Under the Law

HE TURNED TOWARD HER AND LOOKED LONG UPON THE FACE THAT HAD BECOME HIS STAR

UNDER THE LAW BY EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK Frontispiece by RALPH P. COLEMAN THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 1923 COPYRIGHT 1922 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY




ACTION
The streets between Willow Roads and the little town of Morris on the Hudson were still corrugated with March thaw. But the sun shone warmly and there was the wet smell of oncoming spring in the air. Women flung open their coats at the neck; children skipped lightly to school. The river took on an ethereal light that to the shadmen meant the time when their soggy boats would be moored to the long lines of stakes near the channel. The country highways were less hopeless with mud, and the spring tramp began appearing at back doors.
A girl, driving her car rather absently through the unimaginative streets of Morris, stopped suddenly at sight of a ring of loafers gathered by the curb in a side street, jeering mildly and apparently baiting a tumbled heap of something in the gutter. What was it? A dog? A child? Sard Bogart, her brown eyes alert, sprang from her car and went over to see.
As the girl approached the group, one or two of the older and better dressed townspeople edged rather shamefacedly away. The village postman, hailing the girl loquaciously, explained, Just one of them Gloomy Guses. They come out like turtles this time of the year. This feller has likely stole a ride on a freight car and been dumped off at West Morris. Seems he's trying to pertend he don't know who he is. That ain't hard for a tramp; ain't nobody anyhow. The postman scratched his head, wishing to cover all aspects of the matter. Ef he's drunk, it's a new kind of drunk. Vanilla extract, they tell me, is what this kind boozes on nowadays. To the girl's indignant question, Oh, they ain't doing him no harm; just worrying him a little to see him act funny. The authorities? the postman looked a little vague. Well, I should say, it being about noon, that the authorities has gone home to their dinners.