CHAPTER XIV
DESERTED
John Owens, the surviving witness to Isom Chase's will, spent his drearydays at the poorhouse whittling long chains of interlocking rings, andfantastic creatures such as the human eye never beheld in nature, out ofsoft pine-wood. He had taken up that diversion shortly after the last ofhis afflictions, blindness, fell upon him and, as white pine was cheap,the superintendent of the institution indulged him without stint.
Uncle John, as he was called long years before the hard-riding worldthrew him, was a preacher back in the days of his youth, middlingmanhood and prosperity. He had ridden the country in the Campbellitefaith, bringing hundreds into the fold, with a voice as big as a bull's,and a long beard, which he wore buttoned under his vest in winter. Andnow in his speechlessness, darkness, and silence, he still preached inhis way, carving out the beast with seven heads and ten horns, andfemale figures of hideous mien, the signification of which nobodyrightly knew.
Uncle John had a little slate upon which he wrote his wants, but nobodyhad discovered any way of communicating with him save by taking his handand guiding it to the object for which he had asked. For a long time hehad written the one word "Paint" on his slate. That was the beginning ofhis use of it, when one word was all that he could get on a side of itat a time. After his fingers had become sensitive through his new art ofwhittling and feeling, he improved his writing, until he made it plainthat he wanted paint to adorn his carved figures, so they could besold.
It was the hope of the poor old soul that he could whittle himself outof the poorhouse, and live free and independent upon the grotesqueproductions of his knife, if they would give him paint to make themattractive, and thus get a start. He did not know how fantastic andridiculous they were, having only his own touch to guide him to judgmentof their merits.
Perhaps he was no less reasonable in this belief than certain painters,musicians, and writers, who place their own blind value upon the craftof their hands and brains, and will not set them aside for any jury thatthe world can impanel.
Uncle John never came to realize his hopes of freedom, any more than heever came to realize the uselessness of paint for his angels when he hadno eyes for applying it. He whittled on, in melancholy dejection, ringupon ring in his endless chains of rings, forging in bitter irony theemblems of bondage, when his old heart so longed to be free.
It was a bright day in the life of Uncle John Owens, then, when Ollie'slawyer called at the poorhouse and placed under his hands some slenderslips of cardboard bearing raised letters, the A B C of his age.
His bearded old face shone like a window in which a light has beenstruck as his fluttering fingers ran over the letters. He fumbledexcitedly for his slate which hung about his neck, and his hand trembledas he wrote:
"More--book--more."
It had been an experiment, the lawyer having doubted whether UncleJohn's untrained fingers, dulled by age, could pick out the letters,large as they were. He had nothing more to offer, therefore, and no wayof answering the appeal. But that night an order for the New Testamentin raised characters for the blind went out from Shelbyville.
Judge Little was making no progress in establishing the will. Nobody hadcome forward in answer to his advertisements in the city papers,claiming for himself the distinction of being Isom Chase's son. But thejudge gave Ollie to understand, in spite of his quiescence while hesearched for the heir, that the courts must settle the question. Ifthere were fees to be had out of that estate, Judge Little was the manto get them.
Meantime, in his cell in the county jail, Joe Newbolt was bearing theheaviest penance of his life. Alice had not come again. Two visitingdays had passed, and there would be no more before the date of thetrial, which was set for the following Monday. But since that dunmorning when she had given him the mignonette, and he had drawn herunresisting body to the barrier of his prison door, she had visited himno more.
Joe reproached himself for it. He accused himself of having offendedbeyond forgiveness. In the humiliation which settled upon him, he wastedlike water in the sun. The mignonette which she had given him withered,dried; its perfume vanished, its blossoms turned gray. She came no more.What did it matter if they convicted him before the judge, said he, nowthat Alice had condemned him in her heart. He lamented that he hadblundered into such deep offending. His untutored heart had seen onlythe reflection of his own desire in her eyes that day. She did not carefor him. It was only pity that he had distorted into love.
