Latest / The Best Short Stories of 1917 / Boys Will Be Boys. By Irvin S. Cobb

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Boys Will Be Boys. By Irvin S. Cobb · The Best Short Stories of 1917

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  Section six of the Best Short Stories of nineteen seventeen. This is a libertyvox
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  recording. All liberyvox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  to volunteer, please visit liberyvox dot org. Read by yog Anan the Best
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  Short Stories of nineteen seventeen by various Section six. Boys Will Be Boys by
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  Erwin S. Cop from the Saturday Evening Post. When Judge Breesed, on
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  this particular morning, came puffing into his chambers at the courthouse, looking with
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  his broad beam and in his costume of fluffy, loose white ducks, a
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  good deal like an old fashioned full rigger with all sales set his black shadow
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  Checkpointdexter had already finished the job of putting the quarters to rights for the day.
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  The set of water bucket had been properly republished. The jagged flange of
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  a fifteen s and chunk of ice protruded above the rim of the bucket,
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  and alongside on the appointed nail hung the gold dipper that the master always used.
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  The floor had been swept, except of course, in the corners and
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  underneath things. There were evidences in streaky scrolls of fine great particles upon various
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  flat surfaces that a dusting brush had been more or less sparingly employed. A
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  spray of trumpet flowers plucked from the wine that grew outside the window had been
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  draped over the framed steel engraving of Preston Davis and his cabinet upon the wall
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  and on the top of the big square desk in the middle of the room,
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  where a small section of cleared green blotter space formed an oasis in a
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  dry and arid desert of fluttered, large journals and dusty documents. The morning's
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  mail rested in a little heap, having placed his old cotton umbrella in a
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  corner, having removed his coat and hung it upon a peg behind the hall
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  door, and having seen to it that a palm leaf fan was an arm's
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  reach should he require it, the judge, in his billowy white shirt,
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  sat down at his desk and gave his attention to his letters. There was
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  an invitation from the Highland b Cracy Camp of Confederate Veterans of eddie Burgh,
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  asking him to deliver the chief oration of the annual reunion to be held at
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  Mineral Springs on the twelfth day of the following month, an official notice from
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  the Clerk of the Court of Appeals concerning the affirmation of a judgment that had
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  been handed down by Judge Priest at the preceding term of his own court.
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  A bill for five pounds of a special brand of smoking tobacco, a notice
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  of a lodge meeting, altogether, quite a sizable batch of may. At
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  the bottom of the pile, he came upon a long envelope addressed to him
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  by his title instead of by his name, and bearing on its upper right
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  hand corner several foreign looking stemps. They were British stamps, he saw on
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  closer examination, to the best of his recollection, it had been a good
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  long time since Chuch Priest had had a communication reposed from overseas. He adjusted
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  his steel bowed spectacles, ripped the wrapper with k and shook out the country.
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  There appeared to be several enclosures. In fact, there were several.
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  A sheaf of printed forms, a document with seals attached, and a letter
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  that covered two sheets of paper with typewritten lines to the letter. The recipient
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  gave consideration first. Before he reached the end of the opening paragraph, he
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  had had a profound brunt of surprise. His reading of the rest was frequently
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  punctuated by small exclamations, his face meantime puckering up an interested lines. At
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  the conclusion, when he came to the signature, he indulged himself in a
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  soft, low risen. He read the letter all through again, and after
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  that he examined the forms and the document which had accompanied it. Chuckling under
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  his breath, he wriggled himself free from the snug embrace of his chair arms,
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  and waddled out of his own office and down the long, bare,
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  empty hall to the office of Sheriff Kuyle's birdsong with him, that competent functionary
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  deputy shed of brick quails, sat at ease in his shirt sleeves, engaged
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  with the smaller blade of his pocket knife in performing upon his finger nails,
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  an operation that combined the fine deafness of the manicure with the less delicate art
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  of the farrier. At the side of the judge in the open doorway,
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  he hastily withdrew from a table top where they rested a pair of long,
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  thin legs and roasts. Morning Breck said, judge prays to the other's salutation,
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  no thank you. Sir, I won't come, h but I've got
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  a little job for you. I wish to, if you ain't too busy,
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  that you'd step down the street and see if you can find Peep o
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  Day for me and fetch him back here with you. It won't take you
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  long, will it, No, sir, not very. Mister Coles reached
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  through his hat and snuggled his shoulder holster back inside his unbuttoned waistcoat. He'll
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  most likely be down Ron Gafford's table. What's old peep doing, Judge getting
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  himself in content of court or something? He grinned, asking the question with
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  the air of one making a little joke. No, what's safe the judge,
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  Ye ain't done nothing, but he's about to have something of a highly
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  unusual nature done to him. You'll just tell him I'm wishful to see him
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  right away. That'll be sufficient. Directly, without making further explanation, Judge
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  Priest returned to his chambers and for the third time read the letter from foreign
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  Parts. Court was not in session, and the hour was early, and
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  the weather was hot. Nobody interrupted him. Perhaps fifteen minutes passed. Mister
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  Coles poked his head in at the door, I found him sat. The
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  deputy stated, he's outside here in the hole. Much obliged to you,
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  son, said Judge Priest Senny morning, will you please? The head was
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  withdrawn, its owner lingered out of sight of his honor, but within ear
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  shot. It was hard to figure the presenting Judge of the first Juditional District
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  of the State of Kentucky as having business with people day. And though mister
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  Coles was no eavesdropper, still he felt a pardonable curiosity in whatsoever might transpire.
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  As he feigned an absorbed interest and a tax notice which was pasted on
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  a blackboard. Just outside the office door, they entered the presence of the
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  judge, a man who seemingly was but a few years younger than the judge
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  himself, a man who looked to be somewhere between sixty five and seventy.
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  There's a look that you may have seen in the eyes of honorless but well
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  intentioned dogs, Dogs that, expecting kicks as a daily portion, are humbly
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  grateful for kind words and stray bones, Dogs that are fairly yearning to be
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  adopted by somebody, by anybody being prepared to give to such a benefactor,
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  a most faithful, dog like devotion in return. This look, which is
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  fairly common among masterless and homeless dogs, is rare among humans. Still,
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  once in a while you do find it there too. The man who now
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  timidly shuffled himself across the threshold of Judged Priest's office had such look out of
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  his eyes. He had a long, simple face, partly enclosed in graviscuss
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  four dollars who would have been a sufficient price to pay for the garments he
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  stood in, including the wrecked hat he held in his hands, and the
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  broken, misshaped shoes on his feet. A purchaser who gave more than four
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  dollars for the hole, in its present state of decrepitude, would have been
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  but a poor hand at bargaining. The man who wore these outfit coughed in
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  an embarrassed fashion and halted, fumbling his ruin his head in his hand.
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  How do you do, said Judge Priest, heartily come in the other diffidently
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  advanced himself a yard or two. Excuse me, sir, he said,
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  apologetically, But this yere brick course. He comes after me, and he
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  said, is how you wanted to see me? It was him as bring
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  me here, sir, faintly underlying the droll of the speaker, with just
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  a suspicion, A mere trace, as you might say, of a labial
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  softness that belongs solely and exclusively to the children, and in a diminishing degree
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  to the grandchildren of native born sons and daughters of a certain small green isle
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  in the sea. It was not so much a suggestion of a brogue as
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  it was a suggestion of the ghost of a brogue, a brogue almost extinguished,
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  it, almost obliterated, and yet persisting through the generations souther Fireland struggling
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  beneath south of Mason and Dixon's smile. Yes, said the judge, that's
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  right, I do want to see you. The tone was one that he
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  may employ in addressing a bashful child. Sit down there and make yourself at
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  home. The newcomer obeyed, to the extent of perching himself on the extreme
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  forward edge of a chair. His feet shuffled uneasily where they were drawn up
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  against the cross rung of the chair. The judge reared well back, studying
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  his visitor over the tops of his glasses with a rather quizzical look. In
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  one hand, a balanced large envelope which had come to him that morning.
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  Seems to me I heard somewheres yares beg that your regular Christian name was Paul.
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  Is that right? He asked? Surely, is sir assented? The
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  ragged man surprised and plainly grateful that one holding a supremely high position in the
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  community should vothsafe to remember a fact relating to so inconsequent an anton as himself.
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  But I ain't heard it for so long. I come mighty nigh forgetting
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  it sometimes myself. You see, Judge Priest, when was nothing but just
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  a shaver, of folks started and to call me peep on account of my
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  last name being O'Day, I reckon. They've been calling me so ever since
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  fust off its little peep, and then just plain peep, and now it's
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  got to be old peep. But my real entitled name is Paul, just
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  like you said, Judge, Paul Felix O'Day uh huh. And wasn't your
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  father's name Philip and your mother's name Katherine Dwyer all day, to the best
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  of my recollection, that's partly so toosa they bought to them up and died
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  when I was a baby, long before I could remember anything at all.
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  But they always told me my past name was phil or Philip Wally. My
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  ma's name wasn't Kat, Kat, wasn't what you just call it, Judge,
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  It was plain Kate, Kate or Katherine. It makes no great difference,
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  explained Judge Priest. I reckon, the record is straight this one,
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  and now think out and see if you can ever remember hearing an uncle named
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  Daniel O'Day, your father's brother. The answer was a shake of the tousled
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  head. I don't know nothing about my people. I only just know they
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  came over from some place with the funny name of the old country before I
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  was born. The onliest kin I ever had over here was that there no
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  count trifling neview of men. First wire him, that is to hang round
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  this town. I reckon you call him to mine, Judge. The old
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  judge nodded, before continuing all the same. I reckon, there is no
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  manner of doubt but what you had and uncle of the name of Daniel,
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  all the evidences would seem to point that way. According to the proof.
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  This year, Uncle Daniel of yours lived in a little town called Kilmare in
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  Ireland. He glanced at one of the papers that lay on his desktop,
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  then added, in a casual tone, tell me, Peep, what are
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  you doing now for a living? The object of this examination grinned a faint
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  grain of extenoration. Welcha, I'm knocking about doing the best I can,
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  but time much. I help out ro On Gaffert's livery stable, and Pete
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  Gafford he lets me sleep in a little room behind the feed room, and
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  his wife she gives me my whittles once it in a while I get a
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  chance to do odd jobs for oaks around dawn, cutting weeds and splitting stove
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  woods, and packing in coal and such as that. Not much money in
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  it, is there, no, sir, not much. Folks is more
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  prone to of my old clothes than they are to pay me in cash.
