"Nothin" wu"th dividin" "cept Mose Blake fell into the river yistidy an"
was drownded."
"What, you don"t tell me so?" the old man exclaimed.
"Yes, couldn"t swim a lick atter he struck the water an thar wan"t no use in tryin" befo" he struck."
"Powerful sorry to hear it," said Jasper. "Good feller--worst habit of his was always tryin" to talk when he couldn"t."
"Yep. But he ain"t tryin" of it now."
"I am also sorry he"s dead," said Foster. "We were going to take him down to town with us."
"No use to take him now," Laz replied; and a silence fell, broken only when they turned back into the highway, when the lout of a driver, impressed in the neighborhood, remarked to Laz:
"I reckon you air as about as big a liar as they kin set up. Here comes Mose Blake now."
"Hah!" exclaimed Foster. "A good backwoods trick. Round him up, boys."
The stutterer was dressed in his best, on his way to pay stammering court to a girl. He strove to explain that he couldn"t go with them, but the officers laughed at his attempts to talk, compelled him to get in, and drove on.
At night they camped near a spring, beneath a walnut tree, the officers standing turn about while the prisoners slept; and early the next morning they resumed their rumbling journey.
As they were now out of the neighborhood range of the two boys, everything began to possess a keen interest for them, the houses, cattle and even the dogs that ran along the yard fences to bark at the wagon.
Just before sunset they saw from afar the capitol dome, the mausoleum of Stricklin, who built many state houses, constructing in each one a tomb for himself. Years had pa.s.sed since Jasper, a battle-smoked and bleeding soldier, had trod up to that lofty pile of rock to receive his discharge from the ranks; and desolate, with no drum and no fife to march back to his wretched home. To him the scene was heart-heavy with memories, but to the boys it was the first glimpse of that great and mysterious life lying far beyond their native hills.
"I reckon the man that lives in thar could go to a sale up whar we live an" buy every wagin an" team on the place," said Laz, pointing toward the fading state-house, and Mose replied:
"Reckon h--h--h--he could t--t--t--talk all day without a h--h--hitch."
"Whar do we sleep to-night, with some of the neighbors?" Laz inquired, and Foster laughed.
"You sleep," said he, with an old joke, "in a house that will keep the dogs from coming in and biting you."
"You mean the jail?"
"Yes, that"s what I mean. We"ll have to keep you close till we get through with you."
"Is that the law?"
"Yes, as we understand it."
"Wall, then, I may not have to shoot you the fust time I meet you in the big road. Got a good artickle of pie thar in the kitchin?"
"You shall have all the pie you want."
Then Mose began: "Ef t--t--t--that"s the case you m--m--m--mout drive a l--l--little faster. An" p--p--p--pound cake?"
"Yes, you may have some of that, too."
"Then I"m g--g--g--glad I c--c--come. Never had as m--m--much p--p--pound cake as I co--could eat b--b--but once, an" then I staid all night with a feller w--w--w--when his mammy w--w--wan"t at home."
"Am I to be locked up?" the old man asked.
"Yes, Mr. Starbuck."
The old fellow groaned and in the dusk shrank down, little in his humiliation.
"Sometimes," he said, "folks have to stay in there a good while before they air fotch to trial. Do you think you kin fix it so they kin have it over with my case as soon as possible?"
"Yes, we"ll try to rush you through."
"Through to where--to where?" the old man muttered to himself.
They pa.s.sed a theatre as the audience was pouring out, from under the Hamlet spell of Booth, and Laz remarked: "Feller that preached in thar to-night must be as long-winded as our man Fetterson; but I"ll bet Old Fetter could outswop him in a hoss trade."
"That"s a theatre," Foster informed him, and after musing for a time he said:
"Place whar they swollow knives, I reckon. Seed a feller do that at a school-house one night, an" I thought he"d killed hisse"f, but he spit it out jest like a stick of mola.s.ses candy. Wall, suh, I never seed as many lanterns hung up befo". An" I want to tell you they"ve got good roads through this place. What"s that feller doin" over thar with that crowd about him?"
"Preaching," Foster answered.
"Wall, he couldn"t call up mourners--the wagins would run over "em. What do you think of all this, Jasper?"
"Who, me?" the old man replied as if startled out of a dream, "I wasn"t thinkin" of it--didn"t see it."
"I don"t reckon," said Laz, "that all these folks knows we air goin" to jail."
Old Jasper shook as if with a chill. "We know it, an" that"s enough," he replied.
The wagon, directed by Foster, turned into a darker street, into an alley, and drew up in front of a building black in the dusk. The old man"s legs were so stiffened that they had to help him out and rheumatically he walked through the portals of stone-walled disgrace.
Into a cell they turned him, and when the bolt grated, he leaped from the rock beneath his feet, leaped as he had when he struck Peters; and then into a corner he sank with a groan.
The two boys were given the liberty of a long corridor, and up and down they walked, light of foot, in reverence for the dejected man behind the bars.
CHAPTER XXII.
CAME TO WEEP.
Old Mrs. Barker, true to instinct, hastened to put on her saddest bonnet, kept in an old chest at the demand of funerals, and with all speed set out for the afflicted home. Margaret was feeding the chickens when this consoling stimulator of grief arrived, and what little sun was left, immediately went down.
Beneath the mantle-piece there was no blaze, the weather being hot, so they could not sit down "and weep the fire out," but they could hover over old ashes and weep them wet. The real griefs in old Mrs. Barker"s life had been but few. It was a mercy-shaft that had shot Old Barker down; rheumatic cripple, he had beaten her with his crutch, and at his death she could not from her rebellious eye wring out a tear. No offspring had she over whose death to mourn, and now she was put to for a companion piece to sorrow. But her mind flew back to a time when there died a man whom she could have loved, and her tears came full with the memory of a blissful morning when at church he had tied her horse and walked with her to the door. She had forgotten his name, if indeed she had ever been possessed of it, but she spoke of him as "he" as fast as her tears were falling.
"Ah, Lord, Sister Starbuck, I don"t want to question the ways of Providence, but it do appear that we have staid here too long. I ought to have been taken when he left."
"You mean Barker, Sister?"