Mitch Miller

by Edgar Lee Masters

Then after takin' up the case about the threats and everything, he began on Mitch.

"Think of it, gentlemen," he said, "here is a boy who waits until the case is closed, and we have a right to think that all they can bring against my client has been brought, and then this boy turns up to swear away his life. Let us be charitable, but let us be just. I must do my duty and to do it, I must speak. Here is a boy who confesses that he never told a word about what he saw until yesterday. He confesses that he kept it to himself in order that he might hunt treasure and run away from the orders of this court; he confesses that he has deceived his father, that he has been truant and bad. Yes, and above all, gentlemen, he confesses he has dreams and sees visions. He believes that a book, a story, is true; that its characters are real; that a boy named Tom Sawyer really lives; and he ran away to see him; and yet they ask you to believe such a boy in the face of this evidence. Why, you wouldn't convict a yellow dog on such testimony—you are men who know boys and know life and its affairs, and you know this story is the result of a pure dream. I'll be charitable; the boy is dreaming; he is a dreamy boy, an imaginative boy, a wonderful boy—but he is not to be believed. He never saw this at all. He was never in that tree. The chances are he picked up this pistol the next morning after passing there—after those people had come out and searched for the pistol—who had heard three shots, one of one report, and two of a different report. Why they didn't find the pistol, God only knows; and the witness who could testify to it is gone and here we are. And if you ask who the other witnesses are, I confess I don't know. We could have found their names if we could have talked with Harold Carman; but he's gone. And here we are, yes, in the community of Lincoln, but in a community where cowardly people and bad people live, like other communities. I say this because these other people, whoever they are, should have come forward and made themselves known. It would have been gracious if some people had come forward to tell the truth and save; and not leave it to a boy, and him alone, to come forward, and condemn and seek to destroy."

Then he drew an awful picture of the gallows and the penitentiary, and said, "Think of it. To be choked to death on the gallows. To be for years behind prison bars; or to go home to your old father and mother and be blessed, and be a blessing and get back your good name."

The jury cried, everybody nearly cried—everybody but Mitch who was sittin' by me. Mitch says: "He's the dandiest liar I ever heard. I almost admire him."

Then my pa got up and of all the speeches you ever heard! The shivers just ran up and down my back. And in about five minutes he had that jury so you could knock their eyes off with a stick. He had 'em right in his hand. And he said:

"You dare to disbelieve this boy—you dare to! What does it mean? Harold Carman ran away. But where are the others? Echo answers where. Major Abbott stands up here and says that he doesn't know their names, that if Harold Carman hadn't gone away, he'd know their names, and he gets before the jury, as if he were testifying, the fact that Harold Carman is away and what he would say if he were here. He slips that in; and it's improper and he knows it. He may be a good lawyer, and he is, but he isn't a witness in this case. And suppose you accept his word and this story—what do you say? You say that in this community—call it the community of Lincoln or of the devil, there are people so low, so murderous in their hearts, that they will allow a fellow being to be prosecuted and never come forward to tell what they know, which if they told it, would clear Temple Scott before this jury on the spot. And that isn't all, if you accept this story, you say that I haven't done my duty; you say that the man you elected to enforce the law will use his power to pervert the law; will fail to get all the facts before the jury. Because you couldn't imagine that there are such witnesses who came out looking for a pistol and I wouldn't have heard it and known about it. And if I did, and didn't get them, I wouldn't be fit to be your State's Attorney, or to hold any position of trust whatever. Where is Harold Carman? It doesn't make any difference where he is. Where are the others? They're not in this town or any other town. They're not any more in being than Tom Sawyer; but they are unlike Tom Sawyer, for as a piece of fiction he is real; and as fiction, these people are unreal and don't convince."

And then my pa said: "Now, let's take up the pistol. Both sides here, everybody agrees the pistol was there. The dispute is how it got there. Consider this: Why would they come out and begin to look for a pistol? Who told them to? Who told them to look by the porch? How did they know before they got there where to look first? You've seen this pistol here—it's Joe Rainey's pistol—and here is something my astute friend overlooked; one of the cartridges is out—the rest are there—one is clear out, not shot, exploded, with the shell left, but clear out. How did that happen? Do you believe Mitchie Miller did that? Are you going to ascribe to him such devilish cunning as that? No, gentlemen, the hand that placed that pistol by the porch slipped the cartridge out first. The hand that placed that pistol there depended upon the story of three shots being fired, and in the insanity of the moment, slipped out a cartridge; and for a very good reason. It couldn't be fired at such a time. There were only two shots, according to the fair weight of the evidence; there were two bullets found in Joe Rainey's body; and those two bullets were fired by the hand of Temple Scott."

As my pa said this, his voice rose up so you could hear him all over town. John Armstrong said you could have heard him clear to Oakford. The audience just shivered when pa said this.

"Let me go on," said pa. "Let us assume Joe Rainey comes in and runs up-stairs for his pistol and goes out. Well, they pick him up on the porch and no pistol is on him. Then they come out and look, but find no pistol. What would they have done? There would have been talk so loud about that missing pistol that even Major Abbott could have heard it—clear over to Jerseyville. Why was nothing said? Because the hand that put that pistol there, the woman that put it there was terrified. She was afraid that some one had seen her put it there; she knew some one picked it up that she didn't want to have pick it up—she was afraid it would turn up against her in the wrong hands. And she and this crowd—whoever they were—if there was one, were afraid to go on with the evidence they had started to manufacture. And this testimony of Mitchie Miller is every word true. You saw his face, you heard him, you know he wouldn't lie—and as for having visions—if he dreamed this, he would be fit for an asylum, and every one of you could see it—and he would be in an asylum."

Than pa just lit into Temple Scott. He said he was a coward, and he said when Joe Rainey asked him not to come to his house any more, it was his business to stay away. And that for himself he meant to stop lawlessness in the town. He intended to do his duty so fully that people would be afraid to break the law and take life. And then he said he had done his duty, and now the jury had to do theirs, and he left the case with them.