Chapter 3

It was out; he was committed, and Solomon heaved a great sigh, he knew not whether of relief or dismay. There was not indeed any risk in signing with Edwards, who was "good" for any bail that the justice was likely to require; but what would Mrs. Peaslee say if she knew! He glanced apprehensively toward the house.

His wife had gone in; but, evil omen! there, sitting on a fence-post, was the Calico Cat. She was placidly washing her face; and as her paw twinkled past the big black spot round her right eye, she appeared, at that distance, to be greeting him with a derisive wink.

Mr. Edwards, although his mouth shut tighter than ever at the mention of bail, was surprised and touched. "Thank you," he said. "It's kind of you to think of it."

In the village, Sam ushered them into the musty law office of Squire Tucker, justice of the peace. The squire was a large, fat man, clothed in rusty black, with a carelessly knotted string tie pendent beneath a rumpled turn-down collar. He had a smooth-shaven, fat face, lighted by shrewd and kindly eyes, which gleamed at you now through, now over, his glasses. When the party entered he was writing, and merely looked up under his big eyebrows long enough to wave them all to chairs.

Jim sat down, with the constable behind him and his father at his left, and studied the man in whose hands he thought that his fate rested. He watched the squire's pen go from paper to ink, ink to paper, and listened to its scratch, scratch, and to the buzz of a big fly against the dirty window-pane. Ashamed to look at any one, he looked at the lawyer's big ink-well--a great, circular affair of mottled brown wood. It had several openings, each one with its own little cork attached with a short string to the side of the stand. He had never seen one like it before.

Then some one entered the room. Jim, looking sidewise, recognized Jake Hibbard, and began covertly to study his face. He knew that this flabby-faced, dirty man, with the little screwed-up eyes, and the big screwed-up mouth, stained brown at the corners with tobacco, was Pete Lamoury's lawyer. Familiar for many years to his contemptuous young eyes, Jake now looked sinister and dangerous. What were these men going to do to him?

Amid his fluttering emotions and rushing thoughts one thing only stood fixed and clear: he would not tell on his father. Some day, when all trouble was past, he would let his father know that he knew all the time. Then he guessed his father would be sorry and ashamed. Now, since his father would not take him into his confidence, he would not pretend he did the shooting. That would be his only revenge.

Finally, Squire Tucker, pushing his writing aside, ran his fingers through the great mass of his tumbled gray hair, and looked quizzically at Jim over his glasses. "So this," he said, "is the hardened ruffian of whom our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Lamoury, complains?"

And indeed Jim, although stubborn, did not seem very dangerous.

The squire looked about the room.

"Is he represented by counsel?" he asked.

"No, I represent him," said Mr. Edwards.

"The charge against him is assault with intent to kill, I believe?" and he looked with demure inquiry at Jake Hibbard, who nodded with a wrath-clouded face. Tucker was not taking the case seriously.

"Well, young man," said the justice to Jim, "what's your explanation of this?"

"We'll waive examination," said Mr. Edwards, briefly.

The squire leaned back in his chair. "I suppose," he said, with evident reluctance, "I shall have to hold him for the grand jury. But I guess the safety of the community won't be greatly threatened if I let him out on bail. I should think a couple of hundred would do. I suppose there'll be no difficulty about the bond?"

The tone of the proceedings suited Mr. Peaslee well. In his nervousness and abstraction he had backed up to the rusty, empty iron stove at the end of the room, and stood there, with spread coat-tails, listening intently. On hearing the amount of bail, he gave a sigh of relief. His incautious offer had brought him no dangerous risk.

Mr. Edwards, however, did not answer. Instead, consulting the justice with a look, he turned and beckoned Jim to follow him into the hall.

"James," he said, "this is the last chance I shall give you. If you confess to me, I will see that you have proper bail. If you do not, I shall let the law take its course. You may choose."

Jim was exasperated. If his father wished to be mean, let him _be_ mean; at least he might drop this farce, this irritating pretense. He lost his temper.

"I don't care what you do!" he said fiercely. "Send me to jail if you want to. I guess I can stand it!"

"Is that all you have to say?"

Jim replied with a rebellious glance.

"Very well," said his father. "Then we will go back." Once in the room, he stepped to the squire's desk, and talked with him in low tones.

Then the justice turned to Jim again, a new gravity in his jolly face.