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  Still I managed to get along. I don't live very fancy, but then
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  I don't starve. That's more than some can say. Peep, what was
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  the most money you ever had in your life at one time? Peep scratched
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  with a freckled hand at a statch of faded whitish hair to stimulate recollection.
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  I reckon not more than six bits at any one time. Sir, seems
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  like I've sort of got the knack of living without money. Well, peep.
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  Such being the case, what did you say if I was to tell
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  you that you are a rich man? The answer came slowly. I reckon,
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  sir. If it didn't sound disrespectful, I'd say he was pranking with
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  me, making fun of me. Sir. Jud priest bent forward in his
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  chair. I'm not tracking with you. It's my pleasant duty to inform you
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  that, at this moment you are the rightful order of eight thousand pounds pounds
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  of God, Judge. The tone expressed a heavy incredulity. Why pounds in
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  money outside in the hall with one year held conveniently near the crack and the
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  dough Deputy Shery calls gave a violent start, and then at once was torn
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  between a desire to stay and hear more and an urge to hurry forth and
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  spread the unbelievable tidies. After the briefest of struggles, the latter inclination won.
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  This news was too marvelously good to keep. Surely a harbinger and a
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  herald were needed to spread it broadcast mister kull S tipptoed rapidly down the hall.
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  When he reached the sidewalk, the volunteer barrier of a miraculous tale fairly
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  ran. As for the man who sat facing the judge, he merely stared
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  in dull beveldment. Judge, he said at length, I thousand pounds of
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  money ought to make a powerful, big pile alternate. It wouldn't weigh quite
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  that much if you put it on the scales, explained his honor painstakingly.
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  I mean pounds sterling English money, near as I can figure off. And
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  it comes in our money to somewhere'ze between thirty five even forty thousand dollars nearer
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  forty there and thirty five, and your's peep every bred scent of it.
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  Excuse me, sir, And not meaning to contradict you or nothing like that,
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  but I reckon there must be some mistake. Why, jud I don't
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  scarcely know anybody that's as wealthy as all that, let alone anybody that would
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  give me such a lot of money. Listen, peepe this here letter I'm
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  holding in my hand came to me by to day's men. Just a little
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  spellagol. It's from Ireland, from the town of Kilmore, where your people
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  came from. It was sent to me by a firm of barristers in that
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  town, lawyers Smith Colem. In this letter they asked me to find you
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  and to tell you what's happened. It seems from what they write, that
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  your uncle, by name Daniel Ddey died not very long ago, without issue,
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  that is to say, without leaving any children of his own, and
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  without making any will. It appears he had eight thousand tons saved up.
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  Ever since he died, those lawyers and some other folks over there in Ireland
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  have been trying to find out who that money should go to. They learned
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  in some way that your father and mother settled in this town a mighty long
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  time ago, and that they died here and left one son, which is
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  you. All the rest of the family over there in Island have already died
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  out. It seems that naturally makes you the next of kin and the hair
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  at law, which means that only uncle's money comes direct to you. So
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  peep, you are a wealthy man in your own name. That's the news
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  I had to tell you. Allow me to congratulate you on your good fortune.
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  The beneficiary rose to his feet, seeming not to see the hand the
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  old judge had extended across the desktop toward him. On his face of a
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  sudden was a queer, eager look. It was as though he foresaw the
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  coming true of long cherished and heretofore unattainable bushes. Have you got it here,
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  sir? He glanced about him, as though expecting to see a bulky
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  bundle. Judge Priest smiled, Oh no, they didn't send it along with
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  a letter that wouldn't be regular. There's quite a lot of things to be
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  done. First, there'll be some proofs to be got up and so on
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  to it before a man called a British council. And likely there'll be a
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  lot of papers that you'll have to sign. And then all the papers in
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  the proofs and things will be sent across the ocean. And after some fees
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  are paid out over there, why then you'll get your inheritance. The wrapped
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  look faded from the strained face, leaving it downcast. I'm afeared then I
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  won't be able to claim that their money, he said full only. Why
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  not? Because I don't know how to sign my own name raise the way
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  I was, I never got no book learning. I can't neither read nor
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  write. Compassion shadowed the judge's chubby face, and compassion was in his voice
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  as he made answer, You don't need to worry about that part of it.
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  You can make your mark, just a cross mark on the paper with
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  witness present. Like this, He put up a pen, dipped it in
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  the inkwell, and illustrated his meaning. Yes, sir, I'm glad it
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  can be done that way. I always first I knowed how to read big
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  print and spell my own name out. I asked a fellow once to write
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  my name out for me in plain letters and a piece of paper. I
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  was aiming to learn to copy it off. But I showed it to one
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  of the hands delivery stable and he busted out laughing. And then they come
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  to find out this here fellow had tricked me for to make game of me.
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  He hadn't wrote my name of Totoll. It wrote some dirty words instead.
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  So after that I gave up trying to educate myself. That was several
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  years back, and I ain't tried since. Now. I reckon I'm too
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  old to lun. I wonder, sir, I wonder if it will be
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  very long before that their money gets here? And I begin to have the
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  spending of it making plans for the day. Yes, sir o, he
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  answered truthfully, I am. He was silent for a moment, his eyes
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  on the floor. Then timidly he advanced a thought that had come to him.
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  I reckon, sir, it wouldn't be no more than fair and trappy
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  if I divided my money with you to pay you back for all this trouble
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  you're fixing to take on my account? Would would half of it be enough?
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  The other half? Ought to ask me for what use I'll make of
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  it. I know you mean well, and I'm much obliged to you for
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  offer, stated Jacksbury, smiling a little. But it be fitting or proper
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  for me to take a cent of your money. There'll be some court deuce
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  and some lawyer's fees and such to pay over there an island. But after
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  that's settled up, everything comes direct to you. It's going to be a
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  pleasure to me to help you arrange these here details that you don't understand.
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  A pleasure and not a burden. He considered the figure before him. Now
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  here's another thing, peep, I judge, it's hardly fitting for a man
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  of substance. To go on living the way you had had to live during
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  your life. If you don't mind my offering you little advice, I would
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  suggest that you go right down to Felsbury Brothers when you leave here and get
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  yourself fitted out with some suitable clothing. And you'd better go to Max Bidman
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  Stew and order a better pair of shoes for yourself than them. You've got
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  on tell them I sent you, and that I guarantee the payment of your
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  bills, though I reckon that will hardly be necessary when the news of your
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  good luck gets noised round. I missed out whether there's any firm in our
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  entire city that wouldn't be glad to have you on their books for a steady
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  customer. And also, if I was you, i'd arrange to get me
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  regular gold and law somewhere strownd Town. You see peep coming into a property
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  and tails comfortable, many responsibilities right from the start, Yes, Sir,
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  assented the legate to you obediently. I'll do just as you say, Judge
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  Priest about the clothes and the shows and all that. But but if you
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  don't mind, I'd like to go on living at Gaffold's Pete Gaffert's been mighty
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  good to me, him and his wife both, and I wouldn't like for
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  them to think I was getting stuck up just because I've had this here streak
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  of luck coming to me. Maybe seeing how things has changed with me,
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  they'd be willing to take me in for a table boarder at their house,
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  But I surely would hate to give up living in that there little room behind
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  the feed room at the livery stable. I don't know as I could ever
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  find any place that would seem as home like to me as what it is
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  suit yourself about that, said Judge Priest heartily. I don't know, but
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  what you've got the proper notion about it? After all, Yes, sir,
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  them Gaffers have been pretty nigh the only real true friends I ever had
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  that I could count on. He hesitated a moment. I can I reckon,
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  sir, It'll be right smart while want it before that money gets here
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  from all the way across the ocean. Why, yes, I imagine it
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  will. Was your figuring and interesting a little of it now, yes,
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  sir, I was about how much did you think or spending for your beginning
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  o Daye squinted his eyes. His lips moving in silent calculation. Well,
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  sir, he said at length, I could use as much as a silver
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  dollar. But of course, since that sounds kind of moderate to me,
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  broken judge priest, he shoved a pudgy hand into a pocket of his white
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  trousers. I reckon this detail can be arranged here peep He extended his hand.
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  Yes, a dollar. Then, as the other drew back stammering a
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  refusal, he hastily added, no, no, no, go ahead and
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  take it. It's yours. I'm just advancing it to you, or of
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  what will be coming to you shortly. I tell you what. Until such
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  time as you are in position to draw on your own fence. You just
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  drop in here to see me when you needed cash, and I'll try to
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  let you have what you require. In reason, I'll keep a proper reckoning
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  of what you get, and you can pay me back as soon as your
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  inheritance is put into your hands. One thing more, he added, as
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  the hair having thanked him, was making his grateful ado at the threshold.
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  Now that you're wealthy, or about to be so, I kind of imagine
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  quite a parcel of fellows will suddenly discover themsel strangely and affectionately draught towards you.
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  You're liable to find out you've always had no true and devoted friends in
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  this community than what you ever imagined to be the case before. Now.
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  Friendship is a mighty fine thing, taking it by and large, but it
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  can be overdone. It's fairly possible that some of this here new crop of
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  your well wishers and admirers will be making little business propositions to you, desiring
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  to have you go partners with them in business, or to sell your desirable
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  piece of real estate, or even to let you loan them various some sort
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  of money. I wouldn't be surprised, but what a number of such sensors
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  will be coming your ways during the next few days and from then on.
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  If such be the case, I would suggest to you, before committing yourself
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  to anybody or anything, you tell him that I am sort of acting as
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  your unofficial adviser and money matters, and that they should come to me and
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  outline their little schemes in person. Do you get my general drift, yes,
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  sir, said Pepe. I won't forget and thank you again, Judge,
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  especially for letting me have this dollar ahead of time he shambled out with
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  a coin in his hand, and on his face was again the look of
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  one who seized before him the immediate fulfillment of a delectable dream. With lines
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  of sympathy an amusement cross hatched at the outer corners of his eyelids, Judge
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  Priesed, rising and stepping to his door, watched the retreating figure of the
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  town's newest and strangest capitalist disappeared down the white front steps of the courthouse.
