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Mitch Miller, a novel by Edgar Lee Masters |
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Chapter 22 |
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_ CHAPTER XXII I got back to the court room about ten minutes to one and only a few was there. It was awful interestin' now, and I couldn't keep away or hardly wait for the next thing. Pretty soon Mitch came in and set by me. His hair was combed slick, and he acted terribly quiet. Then the judge came and my pa and court was opened. Pretty soon Mr. Miller came in and sat with Mitch and me and after a while Mrs. Miller, who hadn't been there before, and my ma was with her. The court room was so full you couldn't breathe. Then my pa got up and began to talk and he said he had some evidence which was competent, but needed to be explained first to the judge, and he thought they'd better go into the judge's room and talk about it first. So the judge, my pa, and Major Abbott went to the judge's room and closed the door, and the jury just waited and the audience began to whisper and I looked across the room and saw John Armstrong. Everybody was there except grandpa and grandma, Willie Wallace, my uncle and maybe a few others. After a while the judge, my pa and Major Abbott came out of the judge's room. The judge got on the bench and said, "You may proceed, Mr. States Attorney." My pa turned around and looked down in the audience, and said in a loud voice, "Mitchell Miller, take the witness stand, please." I was knocked over. Here was Tom Sawyer right over again. Mitch was goin' to testify. What on earth did he know? He'd never told me a word. Mitch was dreadful pale, and so was Mr. Miller. But Mr. Miller says, "Come on, my boy, and may God help you." So they got up, and Mr. Miller walked with Mitch inside the railin' and stood there, very sad, until Mitch took the witness chair, then he walked back and sat down inside the railing. All the jury was craning their necks now and the court room was so still that the tickin' of the clock was scary. It seemed as Mitch was only twelve, they had to ask him about whether he knew what he was doin'. So my pa began this a way, after Mitch was sworn. "What is your name?" "Mitchell Miller." "How old are you?" "Twelve years old." "Do you understand the obligations of an oath?" "I do, sir." "What are they?" "They are to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." "And if you don't tell the truth, what will happen to you?" "I'll be punished." "How?" "By prison." "What else?" "By God." "You believe in God, do you, Mitchie?" asked my pa in a quieter voice. "I do," said Mitch. "And a hereafter." "I do." "And that you'll be punished in the hereafter if you don't tell the truth?" "That's leading, your honor," interrupted Major Abbott. "Yes," said the judge. "Very well," said my pa. "What else will happen to you if you don't tell the truth, Mitchell?" "I'll be punished in the hereafter." "Cross-examine," said my pa. Then Major Abbott began in kind of a sneerin' voice. "So you think you'll be punished in the hereafter?" "Yes, sir." "Why?" "Why wouldn't I be for swearin' a man's life away?" "For swearin' a man's life away," repeated Major Abbott, kind of stunned. "That's what I'm obliged to do," said Mitch. "Well, one thing at a time, my boy," said the Major, a little friendlier. "Tell me now who told you about the obligations of an oath." "I've read about it," said Mitch. "Where?" "In Blackstone's Commentaries." "Where did you ever hear of Blackstone's Commentaries?" "First out at Old Salem, where Linkern lived." The jury sat up straighter than ever. "Who told you?" "An old man." "What's his name?" "I don't know." "When was that?" "This summer, about a month ago." "Well, did you ever read Blackstone's Commentaries?" "Yes, sir, some." "Where?" "In Mr. Kirby's office." "The States Attorney?" "Yes, sir." "When?" "Since that old man told me." "How did he happen to be talking about Blackstone's Commentaries?" "He told me that Linkern found Blackstone's Commentaries in a barl." There was a titter in the court room. "Did you believe him?" "Yes, sir." "What were you doin' out there?" "Diggin' for treasure." "Oh, like Tom Sawyer?" "Yes, sir." "And so now you're testifyin' like Tom Sawyer?" "Yes, sir." "Don't you dream a good deal, my boy?" "I don't know. I think a lot." "You think, eh? What about, for instance?" "Everything." "Well, tell me a few things you think about." "The world, life, books, Shakespeare." "Shakespeare?" "Yes, sir." "I suppose you've heard your father talk Shakespeare?" "Yes, sir." "And so you think of that?" "I've read lots of it, too." "Shakespeare?" "Yes, sir." "Uh, huh! Can you tell me the name of the play where there is a fencer?" "'Hamlet.'" "'Hamlet'?" "Yes, sir. I've committed to memory the speech of the ghost." "Well, this isn't a theater, Mitchell, so you don't need to recite." "No, sir." "But now tell me, has your father talked to you?" "Yes, sir." "Did you get from him this idea that you would be punished in the hereafter if you didn't tell the truth?" "Yes, and not exactly either. I believe that." "Did he talk to you to-day?" "Yes, sir." "What did he say?" "He told me to do my duty, that doing my duty was more'n findin' treasure; that Linkern did his duty; that this was Linkern's county right here, and that no boy who was raised here in this town could fail to do his duty without insultin' the memory of Linkern." "How did he come to say all that to you?" "Because I'd stood this as long as I could. I've been in trouble