The Jury's Verdict

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 20, 19 May 1906, Page 14

The Jury's Verdict

THE prisoner at the bar sobbed convulsively, the tears trickling through her slender brown fingers.

“Didn’t you know you were breaking the law when you made moonshine whisky?” Judge Barton asked as sternly as he could. “They wasn't anything else I c’d do, yer honor.” She lifted her tear-stained face appealingly. “Father kept the plowin’ done ’fore he died, an’ iwe had tolerable to live on, but when he died granther was so old he couldn't keep the field plowed, an’-—yer honor, I’m awful sorry, but I never was as strong as the rest of the women around. I tried to plow and keep things right, but somehow I couldn’t keep the plow stuck in the ground, yer honor.” She put her hands back to her face with a sudden childish movement. The judge looked at her slender figure, elad in a straight-hanging calico dress that scarcely reached her -worn, ill-fitting shoes. Her tawny hair would have been purest blonde had it not been for the exposure of mouuntain life. She had plaited it in one long, rough braid that hung down her back. The dark-blue calico dress was adorned only with a blue handkerchief tied around her throat.

“So you eouldn't make the plow stick in the ground?” he questioned, trying to give her time to regain her self-possession. The twelve jurors glanced from their own brawny bauds to the girl’s slender ones, and most of them remembered boyish experiences of not having been able to make the plow stick. “An’ I jest had to do something, yer honor! So the men folks ’round ■brought the com and I made the mash for ’em. That’s plenty easy for a woman to do, judge, even if she ain’t no stronger than me.” “You had just made a fresh supply the day you were arrested, hadn’t you? You found plenty of evidence, you say, Piper?”

judge Barton glared at the Sheriff, who smiled a sheepish, conciliatory smile.

“Judge, I never hated to do nothing in my life like I hated to arrest that little girl. I’in a rather gruff one. myself; 1 have to be pretty weatherbeaten to range ’round as I do, hunting moonshiners and such truck. There’s not a cove in these Chilhowies, judge, that J haven’t been in. and there’s scarcely a man in ’em that don’t know Tom Piper and lie low if he. has any meanness on hand. I suspected for a long time that the -whisky was being made at Joel Anderson’s cabin, .but when I rode up and asked to stay for dinner, I could scarcelly make myself look for evidence, the old man and the girl both seemed so glad to have a stranger eat with ’em.” The sheepish look bad become more apparent on Piper’s face, and the members of the jury were evidently not unbiased in the way they eved him.

“Judge, we were mighty glad to see somebody.” the girl broke in 'eagerly. "We used to get so lonesome. Granther said, ‘Judith, I reckon this be the best time to cut that ham’—and I ran to the shed to fetch it. Mart Hickman give the bam to granther last Christmas, and we were saving it because it was the only one we’d had since father died.” She'turned and looked at Piper reproachfully. "He certainly did seem to relish it, judge,” she said, her slow, meditative tone being that of a child who cannot understand why the hand it held out for a kiss has been slapped. "It was mighty good, judge.” Piper was eager to say whatever he could in the girl's behalf. “There’s many an old woman that couldn't fix up as good a dinner as that little girl, and she’s only seventeen! Judge, you can just imagine hoiw I hated to take her for soaking moonshine! Your honor and

gentlemen of the jury, I hope you’ll be as easy on her as you ean. If you don’t, I’ll break every one of your confounded necks, Bill Winstead, ns soon as you get out of here!” he added to the foreman. “Not you judge—l didn’t mean you,” he concluded, to relieve himself from the possibility of contempt of court. Judge Barton tried to hide a smile—so broad a smile that it . could not have been hid under a bushel. “You’re the best sheriff in Tennessee, Piper!” he said. "What’s your grandfather doing while you’re up here in town?” he went on, turning to the girl. She nodded her head toward Piper, trustfully. “He took granther home with him and said he’d look after him. Granther’s kinder simple in his head, and has to be looked out for?’

Judge Barton looked at Piper’s flushed face.

“As I said, Piper, you’re the best sheriff in Tennessee!” he repeated emphatically. “Gentlemen of the jury”— the judge eyed them keenly—“in arriving at your verdict there are several things to be considered. Even, if the verdict should be an acquittal—as men. you will wonder what, under such circumstances, is to become of this seven-teen-year-old girl whom fate has located in the rough mountain country, but whom nature has fashioned too delicately to till its rocky soil for her daily bread—not only for her own bread, but to feed an old grandfather of ninety. If you acquit her and let her go back to her mountain cabin, we have taken away her only means of support, and what, I ask you, can she do?’

The jury kept their eyes upon Judge Barton in a complete silence that was broken by Tom Piper's excited voice. “Judge, you must overlook my slight irregularity. It ain't contempt of court, judge—it’s just that I must let off this here steam or bust. I don’t know what on earth that little Judith Anderson could do with her little bits of fingers to earn a living for herself and the old man, but I’ll be dog-goned if here ain’t a man that can do it for her! She’s only got to say the word!”

He sat down with hie hands tkrwM defiantly into his trousers pockets, htg gaze fixed on the girl, a dull-red reaelfo ing the edge of his closely dipped haii£ The judge sat back limply in hid chair. The jury was silent an instanf, then broke into tumultuous applause, “We would like to hear the opinion of the prisoner at the bar,” said Judge Bari ton, smiling into the girl’s etartled eyes', “I don’t —understand—judge,” dig faltered.

The court’s smile grew broader an 4 more paternal. “That long, lank, ugly sheriff wants td know if you will marry him and let him take care of you and your grandfather/’ he explained. ‘ t She looked from the jury to the judgtf, from the judge to the sheriff.

“I never hain’t studied about ing,” she said, twisting a fold of hen calico dress nervously, “but I think he’s awful kind, and I—l don’t—think he's ugly,” she added timidly.

“Gentlemen of the jury, what's yoqf verdict?-” shouted Piper, jumping to hlb feet suddenly.

“Y’ou sit down. Piper, and shut up I? said the judge. “You're getting yoiix position in this court a little mixed. Gentlemen of the jury, what’s your verdict?”

“Not guilty, your honor, and three cheers for the sheriff and his girl!” the jury yelled as one man. —Troy Allison.