• 21:42
  Presently, he went back to his chair and sat down, tugging at his
• 21:45
  short chin beard. I wonder, now, said he meditatively, addressing the
• 21:49
  emptiness of the room. I wonder what a man sixty odd year old is
• 21:53
  going to do with the first whole dollar he ever had in his life.
• 21:57
  It was characteristic of us sircuit judge, that he should have voiced his curiosity
• 22:02
  aloud. Talking to himself when he was alone was one of his habits.
• 22:07
  Also, it was characteristic of him that he had refrained from betraying his inquisitiveness
• 22:11
  to his late caller. Similar motives of delicacy had kept him from following the
• 22:15
  other man to watch the sequence. However, at second hand, the details
• 22:19
  very shortly reached him. They were brought by no lesser person than Deputy Sheriff
• 22:23
  Calls, who some twenty minutes or possibly half an hour later uptruded himself upon
• 22:30
  Judge Briese's presence. Judge began, mister Kules, you would never in the
• 22:34
  world guess what all people da had done with the first piece of money.
• 22:37
  Gott his hands on out of that they are forty thousand pounds of silver dollars
• 22:41
  he is come into from his uncle's estate. The old man slanted a keen
• 22:45
  glance in mister Twall's direction. Tell me, son, he asked, softly.
• 22:48
  How did you come to hear the glad tearings so promptly? Me,
• 22:52
  said mister Qualls innocently. Why, Judge Briche, the word is all over
• 22:56
  this part of town by this time? Why I reckon twenty five or fifty
• 23:00
  people must have been watching old Peep to see how he was going to act
• 23:03
  when he comes out of his squat house. Well, well, well,
• 23:08
  murmured the judge Blandly. Good news travels almost as fast as sometimes as what
• 23:12
  bad news does, don't it? Now, Well, sir, I give
• 23:17
  up the riddle. Tell me just what an old friend did do with the
• 23:19
  first installment of his inheritance welchair. He turns out there at the gate and
• 23:25
  went down the street, are looking neither to right nor the left. He
• 23:29
  looked to me like a man in a trance. Almost. He keeps right
• 23:32
  on through Legal Road till he comes to Franklin Street, and then he goes
• 23:34
  up Franklin to be whale in Son's Confectiony store. And there he turns in.
• 23:40
  I happen to be falling along behind him with a few others, but
• 23:42
  several others in facts, and we all sort of slowed up in passing and
• 23:45
  looked in at the door. And that's how I come to be in a
• 23:48
  position to see what happened, old peep. He marches in, just like
• 23:52
  I'm telling it to you, sir, and mister b Weil comes to wait
• 23:56
  on him, and he starts in buying. He buys hisself a fire cent
• 24:00
  bag of gum drops, and a five cent bag of jelly beans, and
• 24:03
  a ten cent bag of mixed candies kisses and candy mottoes and such as them,
• 24:07
  you know, and a sack of fresh roasted peanuts, a big sack.
• 24:11
  It was fifteen cent size, and two price boxes, and some ginger
• 24:15
  snaps ten cents worth, and a coconut, and half a dozen bread bananas,
• 24:18
  and half a doesn't more of the plain yellow ones. Altogether a figure
• 24:22
  is spent, an even dollar. In fact, I see him hand mister
• 24:26
  Waal a dollar, and I didn't see him getting no change bag out of
• 24:29
  it. Then he comes on out of the store, and with all these
• 24:32
  things struck in his pockets and stacked up in his arms, till he looks
• 24:36
  sort of like some new kind of a summertime Santa Claus. And he sets
• 24:38
  down on a goods box at the edge of the pavement with his feet in
• 24:41
  the gutter, and starts and eating all them things. First he takes a
• 24:45
  bite of a yellow banana, then off a red banana, and then a
• 24:48
  mouthful of peanuts, and then maybe some mixed candies, not saying a word
• 24:52
  to nobody, but just naturally eating his full head off. A young chap
• 24:57
  that's glucking in Baggy's grocery neck stove steps up to him and speaks to him.
• 25:02
  Meantime, I suppose to ask him, is it true? Is wealthy
• 25:04
  an old peep? He says to him, Please don't come bothering me now,
• 25:07
  sonny, I'm busy catching up, he says, and keeps right on
• 25:11
  munching and chewing like old physsessed. But I ain't all of it neither,
• 25:15
  judge, not by a long shot. At I ain't pretty soon. Old
• 25:19
  people looks fround him, at the little crowd that's gathered. He didn't seem
• 25:22
  to pay no heed to the grown up people standing there, But he sees
• 25:26
  a couple of boys about ten years old in the crowd, and he beckons
• 25:29
  to them to come to him, and he makes room for them alongside him
• 25:32
  in the box and divides up his knick knacks with them. When he left
• 25:34
  there to come back on here, he had no less than six kits quartered
• 25:37
  round him, including one little nigger boy. And between them all they had
• 25:41
  just finished up the last of the bananas and peanuts and the candy and the
• 25:45
  ginger snaps, and was fixing to take turns drinking the milk out of the
• 25:48
  coconut. I suppose they've got it all cracked out of the shell and ate
• 25:52
  up by now, the coconut. I mean, judge, you ought to
• 25:56
  step down into Franklin Street and taken a look at the picture whilst they were
• 26:00
  still time. You never seen such a funny sight in all your days,
• 26:03
  Albert. I reckon, it'll be too late to be starting now, said
• 26:07
  Judge Priest. I'm right sorry I missed it. Busy catching up? Hey,
• 26:11
  yes, I reckon he is. Tell me, son, what did
• 26:15
  you make out of the way people reacted, why, sir, stated mister
• 26:18
  Qules. To my mind, Judge, I in no manner of doubt.
• 26:21
  But what prosperities went to his head and turned it? He acted to me
• 26:25
  like a plump, distracted idiot, a grown man with forty thousand pounds of
• 26:29
  solid money, setting out on the side of the gut room, eating Jim
• 26:32
  Cracks with a parcel of dirty little boys? Can you figure it out any
• 26:34
  other way, Judge, except that his mind is gone. I don't set
• 26:38
  myself up to be a specialist mental disordered son, said Judge Priest softly.
• 26:42
  But since you asked me the question, I should say, speaking offhan,
• 26:45
  that it looks to me more as if the heart was the organ that was
• 26:48
  mainly affected, and possibly he added this last with a dry little smile,
• 26:53
  and possibly by now the stomach. Also whether or not mister Quwles was correct
• 26:59
  in his psychopath diagnosis. He certainly had been right when he told judges preached
• 27:03
  that the word was already all over the business district. It had spread fast,
• 27:07
  and was still spreading. It sped to beat the wireless traveling, as
• 27:11
  it did by that mouth to year method of communication, which is so amazingly
• 27:14
  swift, and generally so tremendously incorrect. Persons who could not credit the tale
• 27:18
  at all, nevertheless lost no time in giving to it. I yet another
• 27:22
  circulation, so that as though borne on the wind, it more on every
• 27:26
  direction, like ripples and a pond. And with each time of whettling,
• 27:30
  the size of the legacy grew. The daily evening news, appearing in the
• 27:34
  streets at five p m. Confirmed the tail, though by its account the
• 27:37
  fortune was reduced to somehow far below the gorgeously exaggerate estimates that most of the
• 27:42
  earlier narrators between breakfast and supper time people. Day's position, the common estimation
• 27:48
  of his fellow citizens, underwent a radical and revolutionary change. He ceased automatically,
• 27:53
  as it were, to be a town character. He became a universal
• 27:56
  consenter, a town notable whose every act, every word would thereafter be subjected
• 28:02
  to close scrutiny and closure analysis. The next morning, the nation at large
• 28:06
  had opportunity to know of the great good fortune that had Befallen Paul Felick's Oday.
• 28:11
  For the story had been wired to the city papers by the local correspondence
• 28:15
  of the same, and the press associations had picked up a stick full of
• 28:18
  story and spirit broadcast over least wires. Many who until that they had never
• 28:22
  heard of the fortunate man, or indeed of the place where he lived,
• 28:26
  at once manifested a concern in his well being. Certain firms of investment broke
• 28:32
  us in New Ork on Chicago promptly added a new name to what vulgarly they
• 28:36
  called their suckle list. Dealers in mining stocks, in oil stocks, and
• 28:41
  all kinds of attractive stalks showed interest in circular form. Samples of the most
• 28:45
  optimistic and alluring literature the world has ever known were consigned to the post addressed
• 28:51
  to mister p F O'Day such and such a town, such and such a
• 28:55
  state, care of general delivery. Various lonesome ladies in various lonesome place lost
• 29:00
  no time in sitting themselves down and indicting congratulated letters object matrimony. Some of
• 29:07
  these were single ladies, others who had been widowed, either by death or
• 29:11
  request. Various other persons of both sexes were setting here, there and elsewhere
• 29:15
  in a country, suddenly remembered that they two were descended from the Odays of
• 29:19
  Ireland, and wrote on forthways to claim proud and formed relationship with a particular
• 29:25
  day who had come into money. It was a remarkable circumstance which speedily developed,
• 29:29
  that one man should have so many distant cousins scattered over the Union,
• 29:33
  and a thing equally noteworthy that particularly all these kinspeople, through no fault of
• 29:37
  their own, should, at the present moment, be in such strained circumstances,
• 29:41
  and in such dire need of temporary assistance of a financial nature. Thicker
• 29:47
  and printer sink, operating in conjunction certainly did their work mighty well. Even
• 29:52
  so, several days were to elapse before the news reached one, who,
• 29:56
  of all those who read it, had most cost to feel fond personal sensation
• 30:00
  in the intelligence. This delay, however, was nowise to be blamed upon
• 30:04
  the tardiness of the newspapers. It was occasioned by the fact that the person
• 30:08
  referred to was for the moment, well out of contact with the active currents
• 30:12
  of world affairs, being confined in a workhouse at Evansville, Indiana. As
• 30:18
  soon as he had rallied from the shock this indos Will set about making plans
• 30:22
  to put himself in direct touch with the ineritor. He had ample time in
• 30:26
  which to frame and shape his campaign, inasmuch as they remained for him yet
• 30:30
  to serve nearly eight long and painfully tedious speaks of a three month's vagrancy sentence.
• 30:36
  Unlike most of those now manifesting their interest, he did not write a
• 30:38
  letter, but he dreamed dreams that made him forget the annoyances of a ball
• 30:42
  and chain fast on his ankle, and piles of stubborn stones to be cracked
• 30:47
  up into fine bits with a heavy hammer. We are getting ahead of a
• 30:51
  narrative. The plays ahead of it. The chronological sequence of events properly dates
• 30:55
  from the morning following the morning when people day, having been abruptly translated the
• 31:00
  masters of the penniless to the classes of the wealthy, had forthwith embarks upon
• 31:03
  the gastronomic orgy so graphically detailed by his Deputy sheriff. Cause on that next
• 31:10
  day more eyes probably then had been trained in people daish direction. All the
• 31:14
  unremarked and unremarkable days of his life put together were focused upon him. Persons
• 31:19
  who theretofward regarded his existence, if indeed they gave it a thought as one
• 31:23
  of the utterly trivial and inconsequential instances of the cosmic scheme, were moved to
• 31:29
  speak to him, to clasp his hand, and in numerous instances, to
• 31:32
  express a hearty satisfaction over his altered circumstances. To all these, whether they
• 31:37
  were moved by may and neighborly goodwill, perchance were inspired by impulsants of selfishness,
• 31:41
  the old man exhibited a man of aloofness and embarrassment. This diffidence,
• 31:48
  or this suspicion, or this waterwe it was, protected him from those who
• 31:52
  might entertain covetous and ultiatey dessigns upon his inheritance, even better than though he
• 31:56
  had been brusque and rude, while those who ought to question him regarding his
• 32:00
  plans for the future drew from him, while he mumbled and evasive replies which
• 32:05
  left him as deeply in the dark as they had been before. Altogether,
• 32:09
  in his intercourse with the others, he appeared shy and very ill at ease.
• 32:14
  It was noted, though, that early in the forenoon he attached to
• 32:16
  him perhaps half a dozen urchins, of whom the oldest could scarcely have been
• 32:21
  more than twelve or thirteen years of age, and that these youngsters remained his
• 32:24
  companions throughout the day. Likewise, the events of that day were such as
• 32:30
  to confirm a majority of the observers and practically the same belief that had been
• 32:34
  voiced of mister Colts, namely, that whatever scanty brains Peabody might have ever
• 32:38
  had were now completely addled by the stroke of luck that had befallen him,
• 32:43
  and fairness to all to o day and to the town critics was set in
• 32:46
  judgment upon his behavior. It should be stated that his conduct at the very
• 32:51
  outset was not entirely devoid of evidences of sanity. With his troop of ragged
• 32:55
  juveniles trailing behind him, he first visited Felsburg Brothers in Poium to exchange old
• 33:00
  and disreputable costume for a wardrobe that, in accordance with Judge preached recommendation,
• 33:06
  he had ordered on the afternoon previous, and which had since been undergoing certain
• 33:10
  necessary alterations with this mega frame, encased in new black woolens and wearing,
• 33:16
  as an incongruous added touch, the most brilliant of neckties, a necktie of
• 33:21
  the shade of permagranate blossom. He presently issued from Felsburg Brothers, and entered
• 33:24
  mister biden Man's shoe store two doors below. Here mister biden Man fitted him
• 33:30
  with shoes, and in addition noted down a further order, which the purchaser
• 33:35
  did not give until after he had comfortd earnestly with the members of his youthful
• 33:38
  ententorage. Those watching the scene from a distance saw and perhaps marveled at the
• 33:45
  site that already between these small boys on the one part, and this old
• 33:49
  man and the other, a perfect understanding appeared to have been established. After
• 33:53
  leaving biden Man's, and tagged by his small escorts, Ode went straight to
• 33:57
  the courthouse, and, upon knocking at the door, was admitted to Judge
• 34:00
  Bridg's private chambers. The boys meantime waiting outside in the hall. When he
• 34:05
  came forth, he showed them something held in his hand, and told them
• 34:08
  something, whereupon all of them burst into excitable and joyous whoops. It was
• 34:14
  at that point that all day by the common verdic that most thrown up onlookers
• 34:17
  began to betray the vagaries of disordered intellect. Not that his reason had not
• 34:22
  been under suspicion already as a result of his freakish excess in the matter of
• 34:27
  b Whalen sens fares on the preceding day. But the relapse that now followed
• 34:30
  as nearly everybody agreed, was even more pronounced, even more symptomatic then the
• 34:36
  early attack of aberration. In brief, this was what happened to begin with.
• 34:40
  Mister Bergill Overall, who dealt in lands and houses and sold insurance of
• 34:45
  all the commoner varieties on the side, had stalked o day to this point,
• 34:49
  and was laying in wait for him as he came out of the courthouse
• 34:52
  into the public square, being anxious to describe to him some especially decidrable bargains
• 34:58
  in both improved and unimp crude reality. Also, mister Overall was prepared to
• 35:02
  book for him life accident and health policies on the spot. So pleased was
• 35:07
  mister Overall's having distanced his professional rivals in the hunter that he ribbled at the
• 35:12
  north, but the warmth of his disappointment and indignation ride up the salivary fauns
• 35:16
  instantly when the prospective patron declined to listen to him at all, and breaking
• 35:21
  free from mister Overall's detaining clasped, hurried on into legal row, with his
• 35:25
  small corn voice trotting along ahead and alongside him at the door of the Blue
• 35:30
  Goose Saloon and Short Ordered Restaurant, its proprietor, by name Link is a
• 35:35
  man who was lucky, as it were, in ambush. He hailed the
• 35:37
  approaching O Day most cordially. He inquired in a warm voice regarding Oda's health,
• 35:43
  and then, with a rare burst of generosity, he invited nay urged
• 35:47
  o Day to step in, said, have something on the house, wines,
• 35:52
  ales, liquors or cigars. It was all want to mister Aeserman.
• 35:57
  The other merely shook his head, and, without a word of thanks for
• 36:00
  the offer, passed on as though bent upon an important mission. Mark how
• 36:05
  the proofs were accumulating. The man had disdained the company of men of approximately
• 36:09
  his own age or thereabot. He had refused an opportunity to partake off refreshment
• 36:14
  suitable to his years. And now he stepped into the Bonton Poisto and bought
• 36:17
  for cash most inconceivable of accusations, a little wagon that was painted bright red
• 36:23
  and bored on his sides in curly cured letters the name Cormet. His next
• 36:29
  stop was made at Bishop and Bryan's grocery, where, with the aid of
• 36:32
  his youthful compatriots, he first discriminately selected and then purchased on pred it and
• 36:38
  finally loaded into the wagon with such purchases as a dozen bottles of soda pop
• 36:43
  assorted flavors, cheese, crackers, soda and animal sponge cakes with weatherproof pink
• 36:49
  icing on them, fruits of the season co voysters, a bottle of pepper
• 36:52
  sauce, and a quantity of the extra large sized a bright green cucumber pickles
• 36:58
  known to the trade as a fans see Jumbo brand primes selected presently, the
• 37:02
  astounded spectacle was presented of two small boys with string briddles on their arms,
• 37:07
  drawing the wagon through a town and out of it into the country, with
• 37:12
  people Day in the role of teamster walking alongside the laden wagon, who was
• 37:16
  holding the lines in his hands and shouting orders at his team, who showed
• 37:20
  a culty inclination to shy at objects, to kick up their heels without provocation,
• 37:24
  and at intervals to try to run away. Eight attend small voice,
• 37:29
  for by now the troop had grown in number and in volume of noise,
• 37:32
  trailed along keeping step with the elderly patron and advising and surely regarding the management
• 37:38
  of his refractory span. As it turned out, the destination of this preposterous
• 37:44
  procession was Bradshaw's Grow, where the entire party spent their day picnicking in the
• 37:49
  woods, and has reported by several reliable witnesses playing games. It was not
• 37:52
  so strange that holidaying boys should play games. The amazing feature of the performance
• 37:59
  was at Peeple Day, a man old enough to beig grandfather to any of
• 38:01
  them, played with them being my turns an Indian chief, a Robert baron,
• 38:07
  and the driver of a stagecoach attacked by wild western desperadoes. When he
• 38:10
  returned to town at dusk, drawing his little red wagon behind him, his
• 38:15
  new suit was rumpled into many wrinkles and marked by dust and grass tails.
• 38:20
  His flame colored tie was twisted under one year. His new straw hat was
• 38:23
  mashed quite out of shape, and his eyes was a light that sundry citizens,
• 38:29
  on meeting him could only interpret for a spark struck from inner fires of
• 38:32
  madness. Days that came after this on through the midsummer wherew with variations but
• 38:38
  repetitions of the day I have just described. Each morning, Peapo Day would
• 38:44
  go to either the court house or Judge Priest's home to turn over to the
• 38:46
  judge the unopened mail which had been delivered to him at Gafford's tables. Then
• 38:52
  he would secure from the judge alone of money against his inheritance. Gently.
• 38:55
  The amount of his daily borrowing was a dollar. Rarely was it so much
• 38:59
  as too, and only once was at more than two dollars. By nightfall,
• 39:04
  the sun would have been expended upon perfectly useless and absolutely childish devices.
• 39:08
  It might be that he would buy toy pistols and paper caps for himself and
• 39:13
  his following of urchins, or that his swim would lead him to expend all
• 39:16
  the money in tin flutes. In one case, a group he so incongruously
• 39:22
  headed would be, for that one day a gang of make believe bandity.
• 39:25
  Another they would constitute themselves a fife and drum corps and battle tops for the
• 39:30
  drums, and would march through the streets where scandalized adults stood in their tracks
• 39:36
  to watch them go by. They all the while making weird sounds which were
• 39:40
  them passed from music or again. The available cash resources would be invested in
• 39:45
  provenda, and then there would be an outing in the woods and the people.
• 39:51
  Days Captaincy his chosen band of youngsters pick dewberries. They went swimming together
• 39:55
  in gut Thrie's gravel pitcher out by the old fairgrounds, where his spare naked
• 40:00
  shanks contrasted strongly with their plum frecked legs as all of them splashed through the
• 40:06
  shallows making for deep water. Under this leadership they stole watermelons from mister dick
• 40:10
  Bell's patch, afterward eating their spoils in thickets of grave points along the banks
• 40:15
  of Perkins Creak. It was felt that mental befidlement and mortal foley could reach
• 40:21
  no great heights or no lower depths. Then on a certain hour of a
• 40:25
  certain day along toward the end of August, when Ode came forth from his
• 40:30
  quarters and Gafferd's tables, wearing a pair of boots that mister Biderman's establishment had
• 40:34
  turned out to his order and his measure, not such boots as a sensible
• 40:37
  man might be expected to wear, but boots that were exaggerated and monstrous counterfeits
• 40:43
  of the red topped, strong fronted, brass toed, subheeled, squeaky sold
• 40:46
  booties that small boys of an earlier generation possessed, very proudly and seemingly unconscious
• 40:52
  of or oblivious to, the denasive remarks that the appearance of these new belongings
• 40:58
  drew from many persons, went clumping about in them, with the rumpy legs
• 41:02
  of his trousers, tuck down in them, and ballooning up and out over
• 41:06
  the tops and folds which overlapped from his knee joints half way down his uttenuated
• 41:09
  calves. As Deputyiative Calls said, the combination was a sight fit to make
• 41:15
  a horse laugh. It may be that small boys have a lesser sense of
• 41:19
  humor than horses have. For certainly the boys who had the old Man's invariable
• 41:23
  shadows did not laugh at him or at his boots either. Between the Wiscards
• 41:29
  Senior and his small comrades there existed a freemasonry that made them all sense a
• 41:32
  thing beyond the ken of most of their elders. Perhaps this was because the
• 41:37
  elders, being blind in their superior wisdom, saw neither this thing nor the
• 41:42
  communion that flourished. They saw only the fascical joke. But his honor Judge
• 41:46
  Priest, to cite a conspicious exception, seemed not to see the lamentable comedy
• 41:51
  of it. Indeed, it seemed to some almost as if Judge Priest was
• 41:54
  aiding and abetting the befogged or Day in his demented enterprises, his peculiar excursions,
• 42:00
  and his weird purchases, if he did not actually encourage him in these
• 42:05
  constant exhibitions of witlessness. Certainly there were no evidences available to show that he
• 42:10
  sought to dissuade Baude from his strange course. At the end of a fortnight,
• 42:15
  one citizen, in whom patience had ceased to be a virtue, and
• 42:20
  whose nature long continued silence on any public topic was intolerable, felt it his
• 42:24
  duty to speak to the judge upon the subject. This gentleman, his name
• 42:29
  was S. P Escott, well held with many that for the good name
• 42:34
  of the community, steps should be taken to obey the infantile, futail activities
• 42:38
  of the besorted legative. Afterward, mister Escott, giving a partial account of
• 42:43
  the conversation with Judge praise to certain of his friends, showed unfeigned annoyance at
• 42:47
  the outcome. I claim that old man's not fitting to be running a court
• 42:52
  any longer, he stated bitterly. He's too old and peevish. That's what
• 42:55
  ails him one. I am certainly not ever going to war for him again.
• 43:00
  Why it's getting to be as much as a man's lave as well?
• 43:02
  To stop that their spiteful old crank in the street and put a civil question
• 43:07
  to him. That's what's the matter. What happened, es p inquired some
• 43:12
  one, Why here's what happened, exclaimed the agreed mister Scott. I hadn't
• 43:16
  any more than started in to tell him the whole town was talking about the
• 43:20
  way that daffy old people Day was carrying on, and that something had ought
• 43:23
  to be done about it. And didn't he think it was beholding on him
• 43:28
  a circuit judge to do something right away, such as having O dayed tuck
• 43:31
  up and tried for a lunatic, And that I for one was very and
• 43:35
  willing to testify to the crazy things I had seen done with my own eyes
• 43:38
  when he cut in on me, and just as good as told me to
• 43:42
  my own face that if I had quit tending to other people's business, I'd
• 43:45
  maybe have more business on my own to tent to think of that, gentleman,
• 43:50
  a circuit judge, remaining a citizen and taxpayer checked himself slightly anyhow,
• 43:55
  a citizen that away, it shows that he can't be rationing his own self.
• 44:00
  I personally, I claim all priestes falling mentally, he must be.
• 44:02
  And if anybody can be found to run against him at the next selection,
• 44:07
  you gentlemen, just watch and see who gets my wont Having uttered this threat
• 44:12
  with a deep and significant emphasis, mister Escott, still muttering, turned and
• 44:15
  entered the front gate of his boarding house. It was not exactly his boarding
• 44:20
  house, his wife ran it, but mister Escott lived there and voted from
• 44:23
  there. But the apogee of Pipo Dae's carnival of weird vagueries of deportment came
• 44:29
  at the end of two months, two months in which each day the man
• 44:34
  furnished, cumulative and piled up material for derisive and jocular command on the part
• 44:37
  of very considerable proportion of his fellow townsmen. Three occurrences of a widely dissimilar
• 44:44
  nature, yet all closely interrelated to the main issue, marked the climax of
• 44:49
  the man's new role in his new career. The first of these was the
• 44:52
  arrival of his legacy, the second was a wondering circus, and the third
• 44:57
  and last was a nephew in the form of Sunbury bills of exchange. The
• 45:01
  estate left by the late Daniel Odi of the town of Kilmere in the Island
• 45:06
  of Ireland, was on a certain afternoon delivered over into Judge Priest hands and
• 45:10
  by him in turn handed to the rtal owner. After its sundry indebtedness representing
• 45:16
  the total of the old Judge's day to day cash advances to ode were liquidated.
• 45:22
  The ceremony of detecting the sum took place at the planter's bag, whither
• 45:25
  the two are journeyed in company from the courthouse, Having, with the aid
• 45:30
  of the paying teller instructed oday in the technical details requisite to the drawing of
• 45:35
  personal checks, Judge Priest went home and had his back packed and left for
• 45:38
  real Foot Lake to spend a week fishing. As a consequence, he missed
• 45:43
  the remaining two events following immediately thereafter. The Circus was no great shakes of
• 45:47
  a circus, no grand, glittering, gorgeous, glorious pageant of education and
• 45:53
  entertainment, traveling on its own special trains. No vast tented city of world's
• 45:59
  wonders and world's champions, heralded for weeks and weeks in advance of its coming
• 46:04
  by dead walls emblazoned with the finest examples of the lithographers art, and by
• 46:08
  half pitched advertisements in the daily evening news. On the contrary, it was
• 46:13
  a shabby little wagon show which, coming overland on short notice, rolled into
• 46:17
  town under horsepower and set up its ragged and dusty canvases on the vacant lot
• 46:22
  across Weiser's drug store. Compared with the street period of any of its great
• 46:27
  and famous rivals, the street period of the Circus was a meager and disappointing
• 46:31
  thing. Why there was only one elephant, a dwarfish and debilitated looking creature,
• 46:37
  worn mangy and slick on its various angles like the cover of an old
• 46:40
  fashioned haircloth trunk, and obviously most of the close cages were weather beaten stake
• 46:45
  wagons in disguise. Nevertheless, there was a sizeable turnout of people for the
• 46:51
  afternoon performance. After all, a circus was a circus. Moreover, this
• 46:57
  particular circus was marked at the afternoon performance by happenings of a nature most decidedly
• 47:01
  unusual. At t one o'clock the doors were opened. At one ten,
• 47:06
  the eyes of the proprietor were made glad, and his heart was uplifted within
• 47:09
  him by the sight of a strange procession, drawing nearer and nearer across the
• 47:15
  scuffled turf of the common and heading in the direction of the red ticket wagon.
• 47:20
  At the head of the procession marched Peapo Day, while he, of
• 47:22
  course, the proprietor didn't know it was Peapo Day. A queer figure in
• 47:25
  his rumpled black clothes and his red toped brastowed boots, and with one hand
• 47:31
  holding fast to the string of a captive joy balloon behind him in an uneven
• 47:37
  jostling formation, followed many small boys and some small girls. A sensus of
• 47:42
  the ranks would have developed that hereby included practically all the juvenile white population,
• 47:46
  or otherwise, through a lack of funds would have been denied the opportunity to
• 47:51
  patronize the circus, or in fact any circus. Each member of the joyous
• 47:55
  company was likewise the bearer of a toy balloon, red, yellow, blue,
• 48:00
  green, a purple, as the case might be. Over the line
• 48:04
  of heads, the taque rubbery globes roared on the teathers, nodding and twisting
• 48:08
  like so many bright iridescent bubbles, And half a block away at the edge
• 48:13
  of the lot, a balloon vendor whose entire stalk had been disposed off in
• 48:17
  one splendid transaction, now stood empty handed but full pocketed, marveling at stroke
• 48:23
  of luck that enabled to take an afternoon off and rest his voice out of
• 48:28
  a seemingly bottomless exchequer. Pipore bought tickets of admission for all, but this
• 48:32
  was only the beginning. Once inside the tent, it procured accommodations in the
• 48:37
  reserved seat section for himself and those who accompanied him. From such superior points
• 48:42
  of vantage, the whole crew of them witnessed the performance from the thrilling grand
• 48:46
  entry, which spangled ladies and gentlemen riding two by two on broad back streets
• 48:52
  to the tumbling doubt, introducing the full strength of the company, which came
• 48:55
  at the end. They munched fresh roasted peanuts and bolts of sugar coated popcorn
• 49:00
  slightly ran said until they munched no longer ex zest but merely mechanically, they
• 49:06
  drank pink lemonade to an extent that threatened absolute depletion of the fluid contents of
• 49:09
  both barrels in the refreshment stand out in the menagerie tent, they whooped the
• 49:15
  unbriddled approval when the wild Indian chief, after shooting down a stuffed con with
• 49:20
  a bow and arrow from somewhere up near the top of the center pole,
• 49:22
  while balancing himself jauntily erect upon the haunches of a coursing white charger, suddenly
• 49:28
  flung off his feathered headdress, his wig, and his fringed leather garments,
• 49:31
  and revealed himself in pink fleshings as a principal bare back rider. They screamed
• 49:37
  in a chorus of delight when the funny old clawn, who had been forcibly
• 49:40
  deprived of three tin flutes and rapid succession, now produced yet to float from
• 49:45
  the seemingly inexhaustible depths of his baggy white pants, a flute with a string
• 49:51
  and a bent pin attached to it, and secretly affixing the pin and the
• 49:53
  tail of the cross ring master's coat, was thereafter enable to toot sharp shrill
• 49:59
  blast frequent intervals, much to the chagrin of the ring master, who seemed
• 50:02
  utterly unable to discover the whereabouts of the instrument dangling behind him. But no
• 50:07
  one among them whooped louder or laughed longer than their elderly and viviscud friend,
• 50:13
  who sat among them, paying the bills as his guest. They stayed for
• 50:16
  the concert, and following this they patronized the side show in a body.
