“This reminds me of the first habeas corpus case I ever witnessed. In my youth I was traveling in the far West, and stopped, to get over an attack of chills, at the first house that would take me in. It was a better sort of log cabin, on the farm of Judge Starr, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State; and it was occupied by the judge, his wife and a hired boy. I had to sleep in the loft with the hired boy. The judge and his wife occupied the room below as parlor, bedroom, dining room and kitchen——”
“Oh, what living for civilized and enlightened human beings!” exclaimed Mrs. Force.
“He lives in a five-hundred-thousand-dollar house now, my dear, and if it were not irreverent to say so, I might almost add that his ‘cattle’ are ‘upon a thousand hills.’ But that is not the point now. On the morning after my arrival I heard the judge say to his wife—for you could hear through the gaping planks of the loft floor every word that was spoken in the room below—I heard him say:
“‘That case of little Valley Henley will come up to-day.’
“‘Will it?’ she replied. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what to do, Nick! You leave it to the child herself.’
“‘I will,’ said the judge.”
“And yet they say women have no power! And here was the wife of one of the judges of the supreme court of the State, ordering him what to do!” exclaimed Wynnette.
“Well,” continued Mr. Force, “about ten o’clock, having taken a warm cup of coffee, brought up to me by Mrs. Judge, and having got over the fever that followed the chill, I arose and dressed and went downstairs. But Mrs. Judge was ‘in the suds,’ and the room was full of hot steam; so I walked out into the back yard, where I found the judge in his red shirt sleeves, sawing wood. Almost before I could say good-morning, came the hired boy and proclaimed:
“‘They’re come.’
“‘Bring them right in here,’ said the judge, and he threw down his saw and seated himself astraddle the log on the wood horse.