“What _I’m_ a-honin’ ter know,” said Jerry Price presently, “air how them boys ez war along o’ Mink an’ war summonsed ez witnesses air goin’ ter prove he war drunk. Ef they ’low Mink war drunk the ’torney-gin’al ’ll try ter make out he war sober. He’s a-goin’ ter ax, ‘Whar’d he git the whiskey, bein’ ’s all the still thar is air a bonded still, an’ by law can’t sell less ’n five gallons. Then them boys’ll be afeard ter tell whar they got the whiskey, ’kase folks mought think they knowed who war makin’ it. An’ ef the moonshiners war raided, _they_ mought declar’ ez some o’ them boys war aidin’ an’ abettin’ ’em, an’ the revenuers would arrest them too.” “Don’t ye know who air makin’ it?” Alethea asked, a vivid picture in her mind of Boke’s barn, and Jerry Price and his cronies stalking their fantastic rounds about it. “Naw, sir! an’ don’t wanter, nuther. I war along o’ ’em in the woods that night. I holped tote the jug. We lef’ it empty in Boke’s barn an’ fund it filled, but I dunno nuthin’ mo’.” “Lethe,” said Mrs. Purvine, handing her a ball of gray yarn, the knitting-needles thrust through an ill-knit beginning of a sock, “I wish ye’d try ter find out whar I drapped them stitches, an’ ravel it out an’ knit it up agin. I hate ter do my work over, an’ I hev ter be powerful partic’lar with Jerry’s socks,—he wears ’em out so fas’. Ye’d ’low he war a thousand-legs, ef ye could see the stacks of ’em I hev ter darn.” Alethea drew up a great rocking-chair, and now and then leaned over its arms toward the fire to catch the red glow of the embers upon her work, as her deft hands repaired the damages of Mrs. Purvine’s inattention. Suddenly she said in a pondering tone, “Why would the ’torney-gineral ruther prove Reuben war sober?” “’Kase ef he war proved drunk the jury would lean ter him,” said Jerry. She laid her work down in her lap, and gazed intently at him. His face had the transient glow of his pipe upon it, and then, as he took it from his lips, was as indistinct as his long, lank figure disposed in the doorway. “They oughtn’t ter do it,—but they do. I ain’t never seen nare jury hold a drunk man ez up an’ down ’sponsible ez ef he war sober. They’ll lean ter him ef he could be proved drunk.” Alethea said nothing. Her mental attitude was one of intense receptivity. Her keen appreciation of how much depended on her comprehension, her desire that no point should escape her attention, were positive pain in their acute consciousness. The discerning Jerry went on with that acumen and cogency which were such odd concomitants of his ignorance and uncouthness:—