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The Terrible Tentacles of L-472 By Sewell Peaslee Wright It was a big mistake. I should not have done it. By birth, by instinct, by training, by habit, I am a man of action. Or I was. It is queer that an old man cannot remember that he is no longer young.
They've got a pretty good idee o' my jedgment 'bout mortgages. They don't pass any without my say so." Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I've seen ye in the bank window, settin' round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of 'em. Readin' the paper that's all I ever see ye doin'. Must be wearin' on ye." "Guess ye never heard what was said, did ye? Can't hear 'em thinkin', I guess.
There was salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk "picked up," as the phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie. Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did believe in saving every possible cent. "Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess I've got news for ye." His wife gazed at him with interest.
Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr. Peaslee, leaning over the fence, began. "Ed'ards," he said, reaching out an anxious, deprecatory hand, "don't ye think you're jest a leetle mite hard on that boy o' yourn " He got no further. Edwards gave him a look that made him shiver, and cut the conversation short by turning on his heel and marching toward the barn.
"If she comes to the store before she goes to the jail I won't tell her what she'll find there," he promised himself. Meanwhile, Mr. Peaslee felt a growing discomfort. He ate his dinner and answered the brisk questions of his wife with increasing preoccupation. Like Miss Ware, he was picturing Jim solitary and suffering in his lonely cell.
Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He knew them both. But Mr. Peaslee returned home with dragging feet. Silent and preoccupied all the evening, he went to bed early but not to sleep.
Peaslee looked appealingly at his wife through his big spectacles, his eyes looking very large and pathetic through the strong lenses. "Humph!" said his wife, unmoved. "I ain't afraid of Ed'ards, if you be." Nor could she be moved from her determination. Mr. Peaslee was vastly disturbed. But presently he forgot this small annoyance in greater ones.
"Sartain, sartain," answered poor Solomon, tremulously. It was already late, and when the grand jury had formally dismissed the complaint against Jim, the hour was so advanced that adjournment was taken for the day. When Mr. Peaslee left the court house no one spoke to him, and he walked slowly home, full of the worst forebodings. Why had he put in that marble?
The day of the assembling of the grand jury for the September term of the Adams County court finally dawned. How Mr. Peaslee had looked forward to that day!
Peaslee, the thermometer of whose spirits had been rising steadily, joined in the laughter which followed the exit of the discomfited Pete. "Terrible smart feller, Paige, ain't he?" said he to Albion Small. "Did him up real slick, didn't he?" The delighted Solomon had quite forgotten his dislike for the citified Paige. Of course the grand jury promptly abandoned the inquiry.
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