"Your father," he said, "refuses to go on your bond. Have you any sureties of your own to offer?"

"No, sir," said Jim.

Mr. Peaslee was outraged. What kind of a father was this! He half started forward to offer to be one of the two sureties which the law required, but--no, he dare not. The second surety might prove to be any sort of worthless fellow. But Jim in jail! He had not for a moment dreamed of that. He was very indignant with Mr. Edwards.

Meanwhile, Jake Hibbard was studying Mr. Edwards's face with puzzled attention. He had supposed that the lumber dealer, whom he knew to be well-to-do, would have paid anything, signed any bond, to protect his boy from jail. He was disconcerted. He drew his one hand across his mouth nervously.

"Well, Mr. Barton," said Squire Tucker, "I don't see but what you'll have to take this young man over to Hotel Calkins."

"Hotel Calkins" was the name which local wit gave to the county jail. The words sent a cold shiver down Mr. Peaslee's back. They stung him into generosity. As Barton and his prisoner, followed by Mr. Edwards and Jake, brushed by him on their way to the door, he slipped the knife into Jim's hand. When the boy, trying to keep back the tears, looked up inquiringly, he murmured, in agitation:--

"Don't ye care, sonny! Now don't ye care!"

He was greatly stirred--or he would not have been so incautious as to make his present in person and in public.

IV

When Nancy Ware, Jim's pretty teacher, heard that Mr. Edwards had let Jim go to jail, she was hotly indignant. She liked Jim, and laughed a little over him, for she knew he adored her. In her view he was a clumsy, nice boy; awkward and shy, to be sure, but rewarding her friendliness now and then with a really entrancing grin. She liked his imagination, she liked his loyalty, and she liked his dogged resolution.

She heard the news at the noon hour on Monday, and after her dinner she hurried at once to the store of Fred Farnsworth. To him she roundly declared that Mr. Edwards was a brute, a view of the man which struck Fred as a bit highly colored.

Fred was thirty-one or thirty-two years old, a sensible, humorous fellow, with considerable personal force. He was very proud of the handsome shop over which hung the sign, "Frederick W. Farnsworth, Fine Crockery and Glassware," and still prouder of his engagement to Miss Ware. He was the second grand juryman from Ellmington.

"Oh," said he, "Edwards isn't a bad sort of man. He isn't very sociable. I guess he wouldn't take much impudence, even from that boy of his. They say Jim wouldn't own up, and the old man won't do anything for him till he does."

"If Jimmie Edwards says he didn't fire that gun, he didn't," said Nancy, positively. "Jimmie isn't the lying kind. I know Mr. Edwards. I ought not to call him a brute, I suppose. But he's one of these obstinate men who will do anything they've made up their minds to do, even if you prove to them that they're wrong, even if it hurts them more than it does any one else. He's just got it into his head that Jimmie ought to confess, and he'd let him go to the gallows before he'd back down."

Nancy spoke with animation, her color rose and her eyes grew bright, and Fred looked and listened admiringly. He was skeptical about Jim, but he was struck with the accuracy of the portrait of Edwards.

"I guess that's about so," he said.

"And when I think of that poor boy shut up in that awful jail, locked into a cell, when he ought to be out-of-doors playing ball and having a good time, it makes my blood boil!" continued Miss Ware. "Now, Fred," she concluded, with pretty decision, "you must stop it."

Fred laughed.

"Isn't that a pretty large order?" he asked. "Squire Tucker put him there. I guess it's legal."

"You can do _something_," said his betrothed. "Go to see Jimmie. See if you can't find out what's the matter. Jimmie likes you, perhaps he'll tell."

"I didn't know Jim had any particular partiality for me," said Fred, but he felt kindlier toward the boy in spite of himself.

"If you can only find out what really happened, I know we can get him out," averred Miss Ware.

"Why don't you go yourself?" said Farnsworth.

"I can't,--not till five o'clock. Of course I'm going then!"

"That's about four hours off," said Farnsworth.

"But I want something done _now_!" exclaimed Nancy.

"Oh!" said Fred, humorously.

"Will you go?"

"Of course. I'll start at once." Fred dropped his banter. "I'll tell you what, Nancy. I may not be able to do much right off, but I'll promise you that he has a fair chance before the grand jury."

