Old Joel Quimbey, putting on his spectacles, with a look of keenest curiosity, to read a paper which the deputy-sheriff of the county presented when he drew rein by the wood-pile one afternoon some three weeks later, had some difficulty in identifying a certain Elnathan Daniel Kittredge specified therein. He took off his spectacles, rubbed them smartly, and put them on again. The writing was unchanged. Surely it must mean the baby. That was the only Kittredge whose body they could be summoned to produce on the 24th of December before the judge of the circuit court, now in session. He turned the paper about and looked at it, his natural interest as a man augmented by his recognition as an ex-magistrate of its high important legal character.
“Eveliny,” he quavered, at once flattered and furious, “dad-burned ef Abs'lom hain't gone an' got out a habeas corpus fur the baby!”
The phrase had a sound so deadly that there was much ado to satisfactorily explain the writ and its functions to Evelina, who had felt at ease again since the baby was at home, and so effectually guarded that to kidnap him was necessarily to murder two or three of the vigilant and stalwart Quimbey men. So much joy did it afford the old man to air his learning and consult his code—a relic of his justiceship—that he belittled the danger of losing the said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge in the interest with which he looked forward to the day for him to be produced before the court.
There was a gathering of the clans on that day. Quimbeys and Kittredges who had not visited the town for twenty years were jogging thither betimes that morning on the red clay roads, all unimpeded by the deep mud which, frozen into stiff ruts and ridges here and there, made the way hazardous to the running-gear. The lagging winter had come, and the ground was half covered with a light fall of snow.
The windows of the court-house were white with frost; the weighted doors clanged continuously. An old codger, slowly ascending the steps, and pushing into the semi-obscurity of the hall, paused as the door slammed behind him, stared at the sheriff in surprise, then fixed him with a bantering leer. The light that slanted through the open court-room door fell upon the official's burly figure, his long red beard, his big broad-brimmed hat pushed back from his laughing red face, consciously ludicrous and abashed just now.
“Hev ye made a find?” demanded the newcomer.
For in the strong arms of the law sat, bolt-upright, Elnathan Daniel Kittredge, his yellow head actively turning about, his face decorated with a grin, and on most congenial terms with the sheriff.
“They're lawin' 'bout'n him in thar “—the sheriff jerked his thumb toward the door. “Habeas corpus perceedin's. Dun no ez I ever see a friskier leetle cuss. Durned ef I 'ain't got a good mind ter run off with him myself.”
The said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge once more squirmed round and settled himself comfortably in the hollow of the sheriff's elbow, who marvelled to find himself so deft in holding him, for it was twenty years since his son—a gawky youth who now affected the company at the saloon, and was none too filial—was the age and about the build of this infant Kittredge.
“They hed a reg'lar scrimmage hyar in the hall—them fool men—Quimbey an' Kittredge. Old man Quimbey said suthin' ter Abs'lom Kittredge—I dunno what all. Abs'lom never jawed back none. He jes made a dart an' snatched this hyar leetle critter out'n his mother's arms, stiddier waitin' fur the law, what he summonsed himself. Blest ef I didn't hev ter hold my revolver ter his head, an' then crack him over the knuckles, ter make him let go the child. I didn't want ter arrest him—mighty clever boy, Abs'lom Kittredge! I promised that young woman I'd keep holt o' the child till the law gins its say-so. I feel sorry fur her; she's been through a heap.”