He had inquired about her, timidly, of the sheriff, who had looked athim with a slow wink, then formed his mouth into an egg-shaped apertureand held it so an exasperating while, as if he meant to whistle. Thesheriff's clownish behavior nettled Joe, for he was at a loss tounderstand what he meant.
"I thought maybe she'd sent over some books," said Joe, blushing like ahollyhock.
"Books!" said the sheriff, with a grunt.
"Yes, sir," Joe answered, respectfully.
"Huh, she never sent no books," said the sheriff, turning away.
After a little he came back and stood before Joe's door, with his longlegs far apart, studying the prisoner calculatively, as a farmer standswhen he estimates the weight of a hog.
"Cree-mo-nee!" said he.
He laughed then, much to Joe's confusion, and totally beyond hiscomprehension. The sheriff left him with that. From the passage hislaugh came back.
The day was Friday; Joe plucked up a little hope when he heard thesheriff conducting somebody to the corridor gate. It was Colonel Price,who had exercised his political influence over the sheriff and inducedhim to set aside his new regulations for the day. The colonel madeapologies to Joe for what might seem his lack of interest in hiswelfare.
Joe inquired of him concerning Alice, with respectful dignity. She waswell, said the colonel, and asked to be remembered. What else thecolonel said on that occasion Joe did not recall. All that he couldthink of was that Alice had desired to be remembered.
What an ironical message to send him, thought Joe. If she only had comeherself, and given him the assurance with her eyes that there was nostored censure, no burning reproach; if she had come, and quieted thedoubt, the uncertainty, of his self-tortured soul. His case had becomesecondary beside Alice. The colonel talked of it, but Joe wondered ifthe mignonette in her garden was dead. The colonel shook his headgravely when he went away from the jail that day. It was plain that theboy was suffering with that load on his mind and the uncertainty of theoutcome pressing upon him. He mentioned it to Alice.
"I think we'd better try to get him another lawyer," said the colonel."Hammer never will be equal to that job. It will be more the size ofJudge Burns, or one of the old heads. That boy's in a pickle, Alice, anda mighty tight one, at that."
"But he's innocent--you don't doubt that?" said she.
"Not for a minute," the colonel declared. "I guess I should have beenlooking after him closer, but that picture intervened between us. He'swearing away to a shadow, chafing and pining there in jail, poor chap."
"Do you think he'll consent to your employing another lawyer for him?"she asked, searching his face wistfully.
"I don't know; he's so set in the notion of loyalty to Hammer--just asif anybody could hurt Hammer's feelings! If the boy will consent to it,I'll hire Judge Burns at my own expense."
"I don't suppose he will," sighed she.
"No, I reckon not, his notions are so high-flown," the colonel admitted,with evident pride in the lofty bearing of the widow's son.
"He's longing for a run over the hills," said she. "He told me he was."
"A year of it in there would kill him," the colonel said. "We must gethim a lawyer who can disentangle him. I never saw anybody go down likethat boy has gone down in the last month. It's like taking a wild Indianout of the woods and putting him in a cage."
The colonel put aside the corn picture for the day, and went out toconfer with Judge Burns, a local lawyer who had gained a wide reputationin the defense of criminal cases. He was a do
ubly troubled man when hereturned home that evening, for Joe had been firm in his refusal eitherto dismiss Hammer or admit another to his defense. In the library he hadfound Alice, downcast and gloomy, on the margin of tears.
"Why, honey, you mustn't mope around this way," he remonstrated gently."What is it--what's gone wrong with my little manager?"
She raised up from huddling her head against her arms on the table,pushed her fallen hair back from her eyes and gave him a wan smile.
"I just felt so lonely and depressed somehow," said she, placing herhand on his where it lay on the table. "Never mind me, for I'll be allright. What did he say?"
"Judge Burns?"
"Joe."
The colonel drew a chair near and sat down, flinging out his hand withimpatient gesture.
