“I wasn’t going to have my name known. I called myself Brown; and they convicted me—as I wrote to you, Joe—for five years. But the Governor did his duty. He was a white man, the Governor. He let me out.”
“Why?” asked the judge curiously.
“Was a white man to get five years for besting a nigger?” demanded the old man, with his first approach to vigor. “Not if the Governor knew it! Oh, he was a white man. So here I am, Joe—here I am, thank God!”
The judge leaned forward and asked, “Have you any letters from the man you say is your son?”
The old man pulled a dirty letter out of his pocket, and handed it up with a bewildered look.
Young Mr. Pippitt still looked on with his fixed smile, while the judge read:
“Dear Father:
“It’s a bad job that you’re nabbed. Five years is no joke. Why were you such a fool? You were right about the name. Keep it quite dark, for God’s sake! I’ll see what I can do.
“Yours,
“J. P.