• 50:22
  They had been almost the first upon the scene. Assuredly they were the last
• 50:24
  of the audience to quit it. Indeed, before they trailed their confere away
• 50:30
  from the spot, the sun was nearly done, and at its course of
• 50:32
  supper tables all over town the tale of poor old Peaboy's latest exhibition of freakishness
• 50:38
  was being retailed with elaborations to interested auditors. Estimates of the sum probably expanded
• 50:45
  by him in this crowning extravagance ranged wellop into the hundreds of dollars. As
• 50:50
  for the object of these speculations, he was to stain not to eat any
• 50:52
  supper at all. That night, something happened that so upset him as to
• 50:57
  make him forget the meal altogether. It began to happen when he reached the
• 51:01
  modest home of Pea Gafford, adjoining the Gaffold Stables on Locust Street, and
• 51:07
  found sitting on the lowermost step of the post a young man of untidy and
• 51:12
  unshaved aspect, who hailed him affectionately as Uncle Paul, and who showed deep
• 51:15
  annoyance and acute distress upon being rebuffed with chill words. It is possible that
• 51:22
  the strain of serving a three month sentence on the technical charge of vagrancy in
• 51:25
  a workhouse somewhere in Indiana had affected the young man's nerves. His ankle bone
• 51:30
  still ached, and where the ball and chain had been hitched on his palms,
• 51:35
  the blisters induced by the uncongenial use of a sledge ham on a rock
• 51:37
  pile had hardly as yet turned to calluses. So it is only fair to
• 51:43
  presume that his nervous system felt the stress of his recent confining experiences. Also
• 51:47
  almost tearfully, he pleaded with people Day to remember the ties of blood that
• 51:52
  bound them. Repeatedly, he pointed out he was the only known kinsman of
• 51:55
  the other in all the world, and therefore had more reason than any other
• 51:59
  lips being to expect kindness and generosity at his uncle's hands. He spoke socialistically
• 52:05
  of the advisability of an equal division, failing to make any impression here,
• 52:08
  he mentioned the subject of alone, at first hopefully, but finally desparingly.
• 52:14
  When he was done, People Day, in a perfectly colorless and unsympathetic voice,
• 52:19
  bade him goodbye, not good night, but goodbye, and going inside
• 52:22
  the house, he closed the door behind him, leaving his newly returned relative
• 52:25
  outside and quite alone. At this the young man uttered violent language, but
• 52:30
  since there was nobody present to hear him, it is likely he formed small
• 52:34
  satisfaction in his profanity, rich, though it may have been in metaphor and
• 52:37
  variety. So presently he bitook himself of going straight to the office in legal
• 52:43
  row of Hb's Sublet, attorney at law, from the circumstance that he found
• 52:47
  mister Sublet in though it was long past that gentleman's off his ayes and moreover
• 52:52
  found miss a sublet of waiting and expecting an attentive attitude. It might have
• 52:57
  been adduced by one skilled in the trick of putting two and two together,
• 53:00
  that the pair of them had reached a prayer understanding sometime during the day,
• 53:04
  and that the visit of the young man to the Gafford home and his speeches
• 53:07
  there had all been parts of a scheme planned out at a prayer conference.
• 53:12
  Be this as it may, So soon as mister Sublett had heard his caller's
• 53:16
  version of the meeting upon the posche he lost no time in taking certain legal
• 53:20
  steps. That very night, on behalf of his client denominated in their documents
• 53:25
  as Percival Dwyer Esquire, he prepared a petition addressed to the Circuit Judge of
• 53:30
  the district, setting forth that inasmuch as Paul Felix Odey had, by divers
• 53:36
  acts shown himself to be of unsound mind, now therefore came his nephew and
• 53:40
  next of kin, praying that a committee or curator to be appointed to take
• 53:45
  over the estate of the said Paul Felix Odey and administer the same in accordance
• 53:49
  with the orders of the court until such time as they said Paul Felix O'Day
• 53:52
  should recover its reason all should pass from this life, and so forth,
• 53:57
  and so on, not to mention, whereas his in great number and aforced
• 54:00
  its abounding throughout the text in the utmost profusion. On the following morning,
• 54:06
  the papers were filed with Circuit Clark Milen that vigilandm barrister mister Sublet brought them
• 54:12
  in person to the quarters before nine o'clock, he having the interest of his
• 54:15
  client at heart, and perhaps also visions of a large contingent fee in his
• 54:20
  mind. No returner had been paid. The state of mister Dwyer's finances,
• 54:23
  or rather the absence of any finances, had precluded the performance of that customary
• 54:28
  detail. But to mister Sublett's experienced mind, the prospects of future increments seemed
• 54:32
  large. Accordingly, he was all for prompt action. Formerly, he said
• 54:38
  he wished to go on record as demanding for his principle a speedy hearing of
• 54:43
  the issue, with a view to preventing the defendant named in the pleadings from
• 54:46
  dissipating any more of the estate lately bequeathed to him and now fully in his
• 54:51
  possession averts to that defect. Mister Myland felt justified in getting into communication with
• 54:55
  Judge Priest over the long distance form, and the Judge cutting short his vacation
• 55:00
  and leaving uncaught vast numbers of base and perch in real foot. Lake came
• 55:05
  home, arriving late that night. Next morning, having issued divers orders in
• 55:08
  connection with the impending litigation, he sent a messenger to find people Day and
• 55:14
  to direct Day to come to the courthouse for a personal interview. Shortly afterward,
• 55:19
  a scene that had occurred some two months earlier with his Honor's private chamber
• 55:22
  for a sitting was substantially duplicated. There was the same cast of two,
• 55:27
  the same stage properties, the same atmosphere of untidy tidiness, and as before,
• 55:31
  the dialogs was in Judge Bert's hand. He led, and his fellow
• 55:36
  character followed his leads. Peep. He was saying, you understand, don't
• 55:40
  you that this year fragrant neview of yours that's turned up from nowhere in particular's
• 55:45
  fixing to get ready to try and prove that you are feeble minded. And
• 55:49
  on top of that that he's going to ask that a committee be appointed for
• 55:52
  you, in other words, that somebody or other shall be named by the
• 55:54
  court, meaning me to take charge of your property and control the spending of
• 55:58
  it from now on. Yes, sir, stated O'Day Pete careforn. He
• 56:02
  sat down with me and made it all clear to me yesterday evening, after
• 56:07
  they had dance of the papers on me. All right, then, now
• 56:10
  I'm going to fix a hearing for to morrow morning at ten. The other
• 56:14
  side is asking for a quick decision, and I'd rather figure they are entitled
• 56:17
  to it. Is that agreeable to you? What have you say, Judge?
• 56:22
  Well, have you retained a lawyer to represent your interest in the court?
• 56:25
  That's a main question that I sent for you to ask you. Do
• 56:30
  I need a lawyer? Judge? Well, there have been times when I
• 56:34
  regarded lawyers as being superfluous, said the judge. Priest brightly. Sell In
• 56:37
  most cases littikins do haven't browned when that case is being heard. I don't
• 56:43
  know as I need any lawyer to help me say what I've got to say,
• 56:45
  said o'ray. Judge y Ain never asked me no questions about the way
• 56:50
  I've been carrying on since I've come into this here. Money but I reckon,
• 56:53
  maybe this is as good a time as any to tell you jes why
• 56:57
  I've been acting the way I've done. You see, sir, hold on
• 57:00
  broken judge prised up to now as my friend, it would have been perfectly
• 57:05
  proper for you to give me your confidences if you were minded so to do.
• 57:09
  But now I reckon, you'd better not. You see, and the
• 57:13
  judge that's got to decide whether you are a responsible person, whether you're mentally
• 57:16
  capable of handling your own financial affairs, or whether you aren't. So you'd
• 57:21
  better wait and make your statement on your own behalf to me whilst he's setting
• 57:24
  on the bench. I'll see that you get an opportunity to do so,
• 57:29
  and I listen to it. I'll give it all the consideration it's deserving of.
• 57:32
  And on second thought, perhaps it will only be a waste of time
• 57:37
  and money for you to grow hiring a lawyer, especially to represent to you
• 57:40
  under the law. It's my duty in such a case as this here one
• 57:44
  is to appoint a member of the bar to serve during the proceedings as your
• 57:47
  guardian. Ad Litton, you don't need to be startled, he added,
• 57:52
  as ode flinched at the sound in his ears of these strange and fearsome words.
• 57:57
  A guardian ad Litton is simply a lawyer that tends to your fa Still,
• 58:00
  the case is settled one way or the other. If you had a
• 58:02
  dozen lawyers, I'd have to point them just the same, so you don't
• 58:07
  need to worry about that part of it. That's all you can go now
• 58:10
  if you want to, Wally. If I was you, I wouldn't draw
• 58:14
  out any more money from the bank TwixT now and the time when I make
• 58:17
  my decision, all things considered, It was an unusual assemblage that a judge
• 58:22
  priest regarded over the top rims of his glasses as he sat facing it in
• 58:27
  his broad arm chair, with the flat top of the bench intervening between him
• 58:30
  and the gathering. Not often, even in the case of exciting murder trials,
• 58:35
  had the old courtroom held a larger crowd Shudley. Never had it held
• 58:38
  so many boys. Boys and boys exclusively filled the back rows of benches and
• 58:44
  downstairs more boys. In fact, the narrow shelf like balcony that spanned the
• 58:47
  chamber across its far end mainly small voice, barefooted, sunburned, freckle faced,
• 58:53
  shock headed boys, and for boys, they were strangely silent and strangely
• 58:58
  attentive. The petitioner sat with his counsel, Missus Sublet. The petitioner had
• 59:04
  been newly shaped, and from some mysterious swords, had been equipped with a
• 59:07
  neat wardrobe. Plainly he was endeavoring to wear a look of virtue, which
• 59:12
  was a difficult undertaking, as he would understand had he known the petitioner.