"I can't do anything with him," said he. "He says one lawyer will do aswell as another, and Hammer's doing all that can be done. 'They'llbelieve me or they'll not believe me, colonel, and that's all there isto it,' says he, 'and the best lawyer in the world can't change that.'And I don't know but he's right, too," the colonel sighed. "He's got tocome out with that story, every word of it, or there'll never be a jurypicked in the whole State of Missouri that'll take any stock in histestimony."
"It will be a terrible thing for his mother if they don't believe him,"said she.
"We'll do all that he'll allow us to do for him, we can't do any more.It's a gloomy outlook, a gloomy case all through. It was a bad piece ofbusiness when that mountain woman bound him out to old Isom Chase, totake his kicks and curses and live on starvation rations. He's the lastboy in the world that you'd conceive of being bound out; he don't fitthe case at all."
"No, he doesn't," said she, reflectively.
"But don't let the melancholy thing settle on you and disturb you,child. He'll get out of it--or he'll not--one way or the other, Ireckon. It isn't a thing for you to take to heart and worry over. Inever should have taken you to that gloomy old jail to see him, atall."
"I can't forget him there--I'll always see him there!" she shuddered."He's above them all--they'll never understand him, never in thisworld!"
She got up, her hair hanging upon her shoulders, and left him abruptly,as if she had discovered something that lay in her heart. Colonel Pricesat looking after her, his back very straight, his hand upon his knee.
"Well!" said he. Then, after a long ruminative spell: "Well!"
That same hour Hammer was laboring with his client in the jail, as hehad labored fruitlessly before, in an endeavor to induce him to impartto him the thing that he had concealed at the coroner's inquest intoIsom Chase's death. Hammer assured him that it would not pass beyond himin case that it had no value in establishing his innocence.
"Mr. Hammer, sir," said Joe, with unbending dignity and firmness, "ifthe information you ask of me was mine to give, freely and honorably,I'd give it. You can see that. Maybe something will turn up between nowand Monday that will make a change, but if not, you'll have to do thebest you can for me the way it stands. Maybe I oughtn't expect you to gointo the court and defend me, seeing that I can't help you any more thanI'm doing. If you feel that you'd better drop out of the case, you'refree to do it, without any hard feelings on my part, sir."
Hammer had no intention of dropping the case, hopeless as he felt thedefense to be. Even defeat would be glorious, and loss profitable, forhis connection with the defense would sound his name from one end of thestate to the other.
"I wouldn't desert you in the hour of your need, Joe, for anything theycould name," said Hammer, with significant suggestion.
His manner, more than his words, carried the impression that they hadnamed sums, recognizing in him an insuperable barrier to the state'scase, but that he had put his tempters aside with high-born scorn.
"Thank you," said Joe.
"But if Missis Chase was mixed up in it any way, I want you to tell me,Joe," he pressed.
Joe said nothing. He looked as stiff and hard as one of the ironhitching-posts in front of the court-house, thought Hammer, the side ofhis face turned to the lawyer, who measured it with quick eyes.
"Was she, Joe?" whispered Hammer, leaning forward, his face close to thebars.
"The coroner asked me that," replied Joe, harshly.
This unyielding quality of his client was baffling to Hammer, who was ofthe opinion that a good fatherly kick might break the crust of hisreserve. Hammer had guessed the answer according to his own thickreasoning, and not very pellucid morals.
"Well, if you take the stand, Joe, they'll make you tell it then,"Hammer warned him. "You'd better tell me in advance, so I can advise youhow much to say."
"I'll have to get on somehow without your advice, thank you sir, Mr.Hammer, when it comes to how much to say," said Joe.
"There's not many lawyers--and I'll tell you that right now in aperfectly plain and friendly way--that'd go ahead with your case underthe conditions," said Hammer. "But as I told you, I'll stick to you andsee you through. I wash my hands of any blame for the case, Joe, if itdon't turn out exactly the way you expect."
Joe saw him leave without regret, for Hammer's insistence seemed to himinexcusably vulgar. All men could not be like him, reflected Joe, hishope leaping forward to Judge Maxwell, whom he must soon confront.
