The Heart's Kingdom by Maria Thompson Daviess
page 50 of 248 (20%)
page 50 of 248 (20%)
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his boy, Bud, knocked Jed down in a fight they found fifty dollars on
him in a wad what he won't say where he got it." With which concise statement the prosecuting attorney sat down and fanned his perspiring brow with his ragged felt hat. "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 |
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