The Missionary Sheriff / Being incidents in the life of a plain man who tried to do his duty

“PICKED UP SOME OF THE SHREDS”
BEING INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A PLAIN MAN WHO TRIED TO DO HIS DUTY
BY OCTAVE THANET
ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST AND CLIFFORD CARLETON
NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1897
Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.



Sheriff Wickliff leaned out of his office window, the better to watch the boy soldiers march down the street. The huge pile of stone that is the presumed home of Justice for the county stands in the same yard with the old yellow stone jail. The court-house is ornate and imposing, although a hundred active chimneys daub its eaves and carvings, but the jail is as plain as a sledge-hammer. Yet during Sheriff Wickliff’s administration, while Joe Raker kept jail and Mrs. Raker was matron, window-gardens brightened the grim walls all summer, and chrysanthemums and roses blazoned the black bars in winter.
Above the jail the street is a pretty street, with trim cottages and lawns and gardens; below, the sky-lines dwindle ignobly into shabby one and two story wooden shops devoted to the humbler handicrafts. It is not a street favored by processions; only the little soldiers of the Orphans’ Home Company would choose to tramp over its unkempt macadam. Good reason they had, too, since thus they passed the sheriff’s office, and it was the sheriff who had given most of the money for their uniforms, and their drums and fifes outright.