"Got anything to say, Jed?" inquired the judge in a friendly and
leisurely fashion, after the accused had been duly sworn in by the
sheriff. "How come a man like you to let a mule git away from him?"
With the judge's friendly question there entered another actor on the
scene, in the person of a mountain girl who had been cowering on a bench
just behind Jed, her face hidden by a black calico split bonnet.
"Please lemme tell, Jed," she pleaded in a soft whisper that only father
and I heard, as we sat just behind her.
"Naw," was the one word he gave her, but it was spoken with a soft
little purr in his husky voice. Then he answered the judge with a kind
of quiet dignity, which I saw that the twelve booted jurymen listened to
with respect.
"Jedge," he said, with a stern look into the judge's face, "I reckon
you'll have to send me down to the pen. I let that mule git away from me
and I didn't steal or sell him; that is all I got to say." And he sat
down. I felt father start at my side and then sink back onto his bench.
"Where did you git the money, Jed?" the judge demanded.
"That I ain't a-telling," answered Jed determinedly. "Jest send me down
to the pen, fer you-all know all you'll ever know."
"Well, Jed," the judge was beginning to say in an argumentative tone of
voice, when father arose and stepped in front of the bench.
"May it please your honor to appoint a counsel for the defense?" he
asked in a ringing voice that brought all the outsiders crowding into
the door. I had never heard or seen my father in a court room and I had
never suspected him of the resonant silver voice with which he made his
demand.
"We ain't got a lawyer in Hicks Center but Jim Handy here, and he can't
prosecute and defend too. I always kinder looks out fer the prisoners
myself," answered the judge.
"Then may I offer myself to the prisoner to conduct his defense?" father
demanded, and he looked over at Jed, who in turn looked at Mr. Goodloe
before he nodded.
"Then shoot ahead, stranger. Jim have told all they is about it, but
you can have Hi and Bud Turner sworn in and git any more they have got
to say. Them men speaks truth when they speaks." At which statement
every good man and true nodded his head with firm conviction. A gaunt
old mountaineer who sat over by the window cleared his throat in an
embarrassment that marked him as the Hiram Turner alluded to.
"I don't think I shall need the testimony of Mr. Turner or his son,"
father answered quietly, as he stood tall and straight before the jury.
"I want to put Mr. Bangs' wife on the witness stand and question her
before the jury. Sheriff, call Mrs. Bangs."