Joe tossed the night through with his longing for Alice, which gnawedhim like hunger and would not yield to sleep, for in his dreams hisheart went out after her; he heard her voice caressing his name. He wokewith the feeling that he must put the thought of Alice away from him,and frame in his mind what he should say when it came his turn to standbefore Judge Maxwell and tell his story. If by some hinted thing, someshade of speech, some qualification which a gentleman would grasp andunderstand, he might convey his reason to the judge, he felt that hemust come clear.
He pondered it a long time, and the face of the judge rose before him,and the eyes were brown and the hair in soft wavelets above a whiteforehead, and Alice stood in judgment over him. So it always ended; itwas before Alice that he must plead and justify himself. She was hisjudge, his jury, and his world.
It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Newbolt arrived for her last visit beforethe trial. She came down to his door in her somber dress, tall, bony andsevere, thinner of face herself than she had been before, her eyesbright with the affection for her boy which her tongue never put intowords. Her shoes were muddy, and the hem of her skirt draggled, for,high as she had held it in her heavy tramp, it had become splashed bythe pools in the soft highway.
"Mother, you shouldn't have come today over the bad roads," said Joewith affectionate reproof.
"Lands, what's a little mud!" said she, putting down a small bundlewhich she bore. "Well, it'll be froze up by tomorrow, I reckon, it'sturnin' sharp and cold."
She looked at Joe anxiously, every shadow in his worn face carving itscounterpart in her heart. There was no smile of gladness on her lips,for smiles had been so long apart from her life that the nerves whichcommanded them had grown stiff and hard.
"Yes," said Joe, taking up her last words, "winter will be here in alittle while now. I'll be out then, Mother, to lay in wood for you. Itwon't be long now."
"Lord bless you, son!" said she, the words catching in her throat, tearsrising to her eyes and standing so heavy that she must wipe them away.
"It will all be settled next week," Joe told her confidently.
"I hope they won't put it off no more," said she wearily.
"No; Hammer says they're sure to go ahead this time."
"Ollie drove over yesterday evening and brought your things fromIsom's," said she, lifting the bundle from the floor, forcing it to himbetween the bars. "I brought you a couple of clean shirts, for I knewyou'd want one for tomorrow."
"Yes, Mother, I'm glad you brought them," said Joe.
"Ollie, she said she never would make you put in the rest of your timethere if she had anything to say about it. But she said if Judge Littlegot them letters of administration he was after she expected he'd try tohold
us to it, from what he said."
"No matter, Mother."
"And Ollie said if she ever did come into Isom's property she'd make usa deed to our place."
Mrs. Newbolt's face bore a little gleam of hope when she told him this.Joe looked at her kindly.
"She could afford to, Mother," said he, "it was paid for in interest onthat loan to Isom."
"But Isom, he never would 'a' give in to that," said she. "Your pap hepaid twelve per cent interest on that loan for sixteen years."
"I figured it all up, Mother," said he.
There was nothing for her to sit on in the corridor; she stood holdingto the bars to take some of the weight from her tired feet.
"I don't want to hurry you off, Mother," said Joe, "but I hate to seeyou standing there all tired out. If the sheriff was a gentleman he'dfetch you a chair. I don't suppose there'd be any use in asking him."
"Never mind, Joe, it takes more than a little walk like that to play meout."
"You'd better stop in at Colonel Price's and rest a while before youstart back," he suggested.
"Maybe I will," said she.
She plunged her hand into the black draw-string bag which she carried onher arm, rummaging among its contents.
"That little rambo tree you planted a couple of years ago had two appleson it," she told him, "but I never noticed 'em all summer, the leaveswas so thick and it was such a little feller, anyhow."
"It is a little one to begin bearing," said Joe, with a boy's interestin a thing that he has done with his own hand turning out to besomething.
"Yes; and I aimed to leave them on the tree till you could see them, butthe hard wind yesterday shook 'em off. Here they are, I've fetched 'emto you, son."