• 59:16
  The defending party to the action was seated across the room, touching elbows with
• 59:21
  old Colonel Farrell, dean of the local bar and its most florid orator.
• 59:25
  The Court will designate Colonel Horatio Farrell as Guardian ad Litton for the defenant during
• 59:31
  these proceedings, jud Priest had stated a few minutes earlier, using the formal
• 59:36
  and grammatical language he reserved exclusively for his court room. At once. Old
• 59:39
  Colonel Farrell had hitched his chair up alongside Oday, had asked him several questions
• 59:45
  in a tone inaudible to doze about them, and listened to the whispered answers
• 59:49
  of odey, and then had nodded his huge, curly white dome of a
• 59:52
  head as so amply satisfied with the responses, let us skip the preliminaries.
• 59:58
  True, they seemed to interest the here, though they would be tedious reading
• 1:00:02
  likewise in touching upon the opening and outlining adressive Attorney at laws, Sublet letters,
• 1:00:07
  for the sake of time and space, be very much briefer than missus
• 1:00:10
  Sublet was for our present purposes. I deem it sufficient to say that,
• 1:00:15
  in all his professional carrier, mister Sublet was never more eloquent, never more
• 1:00:20
  forceful, never more vegament in his allegations, and never more convinced, as
• 1:00:24
  he himself stated, not once but repeatedly, of his ability to prove the
• 1:00:29
  facts he alleged by competent and unbiased testimony. These facts, he pointed out,
• 1:00:35
  were common knowledge in the community. Nevertheless, he stood prepare to buttress
• 1:00:38
  them with the evidence of reputable witnesses given an oath. Mister Sublett, having
• 1:00:44
  unknown at length, now wound up, he sat down, perspiring freely,
• 1:00:49
  and through the perspiration radiating confidence in his contentions, confidence in the result,
• 1:00:52
  and most of all, unbounded confidence in mister Sublet. Now Colonel Farrell was
• 1:00:59
  turning up to he was the court under the cloak of a theatrical presence in
• 1:01:02
  a large Oreton manner, and began a Ciceronian command of sonorous language. The
• 1:01:07
  colonel carried concealed a shrewd old brain. It was as though a skilled marksman
• 1:01:13
  lurked in ambush amid a tangle of luxuriant foliage in his particular instance. Moreover,
• 1:01:19
  it is barely possible that the Colonel was acting on a queue privily conveyed
• 1:01:22
  to him before the court opened. Mate, Please, your honor, he
• 1:01:25
  began, I've just conferred with the definite here, and, acting in the
• 1:01:30
  capacity of his guardian Adlerton, I have advised him to waive an opening at
• 1:01:34
  Brisbay Council. Indeed, the defendant has no counsel. Furthermore, the definant,
• 1:01:38
  also acting upon my advice, will present no witness in his own behalf.
• 1:01:43
  But with your honorest permission, the definitt will now make a personal statement,
• 1:01:47
  and thereafter he will rest content, leaving the final arbitrament of the issue
• 1:01:52
  to your Honor's discretion. I object, exclaimed, Miss sublet briskly, on
• 1:01:57
  what ground does the learnest Council object? Inquired on the grounds that since the
• 1:02:01
  mental competence of this man is concerned, since it is a contention that he
• 1:02:06
  is patently and plainly a victim of seniality, an individual prematurely in his dotage.
• 1:02:10
  Any utterance by him will be of no value whatsoever in aiding the conscience
• 1:02:15
  and intelligence of the Court to arrive at a fair and just conclusion regarding the
• 1:02:20
  definite mental condition. Mister Sublet excelled the news of big words. There was
• 1:02:24
  no doubt about that. The objection is overruled, said Judge Priest. He
• 1:02:30
  nodded in the direction of Day and Colonel Farrell. The court will hear the
• 1:02:34
  defendant. He is not to be interrupted while making his statement. The definant
• 1:02:37
  may proceed without further urging. Oree stood up, a tall, slap sided
• 1:02:43
  brack of a man, with his long arms dangling at his size, half
• 1:02:46
  facing Judge Priest and half facing his nephew and his nephew's lawyer. Without hesitation,
• 1:02:52
  he began to speak, and this was what he said. There's may
• 1:02:55
  be some here as knows about. However, was raised and fished my poor
• 1:03:00
  and my maub died when I was chest only a baby, so I was
• 1:03:04
  brung up out here at the old County poor house as a pauper. I
• 1:03:08
  can't remember the time when I didn't have to work for my board and keep
• 1:03:12
  and work hard. While other boys was going to school and playing hooky and
• 1:03:15
  going in washing in the creek and playing games and all such as that I
• 1:03:20
  had to work. I've never done no playing round in my whole life,
• 1:03:23
  not till he had just recently, anyway, But I always craved to play
• 1:03:28
  round some. I didn't never say nothing about it to nobody after I growed
• 1:03:30
  up, because I figured it out. They wouldn't understand, and maybe i'd
• 1:03:35
  laugh at me. But all these years, ever since I left at their
• 1:03:37
  poor house, I've had a hankering here inside of me. He lifted one
• 1:03:42
  hand and touched his breast. I've had a hankering to be a boy,
• 1:03:45
  and to do all the things a boy does, to do things I was
• 1:03:49
  chiseled out of doing whilst I was of suitable age to be doing them.
• 1:03:52
  I called to mind that I used to dream and may sleep about doing him.
• 1:03:55
  But a dream never come true, not till just here lately. It
• 1:04:00
  didn't have no chance to come true, not till then. So when this
• 1:04:03
  money come to me so sudden and unbeknownst like, I said to myself that
• 1:04:08
  I was going to make that their dream come true. And I started out
• 1:04:12
  for to do it, and I'd done it, and I reckon that's the
• 1:04:15
  course of my being here to day accused of being feeble minded. But even
• 1:04:19
  sir, I don't regret it none. If it was all to do over
• 1:04:23
  again, I'd do it just the very same way. Why I never knowed
• 1:04:28
  what it was till here two months or so ago, to have my fill
• 1:04:30
  of bananas and candy and ginger snaps and all such knick knacks. Is them
• 1:04:35
  all my life, I've been craving secretly to own a pair of red top
• 1:04:39
  boots with brassts and em like I used to see other boys wearing in the
• 1:04:42
  winter time when I was out yonder at the poor house, wearing an old
• 1:04:45
  pair of somebody else's cast off shoes, maybe a man's shoes, with rags
• 1:04:49
  wrapped round my feet to keep the snow from coming through the cracks in them,
• 1:04:54
  and to keep them from slipping right spang of my feet. I got
• 1:04:57
  three toes frostbit once during your cold spe wearing them kind of shoes. But
• 1:05:01
  here the other week I found myself able to buy me some red top boots
• 1:05:04
  with brasts on them. So I add them made to order, and I'm
• 1:05:09
  wearing them now. I wear them regular, even if it is summer time.
• 1:05:13
  I take a heap of pleasure out of them. And also all my
• 1:05:16
  long life, I've been wanting to go to a circus, but not till
• 1:05:20
  three days ago, I didn't never get a chance to go to one.
• 1:05:25
  That gentleman Yonder, mister Sublet, he allowed now that I was leading a
• 1:05:28
  lot of little boys in this here town into bad habits. He said that
• 1:05:31
  he was learning them nobody knowed what devilment. And he spoke of my having
• 1:05:35
  egged them on to steal watermelons from mister Bell's watermelon patch out here. They
• 1:05:40
  are three miles from town on the Marshall will Bravel Road. You all heard
• 1:05:44
  what he just now said about that. I don't mean no offense, and
• 1:05:48
  I beg this pardon for contradicting him right out before everybody here in the big
• 1:05:53
  court. But mister you're wrong. I don't leave these boys astray that I've
• 1:05:57
  been running round with. They are mighty nice, clean boys, all of
• 1:06:00
  them. Some of them are mighty near as poor as what I used to
• 1:06:03
  be. But aren't I no real harm in any of them. We get
• 1:06:08
  along fine, me and them, and without no preaching, no nothing like
• 1:06:13
  that. I've done my best these weeks. We've been follicking and projecting round
• 1:06:16
  together to keep them from growing up to do mean things. I used chewing
• 1:06:20
  tobacco myself, but I've told them I don't know how many times that if
• 1:06:25
  they chew, it'll stun them and their growth. And I've got several of
• 1:06:28
  them that were smoking cigarettes on the slide to promise me they'd quit. So
• 1:06:31
  I don't figure as I've done them boys any real harm by going round with
• 1:06:35
  them. And I believe if he was to ask them, they'd all tell
• 1:06:39
  you the same, sir, Now about them watermelons. Since this gentleman has
• 1:06:44
  brung them watermelons up, I'm going to tell you all the truth about that
• 1:06:47
  too. He cast a quick furtive look, almost a guilty look, over
• 1:06:53
  his shoulder toward the rear of the court room before he went on them watermelons
• 1:06:58
  wasn't really stolen at all. I seen mister Dick Bell beforehand and arranged with
• 1:07:02
  him to pay him in full for whatever damage might be done. But you
• 1:07:06
  see, I knowed watermelons tasted sweeter to a boy if he thought he'd hooked
• 1:07:11
  him out of a patch. So I never let on to my little partners
• 1:07:15
  Yonder that I had the same as paid mister Bell in advance for the melons
• 1:07:18
  we snuck out of despatch and ate any woods. They'll all been thinking up
• 1:07:24
  till now that we really hooked them watermelons. But if that was long,
• 1:07:28
  I'm sorry for it. Mister Sublett. You just now said I was frittering
• 1:07:31
  away my property on wain foolishment. Them was the world he used, frittering
• 1:07:36
  and wain foolishment. Maybe you're right, sir, about frittering put But if
• 1:07:42
  spending money in a certain way gives a man as much pleasure as it gives
• 1:07:45
  me these last two months, and if the money is hissed by rights,
• 1:07:48
  I figure it can't be so very foolish, though it may appear to some
• 1:07:53
  excusing these here clothes I've got on, and these ier boots which I ain't
• 1:07:58
  paid for yet but is changed up to me. On Felsberg Brothers books and
• 1:08:00
  mister m Biderman's books. I didn't spend only a dollar a day or maybe
• 1:08:05
  two dollars and once three dollars in a single day of waters coming to me
• 1:08:11
  that that year. He let me have that out of his own pocket,
• 1:08:14
  and I paid him back, and that was all I did spend till year
• 1:08:16
  three days ago, when that their circus come to town. I reckon I
• 1:08:20
  did spend it right smart. Then my money had come from the old country
• 1:08:25
  one of the day before. So I went to the bank and they write
• 1:08:28
  out one of them pieces of paper, which is called a check, and
• 1:08:30
  I signed it with my mark, and they give me the money I wanted,
• 1:08:33
  and even two hundred dollars. And part of that their money I used
• 1:08:38
  to pay for circus tickets for all the little boys and little girls I could
• 1:08:41
  find in this town that couldn't have got the circus no other way. Some
• 1:08:45
  of them were setting back there behind you all now, some of the boys
• 1:08:48
  and me, I don't see none of the little girls. There were.