Farnsworth started at once for the jail. It was a poor place for a boy, he reflected, as he rang the jailer's private bell. Calkins himself was not there, and his wife came to the door. She knew Farnsworth; and when he asked if he might see Jim she laughed a little, and told him to "step right in."

"Hotel Calkins" was a brick building which looked pleasantly like a private dwelling, as, in fact, a good half of it was. In this front half dwelt the jailer; in the rear half, separated from the living quarters by a thick wall and heavy doors, was the jail proper. There Farnsworth expected to be led.

But not at all! Mrs. Calkins ushered him into her own kitchen, where a wash-tub showed what she was doing, where the afternoon sun and sweet September air poured in at the open windows, and where a canary in its cage was singing cheerily.

Here Farnsworth was much surprised to see Jim, curled up in Mrs. Calkins's own rocking-chair, eating a large red-cheeked apple which he was dividing with a brand-new knife!

"Squire Tucker told Mark," said Mrs. Calkins, enjoying the joke, "that he guessed James would like our society full as well as that of the prisoners."

As for Jim, he grinned affably, and took another slice of his apple.

The awful picture which Miss Ware had drawn of Jim's dreadful isolation and misery and her own indignant sympathy rushed upon Farnsworth's mind, and were so comically out of relation with the facts that he sank weakly into the nearest chair and roared.

"This--is--the way--you go to jail--is it?" he gasped.

Mrs. Calkins smiled in sympathy, and Jim, half-suspecting that he ought to be offended at this frank mirth, looked sheepishly at the floor.

Farnsworth recovered himself. "A mighty good friend of yours," he said, "sent me over here."

"Miss Ware?" asked Jim, much pleased.

"Yes. She's coming herself right after school, loaded down with things to console your desolate prison life, I believe," and Farnsworth had to stop to laugh again. "But she wanted me to start right in and help you out of this, and that's what I'm here for."

"Thank you," said Jim, embarrassed, but polite. But it struck Farnsworth, as he said afterward, that the boy "shied" a little.

"Miss Ware says," he went on, "that she doesn't believe you fired that shot, and she wants you to tell me exactly what did happen. Now if we can show that you didn't shoot, I can get you out of here quick."

"What they going to do to me?" said Jim.

"That depends. It makes a difference how much Lamoury's hurt. The penalty might be severe if he's got a bad wound. But even then, if we could show that you didn't know he was there, or that the gun went off by accident, or that you were firing at something else, it would make a big difference. And if you can show that you weren't there at all--why, out you go, scot-free. But, Jim, you can see yourself that if you don't tell what you know, everybody'll think that you shot and meant to hurt Lamoury, and then it might go pretty hard with you. Now come, tell me what happened."

"You'd better tell, Jimmie," said Mrs. Calkins, straightening up from her wash-tub. "You won't find any better friends than Mr. Farnsworth and Miss Ware."

The young man, as he talked, watched the boy curiously. Jim flushed and squirmed, and looked now at the floor and now out at the window, with a marked uneasiness and embarrassment that greatly puzzled his friend. And when he stopped, and the boy had to answer, his distress became really pitiable.

"Can't you tell me, Jim?" Mr. Farnsworth hazarded, after a little, putting a kindly hand on the boy's arm, while Mrs. Calkins stood quiet by her tub in friendly expectation.

But Jim remained dumb.

After waiting a little, Farnsworth, seeing the boy so miserable, took pity on him.

"Well, never mind, Jim," he said. "You needn't tell if you don't want to."

He would have to let Nancy coax it out of him. But he was puzzled, impressed with a sense of mystery and with a growing conviction that the boy was shielding some one else. He began to talk cheerfully of other things, hoping that Jim might perhaps drop a useful hint, or, at least, that the boy would gain confidence in him as a friend. By chance he asked:--

"Where did you get the knife, Jim?"

"Mr. Peaslee gave it to me."

"Peaslee!" exclaimed Farnsworth. He well knew the "closeness" of his fellow juror.

"It isn't much of a knife," said Jim, apologetic but pleased. Jim's views of the world were changing: his father, although a bandit chief, had let him go to jail, while this stingy old man, with no halo of adventure about him, gave him a knife; and here were Miss Ware and Mr. Farnsworth and Mrs. Calkins and the jailer, none of them smugglers, who were very kind.

Farnsworth rose to go. Then Jim, summoning all his courage, asked a question which had long been trembling on his lips.

"What do they do to smugglers, Mr. Farnsworth?"

"Fine 'em, or put 'em in jail, or both. Why?"

"Nothing much," said Jim, but obviously he was cast down.

Farnsworth walked thoughtfully toward his store. "By George!" he thought suddenly. "I wonder--"

The gossip about the senior Edwards had occurred to him, and at the same time he remembered the quarrel with Lamoury.

"But what nonsense!" he thought. "If Edwards wanted to shoot any one he wouldn't do it in his own back yard, and he wouldn't treat his own boy that way, either." Still, the idea clung to him.

And then he thought of Nancy, and chuckled. "If she comes to the store before she goes to the jail I won't tell her what she'll find there," he promised himself.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peaslee felt a growing discomfort. He ate his dinner and answered the brisk questions of his wife with increasing preoccupation. Like Miss Ware, he was picturing Jim solitary and suffering in his lonely cell. With the utmost sincerity and ingenuousness he condemned Mr. Edwards.

"Hain't he got any feelin' for his own flesh and blood?" he asked himself. "'T ain't right; somebody'd ought to deal with him."

As he pottered about his yard after dinner, he finally worked himself up to the point of speaking to Edwards himself.

Even his righteous indignation would not have led him to this undertaking had he known Mr. Edwards better, or realized the father's present mood. Hurt exceedingly by Jim's lying and contempt of his wishes, hurt even more through his disappointed desire to help his boy, Mr. Edwards was sore and sensitive, discontented both with Jim and with himself. He did not want Jim in jail, he told himself; and the neighbors who were so uniformly assuming that he did might better give their thoughts to matters that concerned them more. He would get the boy out of jail quick enough if the boy would only let him.

As he stepped out of the house to do an errand at the barn, Mr. Peaslee hailed him over the dividing fence. Somewhat put out, Mr. Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr. Peaslee, leaning over the fence, began.

"Ed'ards," he said, reaching out an anxious, deprecatory hand, "don't ye think you're jest a leetle mite hard on that boy o' yourn--"

He got no further. Edwards gave him a look that made him shiver, and cut the conversation short by turning on his heel and marching toward the barn.

"Dretful ha'sh man, dretful ha'sh!" Mr. Peaslee muttered to himself. "Nice, likely boy as ever was. If I had a boy like that, I swan I wouldn't treat him so con-sarned mean!"

He turned away much shocked, and saw the Calico Cat watching him ironically from the chicken-house. "Drat that cat!" said he. "I ain't goin' to stay round here--not with that beast grinning at me."

He got his hat and started up-town, not knowing in the least what he intended to do there. He stopped, however, at every shop window and studied baseballs, bats, tivoli-boards, accordions. He was beginning to wonder if a twenty-five-cent knife was enough to console Jim for his unmerited incarceration.

He was gazing forlornly in at the window of Upham's drugstore, where some half-dozen harmonicas were displayed, and wondering if Jim would be allowed to play one in his dungeon cell, when Hibbard spoke to him.

He drew the lawyer aside, and, peering closely into his face with anxious eyes exaggerated by his spectacles, said insinuatingly:--

"Jest 'twixt you and me kinder confidential, Pete ain't hurt bad, is he? You don't mind sayin', do ye?"

Jake drew himself up, surprised and suspicious. Did the old fool think him as innocent as all that?

"He's hurt bad, Mr. Peaslee, bad," he said, with dignity. "Of course it isn't fatal--unless it should mortify." He waved his hand deprecatingly. "I can't imagine what that Edwards boy used in his gun."

Mr. Peaslee knew: the marble! He trembled. Still, he knew Jake's reputation. A shrewd thought visited his troubled mind.

"What doctor's seein' him?" he asked.

"Doctor!" exclaimed Hibbard, irritated. "Doctor! You know these French Canadians. They're worse scared of a doctor than of the evil one himself. Pete's usin' some old woman's stuff on his wounds,--bear's grease, rattlesnake oil, catnip tea,--what do I know? I can't make him see a doctor."

"Some doctor'll have to testify to court, won't they?" persisted Mr. Peaslee.

"Oh, I'll look out for that, don't you fear!" the lawyer said easily; but nevertheless he made a pretext for leaving the old man.

