Tess of the Storm Country Part 19

He turned into the drug-store in the middle of the block. Here met, nearly every evening, the head ones of his flock for a little while to talk over religion and politics. Outsiders called it the "Amen Corner"

of Ithaca.

"Ah," exclaimed the druggist, "you're early, Graves. Must have had your supper at the going down of the sun."

Graves coughed his embarra.s.sment and sat down.

"Feeling sick, Elias?"

The druggist opened the door for a child to pa.s.s out.

"No, not ill, only disgusted with the world in general."

"Skinner's girl coming to the court went against your notions, eh?"

"And every one else's with any sense," snapped Graves.

"Professor Young stopped in here to-day on his way up the hill," resumed Bates, "he had been over to the jail, talking to Skinner, and he says that the man will be murdered if the state hangs him."

"That's all Young knows about it," growled the minister. "You and I know these people, Bates, better then Young does, and Skinner's word isn't worth the powder to blow it up with."

Bates took his accustomary position on the book-keeper's stool and spread his long hands out on his knees.

"Well, the professor says," he went on, "that Skinner can prove that he didn't use the gun."

"How can he prove it?" asked Graves sharply, "only by the oaths of men with no more veracity than he has. I wouldn't believe one of those squatters if he used the sacred oath twenty times over."

"Maybe the next jury will think differently," argued the druggist.

"Bigger fools they then," interrupted Graves. "I don't know what the town is coming to if the fishermen can shoot down our officials without even remonstrance. I'll tell you what, Bates, there'll be a city war over Skinner. Let Young take up the cudgel, and I'll see what the church can do. There's power in the pulpit, I can tell you that."

Bates agreed to this.

"If the citizens of this city," continued the minister, encouraged by the evident acquiescence of the druggist, "should take this matter up as a body, ten men like Young couldn't bring about Skinner's acquittal."

"I'm not so sure," muttered Bates.

"I'm sure," insisted Graves strenuously, "very sure, for, if to a man every one is ready to do his duty, what kind of a jury could they have?

Like yesterday's--conviction, swift and sure."

"But" objected the druggist, "a juror who takes his oath in a murder case, must know little or nothing of it. Men would not be accepted if for a week or month they had listened to combative sermons against the prisoner. And you certainly wouldn't have a juror perjure himself, would you, Graves?"

"The district attorney is no fool," replied the minister, softening his argument under the shocked expression of Bates; "he knows when the state is to be benefited by the outcome of a trial. He can leave off certain questions; it has been done."

"I know it," interrupted Bates. "But--it seems hardly fair."

Just then the door opened, and Silas Jones, the richest man in the town, took his seat with the other two "Ameners." The fascinating subject of the day, the unusualness of the squatter trial and the girl with the singing voice, continued to be the topic of conversation. Minister Graves' family, in standing out against him in a matter so near his heart, only strengthened his desire to see the end as he wished it to be--the sentence of yesterday executed against the fisherman without another trial.

"Young lost his senses to-day, don't you think so, Silas?" he asked.

"Well," drawled Jones, "if Skinner didn't commit willful murder, I'd hate to see him hang. It wouldn't do any harm as I see to give him another chance."

"You'll change your mind in church next Sunday," commented the parson.

"I'm going to show every man his duty clear and plain."

He brought down his hand upon his knee with an egotistical slap.

"All folks don't think the same way you do, Dominie," persisted Jones.

"Now then, Bill Hopkins of the toggery shop, he don't believe in women speakin' in meetin'."

The minister distinctly remembered this. More than once had he taken the delinquent Bill Hopkins to task for taking his letter to another church, but Bill could not be induced to return, because the creed had not been followed by its members, nor enforced by the shepherd of the flock.

Hopkins was the best-read man in the whole county, and his voice went far when he spoke, but for over a year his place among the "Ameners" had been vacant--also his pew in Graves' church. The Dominie needed such men as Bill in his congregation if he would win his fight against the squatters. These thoughts were prominent in his mind when the door admitted a great gust of wind--and the famous Bill Hopkins. The parson caught his breath. Bill spoke a genial good-evening, shook hands around, and bought a small bottle of witch-hazel, some camphor, and was about to leave, when Graves e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:

"Sit down, Bill."

Bill sat down, took his hat from his bald head, and placed his fingers complacently around a smooth white wart on his cranium, and waited.

He looked questioningly at the rich man, and the druggist with the wide-spread hands. The church subject had been thrashed out long ago--the women of the congregation gaining the day in spite of the august presence of some of the deacons, who openly declared that the female portion of the church was unbecomingly usurping the authority of the men. Because of this flagrant disobedience of the church's creed, Bill Hopkins had taken his name from the roll, and was known to have said that he would not be led by a shepherd who could not order his flock. To-night he smacked his lips for the coming argument while the minister, glad to have him among them again, felt his hopes rise higher.

Bates flattened his hands with delight, noticing a smile that drew down the corners of Jones' lips. Long ago the pleasant religious argument of Ithaca's "Amen" corner had become a thing of the past, because of the absence of Bill Hopkins. He had been the zest of the crowd.

The Dominie, forgetting his grievance of the supper table, straightened himself for the combat. He had suddenly conceived a plan whereby he could gain a friend to aid him in the coming squatter fight. Bill Hopkins still waited with a quizzical expression in his s.h.a.ggy-browed eyes.

"Strange happenings in town for a few days past," said Graves.

"The Skinner case?" asked Bill, rubbing gently the smooth white wart.

"Yes," a.s.sented the minister. "What do you think of it all, Bill?"

"The girl's a brick," commented Hopkins--and sank into silence.

"The girl's not being tried for murder," rebuked the minister sharply.

"But she played her part with feelin' and power," was the drawling reply.

The clergyman saw a flitting expression of triumph in the druggist's face.

"She'd make a capital actress," ruminated Graves.

He glanced at the rich man to see if he coincided with him, but that gentleman was looking into the street.

"We all act in this world," excused Bill; "even you ministers use methods that you have found in elocution to bring your beliefs to bear upon your congregations."

Graves did not relish being cla.s.sed with the squatter's child, but he made no comment upon it. He changed his tactics.

"Bill," said he, "have you altered your ideas about the church?"

"What ideas?"