University of Virginia Library

28. XXVIII.
THE CONVICT'S CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS.

From the window of his shop John Apjohn had seen
Abel Dane's wagon arrive and depart again. For the
cooper did not attend court that morning. The two
previous days, when he was required to be on the spot,
had been enough for him, yea, too much. To swear
the solemn oath; to stand up, in the presence of judge
and jury and spectators, and bear witness against his
neighbor, whose eyes were upon him; to tell, in terror
of perjuring himself, the story of the tomatoes, and to
hear the tittering, had been the most fearful ordeal of
his life. How he was gored by ruthless forensic horns,
and ferociously trampled and tossed as if the truth had
been his life-blood, to be worried out of him in this mad-bull
fashion; how he fainted, and was carried out to be
revived, and then brought back into the arena, to be
whirled again in the air and trodden again in the dust;
and how he was at last pitched carelessly out of
the arena, a used up man, covered with sweat and
flushes, while Prudence took the stand, and made sport
for the Philistines, — all this he remembered sufficiently

well to be made sick ever after by the sight of a court-house.

But John's was no merely selfish woe. He had been
in a measure diverted from his own shame by his conscientious
concern for Abel. With the vindictive feelings,
which animated his worthy wife, he had no sympathy;
and this third morning, he waited and watched from his
shop-window, afflicted with pangs of conscience, and unable
to work until he should learn that his neighbor had
been acquitted. After seeing the wagon come and go,
his restlessness grew intense. Remain in his shop he
could not. A bold resolution inspired him, and putting
on his coat, and turning up the collar about his ears, he
issued forth. Mrs. Apjohn called to him as he passed
the house; but the said collar, and the storm that
whistled about it, prevented her being heard.

“Where on airth can he be goin'? Why, he's stoppin'
into Abel Dane's gate, sure's the world. The man's
crazy!” said Prudence.

When the cooper returned, after a short absence, she
flew to the door to meet him.

“Wal sad, John Apjohn! What have you done?”
she cried, grasping him as if he had been a little boy,
and dragging him into the house. “Give an account of
yourself, sir!”

“What have we done?” iterated the cooper; “what
have we been and done, Prudy? To be sure, to be
sure!”

“We? what do you mean by we?” She helped him

shake the snow from his coat, not very gently. “What
have we done, say!”

“I've seen Abel's mother. She's a sight to make any
man sick of life, — most of all, one that's been helpin' to
heap her troubles on to her. For Abel, Prudy, Abel —
he's sent to State's prison for five year'! for five year',
Prudy! And it's all our doin's; it's all our doin's
from the very fust!” And as he uttered this speech,
the agitated and remorseful John, having previously unbuttoned
his coat, began to button it up again excitedly,
with the collar about his ears.

The moment of triumph had arrived for good Mrs.
Apjohn. But, alas! where was the satisfaction? She
looked somehow as if smitten by ill tidings. She had
achieved a signal victory over her supposed enemy, and
she was not glad. All the imps that had been goading
her on, and whispering in her soul night and day how
good the revenge would taste, seemed suddenly to have
deserted and left her to bite barren ashes. She sat
down on the wood-box; and it was some seconds before
she spoke.

“Wal, I don't know as it's my fault now. I'm as
sorry for ol' Mis' Dane as anybody, and for her little
gran'child, — he's a re'l pooty little boy, and I pity him.
And nobody can say't ever I hated Fustiny bad enough
to want her husband sent for five year' — that seems
mos' too bad, I allow!” Prudy's voice quavered, and
her countenance betrayed trouble. “And I'd no idee of
his gittin' so long a sentence! had you, John?”

John had been busy tying his red silk in a broad fold,
over his upturned coat-collar, around his nose and ears,
so that he now stood muffled to the eyes; and the voice
of him seemed to issue from a tomb.

“I'm a goin' for to see him, Prudy.”

“To see — who?”

“Abel. I'm a goin' with ol' Mis' Dane. 'Lizy and
Faustiny and the boy had gone off; and she was in a
dreffle state, sayin' they'd insisted on her stayin' to
hum; but she know'd she never'd see Abel agi'n in the
world, if she didn't see him to-day, and she didn't keer
for the storm, nor for sickness, nor for nothin'; but go
she must and would; and if I'd harness up and carry
her over, she'd be obliged. And I'm a goin', Prudy!”
With which announcement, he closed up the aperture
which he had opened between his handkerchief and his
nose to make a passage for the words, and, putting on
his hat, tightened the muffler about his ears as if determined
neither to say nor hear more on the subject.

“Now, John!” began Prudence disconcerted, “I don't
know 'bout your goin' off on any sech wild-goose chase!
Why didn't you ask my advice? Old Mis' Dane ain't
fit to stir out of the house, in the best weather, 'cordin'
to all accounts; and to start off in sech a storm” —

“I'm a goin', Prudy,” said the voice from the tomb.
And John's hand was on the door-latch.

“No you ain't goin', neither!” exclaimed Prudence,
astonished by this act of rebellion. “Jest stop a minute,
can't you, and hear to reason? You do beat all

the obstinate, headstrong critters! Come!” She put her
hand quickly on her knee, and got upon her feet with all
possible dispatch, and launched herself towards the door,
with arm extended to seize him. But too late. Obstinate
or not, John Apjohn meant to have his own
way this time. Headstrong or not, for once in his life he
determined to defy her conjugal authority, and take the
risks. If she was the more muscular of the two, he was
the more nimble. She was ponderous; but he was fleet.
Prudence saw that she had no chance; and to stand in
the door, and shout, against the indriving tempest, for
him to return, she soon perceived to be idle. So she
retired into the house, baffled, and inspired with a certain
respect for her husband which she never felt before.

He was going to take Mrs. Dane over to the jail, —
that was settled. What should she do in the mean
time? Suffer it to be said that she was less neighborly
than her husband? And leave him alone to be wrought
upon by the scenes he was to witness? She seemed
boiling with trouble for a minute; then she, too, formed
a novel resolve. Off went her old frock, and on went her
second-best gown, in a twinkling. The hooks and eyes
flew together with amazing rapidity, considering the
capaciousness of the charms enclosed. And so great
was her industry, that, by the time John had obtained
a pony at a stable near by, and harnessed him, Prudence
had locked the house, and stood ankle-deep in the snow,
with her bonnet and cloak on, ready to accompany him.

At sight of her, John was alarmed. But she said
kindly, —

“Put in a board, John, for you to set on. Me and
Mis' Dane I guess 'll about fill up the seat.”

And John, without a word, put in a board.