The Bondboy Part 32

"It's the Book," said Joe.

Colonel Price laid his hand on the lad's shoulder and looked him straight in the face.

"Then you've got by you the sum and substance of all knowledge, and the beginning and the end of all philosophy," said he. "With that work in your hand you need no other, for it's the father of all books."

"I've thought that way about it myself sometimes," said Joe, as easy and confident in his manner with the colonel, who represented a world to which he was a stranger from actual contact, as a good swimmer in water beyond his depth.

"But if you happen to be coming over this way in a day or two you might stop in if it wouldn't trouble you, and I could name over to you a few books that I've been wanting to read for a long time."

"I intend to lighten your brief period of confinement as much as it is in my power to do," declared the colonel, "and I can speak for my daughter when I say that she will share my anxiety to make you as comfortable as human hands can make you in this place, Joe. We'll come over and cheer you every little while."

Mrs. Newbolt had sat by, like one who had been left behind at a way-station by an express-train, while the colonel and Joe had talked.

They had gone beyond her limited powers; there was nothing for her to do but wait for them to come back. Now the colonel had reached her point of contact again.

"You'll be rewarded for your kindness to the widow's son," said she, nodding her head earnestly, tears shining in her eyes.

When he was leaving, Colonel Price felt that he must make one more effort to induce Joe to discharge Hammer and put his case into the hands of a more competent man. Joe was firm in his determination to give Hammer a chance. He was a little sensitive on the matter under the rind, the colonel could see.

"If I was to hire the best lawyer I could find, Colonel Price, people would say then that I was guilty, sure enough," said Joe. "They'd say I was depending more on the lawyer than myself to come clear. Well, colonel, you know that isn't the case."

That seemed to settle it, at least for the present. The colonel summoned the sheriff, who took Joe to his cell. As the colonel and Mrs. Newbolt pa.s.sed out, Attorney Hammer appeared, presenting his order for the money.

Mrs. Newbolt carried her savings with her. When she had paid Hammer she had sixty cents left in her calloused palm.

"That's egg money," said she, tying it in the corner of her handkerchief.

"Oh, colonel, I forgot to ask the sheriff, but do you reckon they'll give my Joe enough to eat?"

"I'll see to that," said Hammer officiously.

Hammer was a large, soft man in an alpaca-coat and white shirt without a collar. His hair was very black and exceedingly greasy, and brushed down upon his skull until it glittered, catching every ray of light in his vicinity like a bucket of oil. He walked in long strides, with a sliding motion of the feet, and carried his hands with the palms turned outward, as if ready instantly to close upon any case, fee, or emolument which came in pa.s.sing contact with him, even though it might be on its way to somebody else.

Mrs. Newbolt was not unfavorably impressed with him, for he seemed very officious and altogether domineering in the presence of the sheriff, but her opinion may have been influenced perhaps by Joe's determination to have him whether or no. She thanked him for his promise of good offices in Joe's behalf, and he took her arm and impeded her greatly in her progress down the steps.

After Mrs. Newbolt had taken some refreshment in the colonel's house, she prepared to return home.

"If I had a hoss, madam," said the colonel, "I'd hitch up and carry you home. But I don't own a hoss, and I haven't owned one for nine years, since the city grew up so around me I had to sell off my land to keep the taxes from eatin' me up. If I did own a hoss now," he laughed, "I'd have no place to keep him except under the bed, like they do the houn'-dogs back in Kentucky."

She made light of the walk, for Joe's bright and sanguine carriage had lightened her sorrow. She had hope to walk home with, and no wayfarer ever traveled in more pleasant company.

The colonel and his daughter pressed her to make their home her resting-place when in town, even inviting her to take up her abode there until the trial. This generous hospitality she could not accept on account of the "critters" at home which needed her daily care, and the eggs which had to be gathered and saved and sold, all against the happy day when her boy Joe would walk out free and clear from the door of the county jail.

CHAPTER XII

THE SUNBEAM ON THE WALL

The sheriff was a mild-mannered man, whose head was shaped like the end of a watermelon. His hair was close-cut and very thin at the top, due to the fact that all the nourishing substances both inside and outside his head, or any way appertaining thereto, went into the maintenance of the sheriff's mustache, which was at least twice as large as Bill Frost's.

This, of course, was as it should have been, for even the poorest kind of a sheriff is more than twice as important as the very best sort of constable. In those days it was the custom for sheriffs in that part of the country to train up these prodigious mustaches, perhaps in the belief that such adornments lent them the appearance of competence and valor, of which endowments nature had given them no other testimonial.

In any event it is known that many a two-inch sheriff took his stand behind an eight-inch mustache, and walked boldly in the honor of his const.i.tuents.

The sheriff of Shelbyville was a type of this cla.s.s, both in mental depth and facial adornment. He was exceedingly jealous of his power, and it was his belief that too many liberties permitted a prisoner, and too many favors shown, acted in contravention of the law's intent as interpreted by the prosecuting attorney; namely, that a person under the cloud of accusation should be treated as guilty until able to prove himself innocent. Therefore the sheriff would not allow Joe Newbolt to leave his cell to meet visitors after his arraignment.

The meeting between the prisoner and his mother in the office of the jail was to be the last of that sort; all who came in future must see him at the door of his cell. That was the rule laid down to Joe when he parted from his mother and Colonel Price that day.

