Elihu was dazed with the sudden release as the handcuffs were taken off. After Mr. Stout left I gave Elihu a talk about the disgrace of cursing and making a disturbance, and I said:—
"Elihu, the distance will be measured and if it is less than fifty yards you will have to try and work that $50 out."
"Oh, yes, miss, de Lawd bless you, en I thank you too mutch, en I'll do all you want me to do."
And I made the best of my way home with Goliah behind. All the servants were wild with delight when they heard the result, and Chloe had a nice supper for me, but I was too tired to eat. The depths had been stirred within me and I could only go to the piano and play Rachmaninoff's grand prelude over and over until I was quieted.
Mr. Haman, the magistrate, is a man of foreign birth, and speaks broken English, a German, I suppose. He drifted here after the war and married the daughter of a very excellent old German who had bought a plantation and settled here at that period of change and unrest. Two years ago he was elected to his present office to the surprise of every one.
December 23.
The household was astir early this morning. As I felt it was a moment when I would like to have a gentleman with me, immediately after breakfast I drove over to my good neighbor Mr. F. and asked him if he would come with me and see the distance measured.
He said he would come with pleasure, and he got into my buckboard. Mr. F. with Jim's help measured and found the distance from Bill's house to the public road 250 feet, more than eighty yards. I was greatly relieved, for though I can generally trust my eye for distances I never had thought of this special space and had nothing to compare it with in my mind. It was simply an impression, I may say a conviction; and if it was wrong I would have to borrow $50, for I had not that much in the world that I could put my hand on at this moment.
Still I would rather do that than have Elihu punished and disgraced when he was really in the right.
Just as Mr. F. had finished measuring, Mr. Stout the deputy sheriff drove up in a very fine buggy with another white man. I greeted them pleasantly and begged them to measure the distance at once, without saying that I had relieved my mind by doing so already. Mr. Stout assisted by Mr. Oliver took the measurements and pronounced it 250 feet. Then Mr. Stout handed me my check for $50.