Perhaps had Mr. Peaslee's fears not been so keen, he would have taken some comfort from this conversation; but as it was he felt that the lawyer was dangerous; he feared that Pete really was badly hurt. It would go hard, then, with Jim. It would, by the same token, go hard with himself should he confess.

Suddenly he turned and rushed into Upham's store.

"Upham," said he, "I want _that_!"

And he pointed straight at a big harmonica with a strange and wonderful "harp attachment"--bright-colored and of amazing possibilities.

Upham, a neat little gentleman with nicely trimmed side-whiskers, who was always fluttered by the unexpected, hesitated, half opened his mouth, and then forgot either to shut it or to speak.

"Why, Mr. Peaslee," he stammered at last, "it's real expensive! You--it's two dollars and seventy-five cents."

"Don't care nothin' what it costs," said Mr. Peaslee, who was in a hurry for fear lest he should think twice.

When he came out of the store with the harmonica in his hands, he almost stumbled into Miss Ware. She was on her way to Jim, and, of course, her mind was full of his affairs. Here was Mr. Edwards's next neighbor. She impulsively stopped to ask if the misguided father still held to his resolution about Jim.

Mr. Peaslee had reason to know that he did, and said so. "I tell ye, Miss Ware," said he, with much emotion, "he belongs to a stony-hearted generation, and that's a fact. He ain't got any compassion in him, seems though."

"It's a shame, a perfect shame!" exclaimed Nancy.

"'T ain't right," said Mr. Peaslee, with a warmth which surprised the young woman, and made her warm to this old man, whom she had always thought so selfish. "'T ain't right--your own flesh and blood so."

"Well," said Miss Ware, "I'm going to the jail now. I want to see Jimmie. It must be awful there."

"Well, now, that's real kind of ye," responded Mr. Peaslee. "I wonder now if you'd mind taking this along to him," and he offered her the paper parcel. "It's a harmonica, I guess they call it. It's real handsome. It cost consid'able--a pretty consid'able sum. I feel kinder sorry for the leetle feller, and I don't grudge it a mite." And he kept repeating, in a tone which suggested whistling to keep your courage up, "Not a mite, not a mite."

Miss Ware smothered a laugh on hearing what the present was. She must not hurt the feelings of this kind old man!

"Oh," said the little hypocrite, "that's nice! Jimmie'll be so pleased."

But perhaps the harmonica pleased Jim as much as the schoolbooks which the school-teacher, with a solicitous eye on her pupil's standing in his studies, was taking to him. Saying good-by to Mr. Peaslee, Miss Ware, books and harmonica in hand, went on her way to visit the afflicted boy in his dungeon. Meanwhile Jim, turning the wringer for Mrs. Calkins, and listening to her stories of "Mark's" prowess with all sorts of malefactors, was having an excellent time. He had decided to be a sheriff when he grew up.

V

The day of the assembling of the grand jury for the September term of the Adams County court finally dawned. How Mr. Peaslee had looked forward to that day! How often had he pictured the scene--the bustle about the court house; the agreeable crowd of black-coated lawyers, with their clever talk, their good stories; the grave judge, and the still graver side judges; the greetings and hand-shakings amid much joking and laughter; the county gossip among the grand jurors in the informal moments before they filed into the courtroom to be sworn and to receive the judge's charge; himself, finally, in his best black coat and cherished beaver hat, there in the midst of it--important, weighty, respected, a public man!

He had cherished the vision of himself walking up the village street on that first morning, a dignitary returning the cordial and admiring salutes of his village friends. He had seen himself later in the jury-room, shrewdly "leading" the reluctant witness, delivering weighty opinions on the bearing of testimony, and making all respect him as a marvel of conservatism, dignity, and wisdom. This was to be one of the most important and pleasurable days of his life, the rung in a ladder of preferment which reached as high as the state-house dome!

And when that day came, it rained; steadily, gloomily, fiercely rained. Solomon was not allowed to wear his best clothes. When, peering out of the window, he hopefully said he "guessed mebbe 't was goin' to clear," his wife invited him tartly to "wait till it did."

She insisted that he put on his every-day clothes, and thus arrayed, and without meeting a single villager to realize the importance of his errand, he waded up to the court house, the pelting rain rattling on his old umbrella, the fierce wind almost wrenching it inside out.