As a cell in a prison-house, perhaps Joe's place of confinement was fairly comfortable. It was situated in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the old court-house, where there was at least light enough to contemplate one's misery by, and sufficient air to set one longing for the fields. There was but one other prisoner, a horse-thief, waiting for trial.

This loquacious fellow, who was lodged directly across the corridor, took great pains to let Joe see the admiration and esteem in which he held him on account of the distinguished charge under which he was confined. He annoyed Joe to such extent that he asked the sheriff that evening to shift them about if possible.

"Well, I'll move him if you say so, but I left him there because I thought he'd be company for you," said the sheriff. "I don't mind talkin' in this jail when there's no more than two in it."

"I don't want to talk," said Joe.

So the horse-thief was removed to the farther end of the corridor, where he kept up a knocking on the bars of his cell during the early hours of the night, and then turned off his diversion by imitating the sound of a saw on steel, which he could do with his tongue against his teeth with such realism as to bring the sheriff down in his nightshirt, with a lantern in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

Joe's second night in jail pa.s.sed very much like the first, when they had brought him there all bewildered and dazed. There was a grated window in the wall above his reach, through which he could see the branches of an elm-tree, blowing bare of leaves; beyond that a bit of sky. Joe sat on the edge of his cot that second night a long time after the stars came out, gazing up at the bar-broken bit of sky, reviewing the events leading up to his situation.

There was no resentment in him against the jury of his neighbors whose finding had sent him to jail under the cloud of that terrible accusation; he harbored no ill-feeling for the busy, prying little coroner, who had questioned him so impertinently. There was one person alone, in the whole world of men, to blame, and that was Curtis Morgan.

He could not have been far away on the day of the inquest; news of the tragic outcome of Ollie's attempt to join him must have traveled to his ears.

Yet he had not come forward to take the load of suspicion from Joe's shoulders by confessing the treacherous thing that he had plotted. He need not have revealed the complete story of his trespa.s.s upon the honor of Isom Chase, thought Joe; he could have saved Ollie's name before the neighbors; and yet relieved Joe of all suspicion. Now that Isom was dead, he could have married her. But Morgan had not come. He was a coward as well as a rascal. It was more than likely that, in fear of being found out, he had fled away.

And suppose that he never came back; suppose that Ollie should not elect to stand forth and explain the hidden part of that night's tragedy? She could not be expected, within reason, to do this. Even the thought that she might weaken and do so was abhorrent to Joe. It was not a woman's part to make a sacrifice like that; the world did not expect it of her.

It rested with Morgan, the traitor to hospitality; Morgan, the ingratiating scoundrel, to come forward and set him free. Morgan alone could act honorably in that clouded case; but if he should elect to remain hidden and silent, who would be left to answer but Joe Newbolt?

And should he reveal the thing that would bring him liberty? Was freedom more precious than his honor, and the honor of a poor, shrinking, deluded woman?

No. He was bound by a gentleman's obligation; self-a.s.sumed, self-appointed.

He could not tell.

But what a terrible situation, what an awful outlook for him in such event! They hung men for murder on the jail-yard gallows, with a knot of rope behind the left ear and a black cap over the face. And such a death left a stain upon the name that nothing would purify. It was an attainder upon generations unborn.

Joe walked his cell in the agony of his sudden and acute understanding of the desperate length to which this thing might carry him. Hammer had protested, with much show of certainty, that he would get him off without much difficulty. But perhaps Hammer was counting on him to reveal what he had kept to himself at the inquest. What should he do about that in his relations with Hammer? Should he tell him about Morgan, and have him set men on his track to drag him back and make him tell the truth? Granting that they found him, who was there to make him speak?

Could not Morgan and Ollie, to cover their own shame and blame, form a pact of silence or denial and turn back his good intentions in the form of condemnation upon his own head? How improbable and unworthy of belief his tale, with its reservations and evasions, would sound to a jury with Morgan and Ollie silent.

The fright of his situation made him feverish; he felt that he could tear at the walls with his hands, and scream, and scream until his heart would burst. He was unmanned there in the dark. He began to realize this finally after his frenzy had thrown him into a fever. He gave over his pacing of the little cell, and sat down again to reason and plan.

Hammer had made so much talk about the papers which he would get ready that Joe had been considerably impressed. He saw now that it would require something more than papers to make people understand that he had a gentleman's reason, and not a thief's, for concealing what they had pressed him to reveal.

There was a woman first, and that was about all that Joe could make of the situation up to that time. She must be protected, even though unworthy. None knew of that taint upon her but himself and the fugitive author of it, but Joe could not bring himself to contemplate liberty bought at the price of her public degradation. This conclusion refreshed him, and dispelled the phantoms from his hot brain.

After the sounds of the town had fallen quiet, and the knocking of feet on the pavement along his prison wall had ceased, Joe slept. He woke steady, and himself again, long before he could see the sun, yellow on the boughs of the elm-tree.

The sheriff furnished him a piece of comb, and he smoothed his hair by guess, a desperate character, such as he was accounted by the officer, not being allowed the luxury of a mirror. One might lick the quicksilver from the back of a mirror, or open an artery with a fragment of it, or even pound the gla.s.s and swallow it. Almost anything was nicer than hanging, so the sheriff said.