Joe took the apples, the recollection of the high hopes which he hadcentered around that little apple-tree when he planted it coming back tohim like a scented wind at dawn. He had planned to make that tree thenucleus of an orchard, which was to grow and spread until it covered theold home place, the fields adjoining, and lifted the curse of povertyfrom the Newbolt name. It had been a boyish plan which his bondage toIsom Chase had set back.
He had not given it up for a day while he labored in Chase's fields.When he became his own man he always intended to take it up and put itthrough. Now, there in his hand, was the first fruit of his bigintention, and in that moment Joe reviewed his old pleasant dream.
He saw again as he had pictured it before, to the relief of many a long,hot day in Isom's fields, his thousand trees upon the hills, the ladenwagons rolling to the station with his barrels of fruit, some of it togo to far lands across the sea. He saw again the stately house with itswhite columns and deep porticoes, in the halls of which his fancy hadreveled many a happy hour, and he saw--the bars of his stone cell andhis mother's work-hardened hands clasping them, while she looked at himwith the pain of her sad heart speaking from her eyes. A heavy tearrolled down his hollow cheek and fell upon the apples in his hand.
For the pain of prison he had not wept, nor for its shame. The vexingcircumstance of being misunderstood, the dread threat of the future hadnot claimed a tear. But for a dream which had sprung like a sweet flowerin his young heart and had passed away like a mist, he wept.
His mother knew nothing about that blasted dream; the gloom of his cellconcealed his tears. He rubbed the fruit along his coat sleeve, as if tomake it shine, as a fruiterer polishes the apples in his stall.
"All right, Mother, I'm glad you brought them," he said, although therewas no gladness in his voice.
"I planned to fetch you in some fried chicken today, too," said she,"but the pesky rooster I had under the tub got away when I went to takehim out. If you'd like some, Joe, I'll come back tomorrow."
"No, no; don't you tramp over here tomorrow, Mother," he admonished,"and don't bother about the chicken. I don't seem to have any appetiteany more. But you wait till I'm out of here a day or two; then you'llsee me eat."
"Well, then I guess I'll be goin' on back, Joe; and bright and earlyMonday morning I'll be on hand at the court. Maybe we'll be able to gohome together that evenin', son."
"Hammer says it will take two or three days," Joe told her, "but I don'tsee what they can do to make it string out that long. I could tell themall about it in ten minutes. So we mustn't put our hopes too high onMonday, Mother."
"I'll beseech the Lord all day tomorrow, son, to open their ears thatthey may hear," said she solemnly. "And when the time comes to speaktell it all, Joe, tell it all!"
"Yes, Mother, when the time comes," said he gently.
"Tell 'em all Isom said to you, son," she charged.
"Don't you worry over that now, Mother."
She felt that her son drew away from her, in his haughty manner ofself-sufficiency, as he spoke. She sighed, shaking her head sadly."Well, I'll be rackin' off home," she said.
"If you stop at the colonel's to rest a while, Mother--and I wish youwould, for you're all tired out--you might hand this book back to MissPrice. She loaned it to me. Tell her I read it long ago, and I'd havesent it back before now, only I thought she might come after it herselfsome time."
His mother turned to him, a curious expression in her face.
"Don't she come any more, Joe?"
"She's been busy with other things, I guess," said he.
"Maybe," she allowed, with a feeling of resentment against the book onaccount of its cold, unfriendly owner.
She had almost reached the corridor gate when Joe called after her.
"No, don't tell her that," he requested. "Don't tell her anything. Justhand it back, please, Mother."
"Whatever you say, Joe."
Joe heard the steel gate close after her and the sheriff's voice loudabove his mother's as they went toward the door.
Loyal as he was to his mother, the thought of her went out with her, andin her place stood the slender figure of youth, her lips "like a threadof scarlet." One day more to wait for the event of his justification andvindication, or at least the beginning of it, thought Joe.
Ah, if Alice only would come to lighten the interval!