II.
The first piece was what I may call a little Police Pastoral, in recognition of the pretty touch of poetry which graced it. A half-grown, baddish-looking boy was arraigned for assault and battery, and took his place at one end of that long table on which rested the clerk’s desk, while a young girl of thirteen or fourteen advanced from the audience, and placed herself at the other end. She was dressed in a well-fitting ready-made suit, which somehow suggested itself as having been “marked down” to come within her means; and she wore a cheap yet tasteful hat, under which her face, as honest as it was comely, looked modestly up at the judge when he questioned her. It appeared that she was passing the apple-stand which the defendant was keeping for his mother, when he had suddenly abandoned his charge, followed her into a gate where she had taken refuge, and struck her; her cries attracted the police, and he was arrested. The officer corroborated her story, and then the judge made a signal to the prisoner, by which it seemed that he was privileged to cross-question his accuser. The injured youth seized the occasion, and in a loud-bullying, yet plaintive tone proceeded as best he could to damage the case against him.
He: “Didn’t you pass my mother’s stand with them girls the day before?”
She, frankly: “Yes, I did.”
He: “And didn’t you laugh at me, and call me an apple-woman?”
She, as before: “Yes, I did.”
He: “And hain’t you hit me, sometimes, before this?”
She, evasively: “I’ve never hit you to hurt you.”
He: “Now, that hain’t the question! The question is whether you’ve ever hit me.”
She: “Yes, I have—when you were trying to hold me. It was the other girls called you names. I only called you names once.”
He: “I want to know whether I hurt you any when you hollered out that way?”
She: “Yes, you did. And if I hadn’t screamed you would have done it. I don’t suppose you’d have hurt me a great deal, but you have hurt some of the girls.”
The Judge: “Did he bruise you severely when he struck you?”
She, with a relenting glance, full of soft compassion, at her enemy: “Well, he didn’t bruise me very much.”
The Judge: “Has he been in the habit of assaulting the other young girls?”
She: “He never did me before.” Then, with a sudden burst, “And I think I was every bit as much to blame as he was! I had no business to tease him.”
Here the judge, instead of joining the hands of these children, and sending them forward with his blessing, to dance and sing a little duet together, as would have happened on any other stage, said that he would fine the defendant seven dollars. The defendant gave way to a burst of grief, and the plaintiff, astonished at this untoward conclusion, threw the judge a pathetic and reproachful look, and left the stand in painful bewilderment. I felt sorry for her, but I could not share her pity for the defendant, and my light mind was quickly distracted by the next piece.