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"When I put dat pin in my pocket, missus, I know I ain't goin' to steal it," he protested, with so much earnestness and with such an appearance of sincerity that almost anybody except Mrs. Gray would have believed him. "I don't do no stealin'. I jes' want to look at de pin, an' I goin' put it back when I get done lookin' at it.
"I've lived honest all these years an', dammit, it's kinda tough to break out with stealin I what yuh don't want! Couldn't we fill them bottles with somethin' that LOOKS like hootch? Cold tea should get by, Mr. Nolan. It'd be a fine joke on Smilin' Lou." "A good joke, maybe but no evidence. It isn't against the law, Ryan, to have cold tea in your possession.
I knew very well what his "warning" meant, lockin the stable-door but stealin the hoss fust. Next day, his strattygam for becoming acquainted with Mr. Dawkins we exicuted; and very pritty it was. Besides potry and the flute, Mr. Dawkins, I must tell you, had some other parshallities wiz., he was very fond of good eatin and drinkin.
"I love ye, Lem," she choked, "and, if ye let me stay, I'll do whatever ye say. I won't talk nothin' 'bout drink nor stealin'. If I go ye'll get another woman! I know ye can't live on this here scow without no woman." "And that ain't none of yer business, nuther ye hear?" Lem grunted, settling deep into his chair, with an oath. "I'll get all the women in Albany, if I want 'em!
"Those things would kind of give you a notion he'd steal, give him a fair chance," commented Hiram, dryly. "He's stole ever since everything from carpet tacks to a load of hay," snapped the constable, "till folks don't stop to think he's stealin'. He's got to be like rats and hossflies and other pests you cuss 'em, but you reckon they've come to stay."
Observing a deeper seriousness in her attitude, he added, "Why, if it was in war-time he'd get a BALL from them sodgers on sight." "Yes; but YOU ain't got no call to interfere," said Maggie. "Ain't I? Why, he's no better than an outlaw. I ain't sure that he hasn't been stealin' or killin' somebody over theer." "Not that man!" said Maggie impulsively.
The witness grinned incredulously, revealing thereby a few blackened fragments of teeth. "I 've tuck up more 'n a hundred niggers fer stealin', Kurnel, an' I never seed one yit that did n' 'ny it ter the las'." "Answer my question. Might not the witness's indignation have been a manifestation of conscious innocence? Yes or no?" "Yes, it mought, an' the moon mought fall but it don't."
"Look here," he said, tapping his stick sharply on the floor; "as it happens, I didn' come here to lose my temper nor to talk about your conduct leastways, not that part of it. 'Tis about your granddaughter. She've been stealin' my wood." "Liz?" "Yes; I caught her in my yard at nine o'clock last night. No mistakin' what she was after. There, in the dark she was stealin' my wood."
Not lak dey raised now. All dis dishonesty and stealin' and laziness. No mam! Look here at my gran'sons. Eatin' offen dey daddy. No place for 'em. Got edication, and caint git no jobs outside cuttin' grass and de like. Down on de plantation ev'body worked. No laziness er 'oneriness, er nothin! I tells yo' honey, I sure do wish these chilluns had de chances we had.
But Patty Cannon never flinched; she trained the young boys around yer to be her sleuth-hounds an' go stealin' for her; an', till she dies, it's safer to be a chicken than a free nigger. They stole you, pore creatur' from Phildelfy, an' they steal 'em in Jersey and away into North Carliney; fur Joe Johnson's a smart feller fur enterprise, and Patty Cannon's deep as death an' the grave."
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