Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His PeopleCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
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Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His People
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
The Judge pounded for order with his gavel, pounding long and hard,
before the uproar simmered down into a seething and boiling of confused,
excited murmurings.
“Mister Sheriff,” he ordered, with a seeming sternness which by no means
matched the look on his face, “keep order in this court! If any further
disorder occurs here you will arrest the offenders and arraign them for
contempt.”
The sheriff's bushy eyebrows expressed bewilderment. When it came to
arresting a whole court house full of people, even so vigilant and
earnest-minded an official as Sheriff Giles Bindsong hardly knew where
to start in. Nevertheless he made answer promptly.
“Yes, suh, Your Honor,” he promised, “I will.”
“As I was saying when this interruption occurred,” went on the Judge,
“it now devolves upon the court to discharge the defendant at the bar
from custody and to declare him entitled to the reward of $500 placed
upon the head of the late Ransom Fleming by the Governor of Kentucky in
the year 1865--” Young Jim Faxon with his arms still around the heaving
shoulders of the women, threw his head up:
“No Judge, please, sir, I couldn't touch that money--not that”--he
began, but Judge Priest halted him:
“The late defendant not being of legal age, the court rules that this
reward when collected may be turned over to his legal guardian. It may
be that she will find a good and proper use to which this sum of money
may be put.” This time, the cheering, if anything, was louder even
than it had been before; but when the puzzled sheriff looked around
for instructions regarding the proper course of procedure in such an
emergency, the judge on the bench was otherwise engaged. The judge on
the bench was exchanging handshakes of an openly congratulatory nature
with the members of the county bar headed by Attorney for the Defense,
Dabney Prentiss.
IV. A JUDGMENT COME TO DANIEL
THE sidewheel packet Belle of Memphis landed at the wharf, and the
personal manager of Daniel the Mystic came up the gravel levee with a
darky behind him toting his valises. That afternoon all of the regular
town hacks were in use for a Masonic funeral, or he could have ridden up
in solitary pomp. You felt on first seeing him that he was the kind of
person who would naturally prefer to ride.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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