The sheriff was mumbling that there would be a recess of ten minutes. Bonnie stood up, helping Maw into the aisle. She was going to Bud. It was almost as if Bud had been cleared of some criminal charge—as if he had been the prisoner before the bar. But when she had taken a step or two down the aisle, Bonnie stopped, a queer little sound in her throat that may have been a laugh or a sob, or both. She turned and caught Maw by the arms and lifted.
"Stand on the seat, Maw, and look over there! He's going straight to Butch—to beg his pardon. Oh, isn't that the most splendid thing you ever saw?"
Maw, up on the seat, looked in the wrong direction and never knew it, because her eyes were so full of tears she could not have seen Bud anyway.
"Yes, it's grand," she quavered. "Larkie and Bud are good boys—"
"Say, Maw," Lark leaned over her shoulder to shout, "that coon's goin' to spend the rest of his days at the Meddalark and help you cook. Darn his black hide—and Butch too. He ast me fer a job and I turned him down cold. Lemme past, will yuh, Bonnie? I want to ketch him b'fore he gits outside. My Jonah, about the worst thing can happen a feller is to be accused of somethin' he ain't guilty of. Hey, Butch! Butch! Bud! You 'n' Butch come awn over here! These wimmin has got me penned up here like a pet calf!"
"Moses, what a jam!" quaked Maw, when a dozen persons in her immediate vicinity began milling aimlessly in the aisle. "Larkie, I just hope Palmer gits let out. I don't believe any man on earth would lie like that under oath and all, and if he was tellin' the truth, he ain't no more guilty than I be."
"I don't think he is guilty at all," Marge complained. "I came clear up here to see a man sentenced to be hanged by the neck—oh, where? That handsome fellow over there? Lynched! Was he really? I wonder if some one can introduce him to me. Lark, will you—"
"Oh, Maw," cried Lark into the babel, "we got a new lark to set and chirp on our bough. Butch is goin' to start in quick as we git back."
"I'm real glad," said Maw, grinning vacantly with her teeth comfortably reposing in her pocket. "I wisht, Larkie, you could find somethin' for that poor old Blinker to do. Seems a shame—they say Palmer's bargainin' already t' sell out an' leave the country quick as they let him go—"
"Well," young Bud's voice rose cheerfully above the clamor, "Butch, you and I will have to go swimming first chance we get. How about it?"