The Story of a Country Town

by E. W. Howe

Jo seemed to be more contented than since the night he came to me with the fatal letter, and spent his days in reading, and lounging about. I thought of him as a man taking a long-contemplated rest from weary work, and as one who thoroughly enjoyed his ease. Although there was always something of sadness in his manner, he was more like himself than since we were boys, and we spent our evenings so pleasantly together that I often regretted that we could not have been as contented as we were without the commission of so great a crime.

Before he went to prison he was unable to sleep at night, but now he retired to his bed early, and slept soundly. Indeed, frequently he did not waken until the middle of the day, as if he were making up for lost time, and often spoke thankfully of the circumstance that he could enjoy his rest again, as he did when a boy. His manner was so gentle that I thought of him as one who had been purified by great suffering, and if I had loved him before, in his misfortune and danger I loved him a thousand times more. After he had gone to sleep at night, it was my custom to toss about for a long while, thinking how we could avoid the consequences of his crime, and, after a troubled night, get up early in the morning to talk over and over again with those I had employed to advise me, for Jo would not see them. They had the greatest hope, and took unusual interest in the case, and I understood their policy would be to delay a trial as long as possible, when opportunities for his release would be plentiful enough. When they were finally forced to trial, they could at least secure a jury that would fail to agree, and as no one had seen the murder, they hoped to be able to establish that Bragg had fallen out of his buggy in fright when Jo appeared before him, thus permitting the wheels to run across his neck.

Damon Barker came to town on the second afternoon following the murder, accompanied by Big Adam, who carried an immense club of green hickory with a knot on the end, as though he expected a few friends would attack the jail and release the prisoner, and during the grave interview between his master and myself, he kept critically examining the club, squinting along it to see if it were properly proportioned, or hefting it from the little end. With a piece of chalk he marked out a rude figure of a man on the wall, and after writing “Officer” over it in great capital letters, he stood off, and measured the distance he would have to stand from it in order to do effective service with his club. After this point was settled, he calculated by experiment where a man of the size of the figure could be injured most by striking, and having decided that the head was the place, he made an X with the chalk at the point selected, and practised until he could hit that spot every time. He did this with so much seriousness, and we were all so serious that day, that we paid little attention to him. When Barker inquired what time he could see Jo, and I answered “To-night,” Big Adam said, in a voice hoarser than usual, “The earlier the better, and let those who stand in the way look out for their heads!” at the same time ominously shaking his stick of hickory. When informed that there was to be no rescue, he was very much disappointed and was silent the remainder of the day.

Barker was never a man of words, and he expressed no opinion about the matter, although he frequently said that at any time I needed him, I had only to say the word, no matter what the service might be. If he was at a loss to understand the difference between Jo’s case and his own, he did not mention it, and held his peace. When he went to the prison to see Jo in the evening, I thought his word of greeting was almost a sob, as I remember him on the night he came to claim Agnes, but he soon recovered himself, and we spent the evening quite pleasantly. Big Adam, who accompanied us, spent his time in critically examining the bars at the windows, and in testing their strength, and he apparently became convinced that there was little hope in that direction, and that the only thing to do was to storm it from the outside. During the evening he wrote a note and asked me to deliver it to the sheriff, and after he went away I looked at it. It began, “My opinion of the officer,” followed by the largest number of blasphemous words I have ever seen collected, though they had no reference to each other, every one being complete in itself, as an expression of hate. There were also a great many vile words mixed in with the blasphemous ones, and at the bottom he signed his name in full, whereby I came into possession of the fact that his full name was John Adam Casebolt.

At this time I cannot remember how long it was before Bragg’s father came, but within an hour after his arrival he walked quietly into the office, and, after waiting my pleasure, asked me to tell the story of his son’s death. He was a distressed sort of a man, as though he had had a great deal of trouble in his life, and I honestly tried to tell the circumstances of the death without prejudice. Of Bragg’s systematic persecution of Jo; of his aimless excursions past his house; of his insolence and over-bearance, I spoke at considerable length, and detailed numerous instances when I knew he had passed the mill at midnight, though he had not been at the Shepherds’. I told him of his son’s renewed attentions after the separation, though he had been the cause of it, and I expressed the opinion that he had brought about the marriage, not for love of Mateel, but for revenge on a man who had never harmed him, for she was such a hopeless invalid that marriage with any one was the merest farce.

He made no replies to anything I said, but occasionally asked a question to make a point clearer, and when I had finished, he thanked me for my trouble, and went out, walking past the jail on his way back to the hotel, and I thought he peered curiously up at the windows, as if he were anxious to see Jo.

I saw him a great deal after that, and knew that he was in consultation with an attorney, but he talked to no one else. After remaining two or three weeks, he quietly disappeared, and it was learned that he had returned home, leaving his case in the hands of the public prosecutor.

When I told Jo of my strange visitor, he was much interested, and referred to him as a “poor fellow,” saying it was too bad that he had travelled so far on such a sad journey. He inquired carefully after his personal appearance, his manners, etc., and I almost expected that he would ask that he be invited to see him.

It was my custom to leave the prison at an early hour in the morning and not return again until night, except to call cheerfully to Jo as I passed that way, but I always spent my evenings with him, and greatly enjoyed them because we were never disturbed.

When I came round to be admitted, Jo was always waiting for me, and one evening, when he had been unusually thoughtful, he said to me:—