. I don’t
wonder at it if the boy’s story of his journey through the storm is
true.”
He was chafing Dannie’s hands as he spoke, loosening the neckband of
his shirt, and touching his cheek to note the returning circulation.
“Whatever he said is true,” declared Abner Pickett; “the boy never told
a lie in his life.”
Gabriel, who had followed the party to the jury room, had, with a quick
instinct not unusual for him, constituted himself a doorkeeper, and was
holding back the curious and inquiring crowd.
“Jest a little faintin’ spell,” he explained. “Ain’t used to court, you
know, an’ the judge an’ the lawyers an’ all, they kind o’ scairt ’im.
He’ll be all right in a minute or two--much obleeged to ye.”
Charlie Pickett, leaning over the prostrate body of his son, touched
his father’s arm.
“Father,” he said, “I want to speak to you for a moment. Dannie is safe
in the doctor’s hands. Will you come out with me?”
And Abner Pickett looked up at him coldly and replied:--
“I’ve no call to speak to you, sir. I’ll take care of the boy.”
“Then I shall exercise my right as a father in the presence of these
people.”
Before either of the men could speak again, Dannie opened his eyes and
looked around him.
“What is it, Gran’pap?” he asked. “What did I do? Where--oh! I
remember.”
Then, as his recollection grew more distinct, he exclaimed:--
“I’m not to go to jail, Gran’pap! Did you hear ’em say so? I’m not to
go to jail!”
The horrible nightmare of imprisonment that had brooded over his pillow
for weeks had suddenly vanished, and he could not contain himself for
joy.
“No, Dannie,” replied the old man, gently, “no, not to jail. They’ve
no call to punish you. You’ve borne a thousand times too much already.
We’ll go home, Dannie. Can you get up? Can you get on your feet? Can
you walk? There, that’s it. Hang on to my arm, so! We’ll go home.”
“Father!”
It was Charlie Pickett who spoke. The old man did not heed him.
“Father!”
The voice attracted Dannie’s attention. It had, somehow, a familiar
sound. He loosened his grasp on the old man’s arm and turned to look at
the speaker. Then the blood rushed into his face again. He recognized
his friend of the night journey through the gap.
“I’m so glad to see you,” he said, holding out his hand. “Gran’pap,
this man was good to me. He was good to you, Gran’pap, an’ to those in
the graveyard, an’ to all of us.”
But Abner Pickett stood speechless, with stony eyes and rigid face.
Charlie turned to the tipstaff and the doctor.
“Will you kindly leave us alone together?” he asked. “It is a family
matter I wish to settle. Gabriel, please close the door and guard it.”
Then they were alone together in the room; three generations, the same
blood running in their veins, the same family pride swelling their
hearts, the same will and grim determination shaping every act of their
lives. Dannie, stunned by the revelation that had been so suddenly
made to him, sank back again upon the bench, looking, with bewildered
eyes, first upon one man, then upon the other. He could not yet quite
comprehend it; but the joyful truth was forcing itself slowly in upon
his mind that this fine, stalwart, lovable man was his father. When
the door was closed, Charlie turned to the boy. Frank, impetuous,
unselfish, as he had ever been, he spoke his mind.
“Dannie,” he said, “I am your father. There, sit still; wait till I
am through. When you were a baby there was a matter about which your
grandfather and I differed. I spoke to him unkindly and in anger. What
I told him was not true. I admitted it then, I admit it to-day. He said
that no person who had lied to him once should have the opportunity
to do so again, and he sent me from his house and forbade me ever to
return. I went, leaving you in his custody, knowing that with Aunt
Martha also to care for you, you would want for nothing. For thirteen
years I have done penance for that lie, but my father has not forgiven
me. For thirteen years I have looked forward, day and night, to the
time when I should claim you and ask you to come with me, and be my son
in fact as well as in name. I am ready to take you now. I want you.
Will you come?”
It was so sudden, so astounding, that Dannie could not comprehend it
all at once. The bewildered look was still in his eyes.
“You--are my father?” he asked.
“Yes, Dannie.”
“Is it true, Gran’pap?”
“It is.”
The old man, standing with folded arms, his back to the door, his
cheeks flushed, his lips set, with lightning veiled under the cold
glitter of his eyes, looked the picture of dignified wrath.
Dannie turned again to his father.
“And--and you lied to Gran’pap?”
“Yes, Dannie, I did.”
