Part 47 (1/2)
The court-room received this with a laugh, for there were scores of cornfield lawyers present. The judge smiled, balancing a pen between finger and thumb.
”The objection is overruled,” said he.
”When you lit that lamp, what did you want to see?” the prosecutor asked again.
”I wanted to see my way upstairs,” Joe answered.
The prosecutor threw off his friendly manner like a rustic flinging his coat for a fight. He stepped to the foot of the dais on which the witness chair stood, and aimed his finger at Joe's face.
”What were you carrying in your hand?” he demanded, advancing his finger a little with every word, as if it held the key to the mystery, and it was about to be inserted in the lock.
”Nothing, sir.”
”What had you hidden in that room that you wanted a light to find?”
Ha, he's coming down to it now! whispered the people, turning wise looks from man to man. Uncle Posen Spratt set his horn trumpet to his ear, gave it a twist and settled the socket of it so firmly that not a word could leak out on the way.
”I hadn't hidden anything, sir,” said Joe.
”Where did Isom Chase keep his money?”
”I don't know.”
”Had you ever seen him putting any of it away around the barn, or in the haystack, maybe?”
”No, I never did, sir,” Joe answered, respectfully.
The prosecutor took up the now historic bag of gold-pieces and held it up before the witness.
”When did you first see this bag of money?” he asked, solemn and severe of voice and bearing.
”When Isom was lying on the floor, after he was shot.”
”You didn't see it when he was trying to get the gun, and when you say you were struggling with him, doing the best you could to hold him back?”
Joe turned to the judge when he answered.
”It might have been that Isom had it in his arm, sir, when he made for the place where the gun was hanging. I don't know. But he tried to keep me off, and he hugged one arm to his side like he was trying to hide something he didn't want me to see.”
”You never saw that bag of money until the moment that Isom Chase fell, you say,” said the prosecutor, ”but you have testified that the first words of Isom Chase when he stepped into the kitchen and saw you, were 'I'll kill you!' Why did he make that threat?”
”Well, Isom was a man of unreasonable temper,” said Joe.
”Isn't it a fact that Isom Chase saw you with that bag of money in your hand when he came in, and sprang for the gun to protect his property?”
Joe turned to the judge again, with an air of respectful patience.
”I never saw that little pouch of money, Judge Maxwell, sir, until Isom fell, and lay stretched out there on the floor. I never saw that much money before in my life, and I expect that I thought more about it for a minute than I did about Isom. It all happened so quick, you know, sir.”
Joe spoke the last words with a covert appeal in them, as if placing the matter before the judge alone, in the confidence of his superior understanding, and the belief that he would feel their truth.