Meekly and silently William Johnson left the warm and stimulating Indian summer air of October to enter the dark and undesirable den of a felon. Patiently he accepted the heart-breaking destiny which seemed really to belong to some one else. He put in his days studying an English primer all the forenoon and doing housework around the jail kitchen in the afternoon.
He was a very tall man and a very awkward man, with large, intellectual joints and a sad face. When he got so that he could read a little I went in to hear him one day. He stood up like an exaggerated schoolboy, and while he bored holes in the page of his primer with a long and corneous forefinger he read that little poem:
Pray tell me, bird, what you can see
Up in the top of that tall tree?
Have you no fear that some rude boy
May come and mar your peace and joy?
Oh, no, my child, I fear no harm,
While with my song I thus can charm.
My mate is here, my youngsters, too,
And here we sit and sing to you.
Finally, the regular term of the District Court opened. Men who had come for a long distance to vaunt their ignorance and other qualifications as jurors could be seen on the streets. Here and there you could see the familiar faces of those who had served as jurors for years and yet had never lost a case. Wealthy delinquents began to subpœna large detachments of witnesses at the expense of the county, and the poor petty larceny people in the jail began to wonder why their witnesses didn't show up. Slowly the wheels of Justice began to revolve. Ever and anon could be heard the strident notes which came from the room where the counsel for the defense was filing his objections, while now and then the ear was startled with the low quash of the indictment.
Finally the case of the Territory against William Johnson was called.
"Mr. Johnson," asked Judge Blair, "have you counsel?"
The defendant said he had not.