“Is that true, Gran’pap?”
“That is true.”
The words might have come from lips of marble, they were so precise and
passionless.
“Father,” exclaimed Charlie, “be just to me! Say that it was the first
and last lie I ever told you. Say that afterward I acknowledged my
fault, and asked your forgiveness, and you would not listen to me.”
“That is true.”
Cold as ice, clear as crystal, the answer to his son’s appeal came from
the old man’s lips. For a moment there was silence, and then Dannie
spoke again to his father.
“And you want me to come--to come an’ live with you?”
There was a tremor of joy in the boy’s voice at the very thought of
such happiness as this.
“I do. I want you. I need you. I cannot live my life as I should
without you.”
“Gran’pap, may I go?”
At last the supreme moment had come, the vital question had been put.
Abner Pickett still stood there, motionless, with folded arms.
“You may choose,” he said, “between him and me. I shall have no divided
allegiance. If you go with him, you can say good-by to me to-day for
all time.”
Never before had he so veiled the passion in his heart with calm
utterance of words. But if his speech was cool, it was determined.
He meant what he said to the last degree. He wanted far more from
his son than a mere acknowledgment of his fault, and a petition for
forgiveness. It was not enough to come to him with bowed head and
penitent words. He wanted the prodigal to prostrate himself in the
dust at his father’s feet, to yield everything, to receive nothing.
Strange he did not know that a Pickett never had done that, never could
do it, never would do it; that even in the confession of a fault, the
Pickett pride would never humble itself more deeply than honor and
conscience might demand. Yet here was this old man, in his own pride
and stubbornness, choosing to give up absolutely and forever his
choicest living treasure, rather than yield one jot or tittle of the
stern law he had laid down thirteen years before. Charlie Pickett was
not deceived by his father’s calmness. He well knew that if Dannie came
with him it would be outlawry for the boy from the old home; it would
be the breaking of every tie that bound him to his grandfather’s heart
and hearth. He knew what they had been to each other--those two--could
he bend himself to the severance of those sweet relations? Would it not
be cruelty to both of them? And yet--and yet he wanted so to have his
son.
On Dannie’s face the lights and shadows fell alternately. He knew not
what to say or to do. How could he choose between these two?--between
the father who had come suddenly into his life like a dream of light
and sweetness, and the grandfather who had loved him and cared for him,
and had been his comrade and playfellow from babyhood. Charlie Pickett,
looking on his son’s face, saw there the agony of indecision, and his
heart melted. Tears sprang to his eyes, and his voice choked with
emotion.
“Father,” he said, “I yield. He shall stay with you. It is right, it is
just. Some day, when I am old and alone and need him, as you do now,
I will call and he will come to me. Go with him, Dannie. Be good to
him, as he has been to you. Good-by! Good-by, my lad,--good-by!”
He lifted the boy from the bench, clasped him to his breast, kissed him
once and again, and then gently placed him at his grandfather’s side.
He turned to the door, unclosed it and held it wide open, standing with
bowed head and trembling lips and tear-dimmed eyes, while the old man
and his grandson, hand in hand, passed out into the corridor.
[Illustration: “He held the door wide open while the old man and his
grandson passed out into the corridor.”]
At the head of the staircase Dannie stopped, turned, and ran swiftly
back into the jury room. He leaped sobbing into his father’s arms.
“Father!” he cried, “Father, I’m goin’ to bring you an’ Gran’pap
together. I want you both. I need you both. I must have you both. I’m
goin’ to bring you together if it takes my life to do it. I will--I
will!”
Again the strong man, with tears streaming down his face, strained the
boy to his heart.
“Thank you, Dannie,--thank you! And God speed the day of
reconciliation. Good-by again, my boy,--good-by!”
Once more he released him, and Dannie hurried back to where his
grandfather stood on the steps, fearful lest the old man might think
that, after all, he had chosen to desert him. But the grim smile of
triumph on Abner Pickett’s face as they passed down the staircase and
out to the court-house porch, told of the satisfaction that reigned in
his heart over the victory he had won, and over the fact that the boy
was to be his and his alone, for years to come.
He stopped to button Dannie’s great-coat, and tie wraps about his
throat and ears, and then they started out together into the snow-bound
world, pushing their way through the drifts that blocked the path to
the street; while Charlie Pickett, looking from an upper window, with
tear-blurred eyes, watched them out of sight.