• 1:08:53
  Several of them told me at the time they hadn't never seen a circus,
• 1:08:57
  not in their whole lives. For that matter, I hadn't neither. But
• 1:09:00
  I didn't want no poor child in this town to grow up to be as
• 1:09:03
  old as I am without having been to at least one circus, so I
• 1:09:08
  had taken them all in and paid all the bills, and when night come
• 1:09:12
  there wasn't but about nine dollars left out of the whole two hundred that had
• 1:09:15
  started out within the morning. But I don't regret sprending it. It looked
• 1:09:19
  to me like it was money well invested. They all seem to enjoy it,
• 1:09:24
  and I know I'd done so. There may be bigger circuses with that
• 1:09:27
  one was, but I won't see how a circus could have been any better
• 1:09:30
  than this year one I'm telling about if it was ten times as big,
• 1:09:34
  I don't regret the investment, and I don't tim to lie about it now.
• 1:09:39
  Mister Sublett, I'd do the same thing over again if the chance should
• 1:09:42
  come lawsuit and no lawsuit. If you should win this year case, maybe
• 1:09:46
  I wouldn't have no second chance. If some gentleman is appointed as committee to
• 1:09:50
  handle my money, it's likely he wouldn't look at the things the same way
• 1:09:55
  I do. It's likely you wouldn't let me have so much money all in
• 1:09:58
  one lump to spend to a parcel of little shavers that I'm no kin to
• 1:10:02
  me to the circus and to the side show, besides letting them stay for
• 1:10:06
  the grand concert or after show and all. But I done it once,
• 1:10:11
  and I've got it to remember a boat and think about it my own mind
• 1:10:15
  as long as I live. I'm about finished now. There's just one thing
• 1:10:18
  more I'd like to say, and that is this, mister Sublett. He
• 1:10:23
  said a minute ago, that I was in my second childhood, meaning you
• 1:10:26
  offense, sir, but you was wrong there too. The way I look
• 1:10:29
  at it, a man can't be in a second childhood without he's had his
• 1:10:32
  first childhood when I was cheated plumb out of mine. I'm all sixty years
• 1:10:36
  old, as near as I can figure, but I'm trying to be a
• 1:10:41
  boy before it's too late. He paused a moment and looked round him the
• 1:10:45
  way I look at it, chudch priest, sir, and you all.
• 1:10:48
  Every man that grows up, no matter how old he may get to be,
• 1:10:53
  is entitled to have been a boy once in his lifetime. I I
• 1:10:58
  reckon, That's all. He sat down and dropped his eyes upon the floor,
• 1:11:01
  as though ashamed that his temirity should have carried him so far. There
• 1:11:05
  was a strange little hush filling the court room. It was Judge Priest who
• 1:11:10
  broke it. The court he said, as by the words just spoken by
• 1:11:15
  this man, being sufficiently advised as to the sanity of the man himself,
• 1:11:18
  the court cares to hear nothing more from either side on the subject. The
• 1:11:23
  petition is dismissed. Very probably these last words may have been so much creaked
• 1:11:29
  to the juvenile members of the audience, possibly though they were made aware of
• 1:11:33
  the meaning of them by the look upon the face of the nephew Percival Dwyer,
• 1:11:38
  and the look upon the face of the nephew Percival Dwyer's attorney. At
• 1:11:42
  any rate, his honor hardly had uttered the last syllable of his decision before
• 1:11:46
  from the rear of the court room and from the gallery above, there arose
• 1:11:49
  a shrill, human, sincere sound of yelling, exultant, triumphant, and
• 1:11:55
  deafening. It continued for upward a minute before the small disturb was rumored where
• 1:11:59
  they were, and reduced themselves to a state of comparative quite for reasons best
• 1:12:03
  note to himself, Judge Priest, who ordinarily stickled for order and decorum in
• 1:12:08
  his court room, made no effort to quellt the odd burst, or have
• 1:12:12
  it quelt, not even when a considerable number of the adults present joined in
• 1:12:15
  it, having first cleared their throats of a slight huskiness that had come upon
• 1:12:19
  them severally and generally presently, the Judge rapped for quite and got it.
• 1:12:26
  It was apparent that he had more to say, and all they hearkened to
• 1:12:29
  hear what it might be. I've just this to add cauth his honor.
• 1:12:34
  It is the official judgment of this Cord that the late defendant, being entirely
• 1:12:39
  sane, is competent to manage his own affairs after his preferences. And it
• 1:12:44
  is the private opinion of this cod that not only is a late definant saying,
• 1:12:47
  but that he is the sanest man in this entire jurisdiction. Mister Clark,
• 1:12:53
  this court stands adjunct. Coming down the three short steps from the raised
• 1:12:57
  platform of the bench, Judge Priest backon to Sheriff Guyle's bird song, who,
• 1:13:01
  at the tale of the departing crowd, was shepherding its last exuberant members
• 1:13:05
  through the doorway, Charles, said Judge Priest in an undertone. When the
• 1:13:11
  worthy Sheriff had drawn near the second clerk tells me there's an indictment for malicious
• 1:13:15
  mischief against this year persed wy and knocking round amongst the records somewhess an indictment
• 1:13:20
  that grand jury returned several sessions back, but which was never passed owing to
• 1:13:24
  the sudden departure from our mister of the personal question. I wonder if it
• 1:13:29
  would be too much trouble for you to sort of draw up a hint in
• 1:13:31
  the ear of the young man or his lawyer that the said indictment is apt
• 1:13:34
  to be revived, and that the said d boy is liable to be tuckn
• 1:13:38
  to custody by you and lost in the county jail sometime during the ensuing forty
• 1:13:42
  eight hours without it should ceaze very clear during the meantime to get clean out
• 1:13:46
  of the city, county, and state. Would it trouble, No,
• 1:13:50
  sir, it won't be no trouble to me, said mister Bird's Song promptly.
• 1:13:56
  Why it'll be more of a pleasure, Judge. And so it was.
• 1:14:00
  Except for one small added and purely incidental circumstance. One narrative is ended.
• 1:14:05
  The same afternoon Judge Priest sat on the front porch of his old white
• 1:14:10
  house out on Clay Street, waiting for Jeff Poindexter to summon him to supper.
• 1:14:15
  Peep o' day opened the front gate and came up the graveled walk between
• 1:14:18
  the twin rows of silver leaf poplace. The judge, rising to greet his
• 1:14:23
  visitor, met him at the top step. Come in, bathed the judge
• 1:14:28
  heartily, and sat on a spell and rest your face and hands. No,
• 1:14:31
  sir, much obliged, But I ain't got one a minute to stay,
• 1:14:34
  said Odey. I just came out here, sir, to thank you
• 1:14:38
  for what you've done to day on my account to the big court house,
• 1:14:42
  and and to make you a little kind of a present. It's all right
• 1:14:45
  to thank me, said Judge Price, But I couldn't accept any reward for
• 1:14:49
  entering a diction in accordance with the plain facts. T'd no gift of money
• 1:14:54
  or nothing like that, O'Day hastened to explain, Really, sir, you
• 1:14:57
  don't amount nothing at all. Scarcely, but a little while ago happened to
• 1:15:00
  be in mister b Whale and Sun's store doing little trading, and I ran
• 1:15:04
  across a new kind of knick neck, which it seemed like to me it
• 1:15:08
  was about the best thing I ever tasted my whole life. So on my
• 1:15:13
  chance it, sir, that you might have a sweet tooth too, I
• 1:15:15
  took the liberty of bringing your sack of them, and and and here they
• 1:15:20
  are, sir, three flavors, Strawberry, lemon and Vanilly. Suddenly,
• 1:15:27
  overcometh confusion, he dislodged a large sized paper bag from his side coat pocket
• 1:15:31
  and thrust it into Judge Priest's hands. Then backing away, he turned and
• 1:15:35
  plumped down the gravel path in great and embarrassed haste. Judge Priest opened the
• 1:15:41
  bag and peered down into it. It contained a sticky, sugary dozen of
• 1:15:45
  flattened confections, each molded round a short length of wooden splinter. These syrupy
• 1:15:50
  articles, which have since come into quite gentle use, are known, I
• 1:15:55
  believe, as all Days suckers. When Judge Priest looked up again, peep
• 1:16:00
  O Day was outside the gate, plumping down the uneven sidewalk of Clay Street
• 1:16:04
  with long strips of his booted legs. Half a dozen small boys, who,
• 1:16:09
  it was evident, had remained hidden during the ceremony of presentation now mysteriously
• 1:16:14
  appeared and were accompanying the departing donor, half trotting to keep up with him.
• 1:16:20
  The end of Section six