"No, sir; I don't take no money for what I give a man." This came with a slight touch of indignation.
"Do you know who put it there?"
"Well, there warn't nobody but Luke Shanders could 'a' done it, 'cause nobody had the glass but him. I heard since that it was all a put-up job, that they had swore I kep' a roadside, and they had sot the dep'ty onto me; but I don't like to think men kin be so mean, and I ain't a-sayin' it now. If they knew what I've suffered for what they done to me, they couldn't help but feel sorry for me if they're human."
He stopped and passed his hands wearily over his forehead. The jury sat still, their eyes riveted on the speaker. Even the red-faced man was listening now.
For an instant there was a pause. Then the old man reached forward in his seat, his elbows on his knees, his hands held out as if in appeal, and in a low, pleading tone addressed the jury. Strange to say, neither the buzzard nor the Judge interrupted the unusual proceeding:
"Men, I hope you will let me go home now; won't you, please? I ain't never been 'customed all my life to bein' shut up, and it comes purty hard, not bein' so young as I was. I ain't findin' no fault, but it don't seem to me I ever done anythin' to deserve all that's come to me lately. I got 'long best way I could over there"—and he pointed in the direction of the steel cages—"till las' week, when Sam Jelliff come down to see his boy and told me the wife was took sick bad, worse than she's been yet. She ain't used to bein' alone; you'd know that if you could see her. The neighbors is purty good to her, I hear, but nobody don't understand her like me, she and me bein' so long together—mos' fifty years now. You'll let me go home, won't you, men? I git so tired, so tired; please let me go."
The buzzard was on his feet now, his arms sawing the air, his strident voice filling the courtroom.
He pleaded for the machine—for the safety of the community, for the majesty of the law. He demanded instant conviction for this trickster, this Fagin among men, this hoary-headed old scoundrel who had insulted the intelligence of twelve of the most upright men he had ever seen in a jury-box, insulted them with a tale that even a child would laugh at. When at last he folded his wings, hunched up his shoulders and sat down, and the echoes of his harsh voice had died away, it seemed to me that I could hear vibrating through the room, as one hears the murmur of a brook after a storm, the tender tones of the old man pleading as if for his life.