Farnsworth walked thoughtfully toward his store. "By George!" he thought suddenly. "I wonder—"
The gossip about the senior Edwards had occurred to him, and at the same time he remembered the quarrel with Lamoury.
"But what nonsense!" he thought. "If Edwards wanted to shoot any one he wouldn't do it in his own back yard, and he wouldn't treat his own boy that way, either." Still, the idea clung to him.
And then he thought of Nancy, and chuckled. "If she comes to the store before she goes to the jail I won't tell her what she'll find there," he promised himself.
Meanwhile, Mr. Peaslee felt a growing discomfort. He ate his dinner and answered the brisk questions of his wife with increasing preoccupation. Like Miss Ware, he was picturing Jim solitary and suffering in his lonely cell. With the utmost sincerity and ingenuousness he condemned Mr. Edwards.
"Hain't he got any feelin' for his own flesh and blood?" he asked himself. "'T ain't right; somebody'd ought to deal with him."
As he pottered about his yard after dinner, he finally worked himself up to the point of speaking to Edwards himself.
Even his righteous indignation would not have led him to this undertaking had he known Mr. Edwards better, or realized the father's present mood. Hurt exceedingly by Jim's lying and contempt of his wishes, hurt even more through his disappointed desire to help his boy, Mr. Edwards was sore and sensitive, discontented both with Jim and with himself. He did not want Jim in jail, he told himself; and the neighbors who were so uniformly assuming that he did might better give their thoughts to matters that concerned them more. He would get the boy out of jail quick enough if the boy would only let him.
As he stepped out of the house to do an errand at the barn, Mr. Peaslee hailed him over the dividing fence. Somewhat put out, Mr. Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr. Peaslee, leaning over the fence, began.
"Ed'ards," he said, reaching out an anxious, deprecatory hand, "don't ye think you're jest a leetle mite hard on that boy o' yourn—"