Part 3 (2/2)
It had dawned on me the afternoon before, as James and I rode home, just what was the medicine I had taken. It was hard for me to believe that the vilely tasting stuff was whiskey, which I had heard men drank for pleasure, but when all doubt was removed by the exclamations of the crowd who hovered about the prostrate man I was overwhelmed by a sense of my own sin. Yet I had feared to confess to my mother the dose which I had taken. It would only make her unhappy, I had told myself, and I had tried to still my turbulent conscience with the plea that my silence was saving others. Now simple justice demanded that I tell everything, even to the admission of my own fault.
”Father,” I cried, ”the Professor didn't want James----”
”It is high time the community were rid of this man,” Mr. Pound interrupted.
”David!” said my father, and I shrank into the minister's shadow.
”And it seems to me, Squire Crumple,” Mr. Pound went on, ”it is clearly your duty as a justice of the peace to act.”
”Act how?” cried the astonished squire.
”Have him arrested!” replied Mr. Pound, making the dishes rattle under the impact of his fist on the table.
At this suggestion every one forgot the dinner and sat up very straight, staring in amazement at the bold propounder of it.
”Arrest him,” exclaimed the squire, ”and for what?”
”For anything that will rid the community of him,” snapped Mr. Pound.
”Do you not agree with me, Judge?”
The Judge quite agreed with Mr. Pound. He admitted that until the unfortunate occurrence of yesterday he had opposed any proceedings which were not altogether regular in law. ”And yet,” he said gravely, ”it is inc.u.mbent on us to rid the community of him. We all know that from the porch of Snyder's store he has been preaching doctrines that are not only revolutionary but, if the ladies will pardon me, I will call d.a.m.nable. What good is it for us to have Mr. Pound in the pulpit for one day of the week, and this glib-tongued man contradicting him for seven. Yet no statute forbids him to do this. What can you suggest, Mr. Pound?”
Mr. Pound sought an inspiration in the ceiling. ”The man has no visible means of support,” he said after a moment. ”His child is badly clothed, and, I presume, badly fed. Right there is an indictment.
Vagrancy.”
This bold suggestion was greeted with general approval save by the squire, who protested that a man could not be called a vagrant who had paid seventy dollars in cash for his clearing and was never known to beg or steal.
”But I tell you he is a moral vagrant,” argued Mr. Pound, ”and I will make such a charge against him. It will be your duty then, Squire Crumple, to offer him his choice between six weeks in jail and leaving the valley and taking his bottle with him.”
Still the squire was unconvinced, but he saw himself being overawed by my father and the minister, and his efforts to combat them evolved futile excuses.
”Who will arrest him?” he pleaded.
”Haven't we a constable?” retorted my father. ”What did we elect Byron Lukens for?”
”Precisely!” cried Mr. Pound.
”The one arrest he has made was a source of endless trouble,” returned Squire Crumple. ”He had to lock the prisoner overnight in his best room, and his wife has since said distinctly and repeatedly that----”
”You can avoid trouble with Mrs. Lukens by arresting him in the morning,” said Mr. Pound.
”And the chances are he will leave the valley rather than go to jail,”
my father added.
”But suppose he is cantankerous and chooses jail, what will we do with the girl?” argued the reluctant magistrate.
”The girl?” Mr. Pound waved his great hands about the table. ”Surely we can find her a better home and better parents than she has now.
<script>