Mitch Miller Part 21

"Didn't you know it then?"

"In a kind of way, but I was so taken up with the treasure and going to see Tom Sawyer; and I had been subpoenaed in the Doc Lyon case and I was afraid I would be subpoenaed in this case and kept here so I couldn't go away."

"Your father is a preacher, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you have been raised to tell the truth and do your duty?"

"Yes, sir--but the flesh is weak."

"And the flesh pots are tempting," said Major Abbott right quick, "and you love treasure and love to live over the life of Tom Sawyer, a boy who never lived?"

"I can't answer that."

"Why?"

"Well, I love treasure, that is I love to find it--but I'm not livin'

over Tom Sawyer's life any more than is natural."

"But it is true that you deceived your father, it is true you ran away, it is true you meant to run away from the court--all this is true?"

"Yes, sir."

"And then all of a sudden you got this idea of duty?"

"Yes, sir--by reading 'Hamlet.'"

"'Hamlet'?"

"Yes, sir, he kept foolin' with his duty, and it taught me not to."

"Did your father tell you to say that?"

"No, sir."

"I thought the great example of Lincoln had influenced you?"

"It did."

"Have you read 'Hamlet'?"

"Yes, sir, I have."

"Did he live, too?"

"Yes, sir--everybody lives that was ever wrote about."

And so Major Abbott kept cross-questioning Mitch until Mitch's mouth got dry and he had to have a gla.s.s of water. They handed it to him, and Major Abbott stood there like a hunter trappin' an animal. He was so cool and insultin' and kept comin' right after Mitch. Then he began again:

"Did you ever hear of Lincoln running away?"

"No, sir."

"Or deceiving his father?"

"No, sir."

"Or his mother?"

"His mother was dead."

"Or neglecting his duty in any way?"

"No, sir, that's the reason his example is so good."

"Well, why didn't you follow it from the beginning?"

"I told you why--I don't pretend to be good like Linkern."

"You don't?"

"No, sir, sometimes I think I'm very bad."

"Don't you think you're very bad right now to come here and tell such a story as this, after the State has closed its case, after all these weeks?"

"No, sir."

"And you knew, too, Mitchie, that it was common talk here that Joe Rainey tried to kill Temple Scott and shot at him first?"

"Yes, sir."

"And all the time you were keeping this to yourself for the sake of treasure, and in order to have your own way, and run off?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you knew that your chum's father was elected here to enforce the law, and that the guilty should be punished--all this you knew?"

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you did all that you did--all that you have told?"

"Yes, sir."

Well, then Major Abbott took another turn. He asked Mitch about the tree, whether it was a cherry tree or an oak tree, and Mitch didn't know. And he asked him how high up he was, and what the light was, and whether anybody pa.s.sing couldn't see him in the tree; and how tall the woman was that put the pistol there, and how she was dressed; and where Temple Scott and Joe Rainey was when he first saw them, and if he knew Harold Carman, and what the names of the other people were who came out; and what he did the day before, and the week before, and the week after; and whether he didn't fight and whip Kit O'Brien, and everything you ever heard of from the time Mitch was a baby. It took all the afternoon. And when Mitch got off the witness stand he was kind of weak, and his pa went up to him and led him out, and then they locked up the jury to keep 'em from hearin' anything. And the case went over till the next morning.

And the next mornin' we was all down there as before. When court took up, Major Abbott and my pa and the judge went into the judge's room and n.o.body knew what was said, the same as before, and when they came out, Major Abbott said: