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"Peaslee!" exclaimed Farnsworth. He well knew the "closeness" of his fellow juror. "It isn't much of a knife," said Jim, apologetic but pleased. Jim's views of the world were changing: his father, although a bandit chief, had let him go to jail, while this stingy old man, with no halo of adventure about him, gave him a knife; and here were Miss Ware and Mr. Farnsworth and Mrs.
"I can't imagine what that Edwards boy used in his gun." Mr. Peaslee knew: the marble! He trembled. Still, he knew Jake's reputation. A shrewd thought visited his troubled mind. "What doctor's seein' him?" he asked. "Doctor!" exclaimed Hibbard, irritated. "Doctor! You know these French Canadians. They're worse scared of a doctor than of the evil one himself.
A few years before, they had sold their fat farm "down-river" advantageously, and had bought the dignified white house in Ellmington in which they have just been seen eating a dinner which looks as if they were "house poor." That they were not; they had thirty thousand dollars in the local bank, partly invested in its stock. In Ellmington Mrs. Peaslee was less lonely, and through Mr.
Immediately after breakfast on Monday morning Mr. Peaslee, in a mood of desperate self-sacrifice, started up-town to buy a knife for Jim! All day long on Sunday, when he had nothing to do but think, he had struggled between his fear of exposure and his sorrow for the boy. The upshot was a determination to "make it up to him" by giving him a knife.
Ah tol' you Ah feel bad for hear dat leetly boy cussin'. Dat was too shame." And Lamoury paused to let this beautiful sentiment impress itself upon the jurors. Mr. Peaslee listened with profound astonishment. "Den he holler somet'ing Ah ain't hear, honly 'Canuck, han' Ah begins for get my mads up. Ah hain't do heem no harm, hein?
Peaslee, with a warmth which surprised the young woman, and made her warm to this old man, whom she had always thought so selfish. "'T ain't right your own flesh and blood so." "Well," said Miss Ware, "I'm going to the jail now. I want to see Jimmie. It must be awful there." "Well, now, that's real kind of ye," responded Mr. Peaslee.
"Well, serve him right, I say, shootin' guns off so. Like father, like son. I dunno as 't was the son. I'd as soon believe it of the father. Everybody knows Lamoury and he's been mixed up together. Some of his smugglin' tricks, prob'ly." Mrs. Peaslee had taken a violent dislike to her taciturn neighbor, and she did not care who knew it.
"Are ye drawed?" she asked. "Got the notice from Whitcomb right in my pocket. Grand juror. September term. 'T ain't more'n a week off." The staccato utterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new dignity. "What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife.
No, Jim's strange activity in concealing the evidences of the shot, his queer reserve when questioned as to what he knew these seemed more perplexing than ever. Farnsworth, hoping for light upon these points, settled back in his chair to listen. Mr. Peaslee had more to say.
Peaslee could feel but small satisfaction in his tardy confession. Moreover, he must now face his wife. As he turned with reluctant feet into his own yard he fairly shrank in anticipation under the sharp hail of her biting words. To postpone a little the inevitable, to gather strength somewhat to meet the shock, he passed the kitchen porch and went on toward the barn.
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