about this all summer, I really started out to see Tom Sawyer, partly to get away from this, and I was troubled most of the time. And I sat here in the court room and heard the witnesses. And at noon to-day I told my pa what I knew, and he prayed with me, and told me I had to testify and that I must tell the truth, and if I didn't I'd be punished, and even if I kept still, I'd be punished and here I am." "So here you are. Well, now to return a little, don't you have all kinds of visions and dreams, Mitchie?" "I do." "Wait," says my pa, "that don't go to the witness' right to testify, but only whether he's to be believed after he does testify." "Yes," said the judge. Then Major Abbott took another exception. There were some more questions, and finally the judge said Mitch could tell his story. So my pa settled down to business, and the jury waited anxious like. And this is the way it went. "Where were you on the night Joe Rainey was killed?" "Up in a tree in his yard." "What were you doin' there?" "Listenin' to the music." "Were you alone?" "Yes, sir." "You chum with my boy, don't you?" "Yes, sir." "Do you know where he was that night?" "Out to his grandpa's." "How did you happen to be in that yard?" "I was lonesome and I wanted to hear the music." "Well, you go on now in your own way and tell what you saw and heard." "I was lookin' from the tree through the window into the room. I could see all of you. You was singin' the 'Merry, Merry Maiden.' Just then two men came up the sidewalk. I got back of some thick limbs, limbs thick with leaves, for fear they'd see me and say something and do something. Pretty soon I saw it was Joe Rainey and Temple Scott." "What were they saying to each other?" "They was walkin' arm in arm, friendly like. And I heard Joe Rainey say: 'I've always been a good friend of yours, Temp, and I want to be still. But you mustn't come to my house any more, especially when I'm not there. You know why, and I want you to promise.' Then Mr. Scott said, 'You're always bringin' that up, why do you? It gets me mad.' Then Joe Rainey says, 'My wife don't want you around, as far as that goes.' And Temp said, 'You don't know what you're talkin' about.' And Joe Rainey says, 'I do, and I'll go in and get her now and she'll come out here and say to you just what I say.' 'No,' says Temp, 'you'll make her say it; she must say it of her own free will.' They began to quarrel then." "Don't say quarrel, tell us what they said." "Well, Temp said, 'You're a liar, and nobody believes what you say.' And Joe Rainey said, 'You're another liar, and if you didn't have a pistol on you, I'd take it out of you right now. I'm goin' in for my wife.' Then he tore away from Mr. Scott and went into the house, but came right out again, and Mr. Scott began to shoot at Joe Rainey, and he fell down on the porch." "Then what happened?" "Then everybody in the room screamed. And somebody came out and some others and picked up Joe Rainey and carried him into the house." "What did you do?" "I still stayed in the tree." "What for?" "Well, I was kind of scared--then I wanted to see what they did with Joe Rainey. I thought they might take him into the room where they had been singin' and I could see him." "Did you?" "No, sir." "Then what happened?" "Well, while I was waiting, about ten minutes maybe, I heard some one coming from the back of the house. It was a woman." "What did she do?" "She came up by the porch, knelt down kind of and ran back to the rear of the house." "What did you do then?" "I waited a few minutes then I got down out of the tree and went over to the porch and picked up what the woman had left there." "What was it?" "A pistol." "Have you got the pistol?" "Yes, sir." "Will you hand it to me?" "Yes, sir." Mitch took a pistol out of his pocket and handed it to my pa. Then Mrs. Rainey, who was still sittin' in the court room, fainted dead away. And some women and a doctor came up and carried her out. Temple Scott was white as death, and was leanin' his head on his hand and lookin' down. And then my pa went on. "Where has this pistol been since that night?" "Buried." "Where?" "In Montgomery's woods." "How?" "In a cigar box." "Why did you bury it?" "So it wouldn't rust--so as to hide it." "Do you know who the woman was who put the pistol there?" "Yes, sir." "Who?" "Mrs. Rainey." "Then what did you do?" "I still stayed in the tree." "Did anything else happen?" "Yes, sir." "What?" "In just a few minutes after Mrs. Rainey came out and left the pistol, some men came out, one of 'em was Harold Carman, and they started to look right by the edge of the porch. And one man says, 'Where is it?' and another says, 'I don't see it,' and another says, 'Is this the place?' And so they looked all around and then went back into the house." "Then what did you do?" "I waited until everything was all right, then I climbed down out of the tree, and got the pistol, and ran. And so I kept the pistol for a few days; but I got worried havin' it around, so I put it in a cigar box and went out to Montgomery's woods and buried it." "And is this pistol you produced here, the same pistol you picked up, and buried?" "Yes." "That's all," said my pa. Then the judge said, "We'll suspend here for a little while." Mitch started to leave the witness chair, but the judge said, "No, you must stay where you are. You stand by him, Mr. Sheriff." Then there was a kind of noise of the people in the room changin' their seats and talkin'. And the word went around that Mrs. Rainey had died. _ |
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