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He sat and thought and delivered battle with his conscience, which was growing painfully vigorous and aggressive. But, after all, perhaps they would not find a true bill, and then Jim would go free, and he could breathe again. Mr. Peaslee clung to the hope, and hugged it. It was the one thing which gave him courage.
Peaslee expected him; nevertheless his appearance gave him a disagreeable shock. Suppose the constable had been coming for him! "Ain't arrestin' anybody down this way, be ye?" he called, with a feeble attempt at jocularity. Perhaps, after all "Looks like it," said Barton, succinctly. Mr. Peaslee stepped to the fence.
Uncertain what to do with his gift, but feeling, on the whole, pretty virtuous, Mr. Peaslee now started home. He thought that Jim would not be going to school, but would wait at home for the threatened coming of the constable; but still he was not sure, and he wanted to keep the boy under his eye. Suddenly he straightened.
He turned upon the little boys and girls, and, waving his arm, cried, "Scat!" They fell back about ten feet. Thus the procession formed: Barton and Jim, then Mr. Edwards, and at a barely respectful distance the crowd of youngsters. Mr. Peaslee, much moved, but trying hard not to show it, thrust his rake under the veranda with a great show of care, and joined Mr.
Was not Dana the name of a certain captain, a stepson of Congressman Peaslee, of New Hampshire, who had lived with us at Willard's Hotel and were there not two children, Charley and Mamie, and a dear little mother, and I had been listening to the talk of the newcomer. He was a licensed cotton buyer with a pass to come and go at will through the lines, and was returning next day.
Paige, the state's attorney, who was making some notes at the time, held his pen for a good half-minute part way between his paper and the inkstand while he gazed in astonishment at Peaslee. To have a grand juror, a sober, respectable man, rise in the jury-room and confess that he is the real offender in a case under consideration, is not usual. The surprise was absolute.
And he pointed straight at a big harmonica with a strange and wonderful "harp attachment" bright-colored and of amazing possibilities. Upham, a neat little gentleman with nicely trimmed side-whiskers, who was always fluttered by the unexpected, hesitated, half opened his mouth, and then forgot either to shut it or to speak. "Why, Mr. Peaslee," he stammered at last, "it's real expensive!
He opened the blade and drew it speculatively across his calloused old thumb, while with his mild blue eyes, which his spectacles enormously exaggerated, he fixed the humbled Willie. "That's a good knife for the money," said that young man. "Hand-forged." "Sho now, ye don't say so," said Mr. Peaslee. "I guess ye give a discount, don't ye? Farley always allows me a little suthin'."
He was addicted to radiant cravats and gauzy silk handkerchiefs, and from his "salary" of eight dollars a week he did not save much. But just the same, Mr. Peaslee had been staggered at the price. Pretending still to examine the knife which Willie had given him, he squinted past it at the contents of the glass show-case on which his elbows rested.
"Cantankerest old lummux in the whole state just lots on upsetting things. Abijah!" he snorted. "Can't Abijah, I call him!" Mr. Peaslee shrank back into his corner nervously. He knew this old tyrant and dreaded him. Not much was done that first day. The clerk swore them; the judge charged them, and appointed the sensible, steady Sampson foreman.
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