“Gran’pap! Oh, Gran’pap! I did it. I pulled up the stakes. I threw ’em into the brook. I did it in the night—in the night—in the moonlight. Oh, Gran’pap!”
He crossed the bar, wound his way among chairs and tables, reached the witness box, and stood there leaning against it, and looking up beseechingly into his grandfather’s face.
For one moment Abner Pickett sat motionless, as if he were stunned, looking with staring eyes at the boy standing below him. Then he reached his long arms out over the rail and wound them about his grandson’s shoulders, and then he hid his rugged face in the soft curls that clustered on the boy’s neck.
[CHAPTER VIII]
The moment of silence in the court room was followed by a confused murmur of voices. People were moving about in their seats and craning their necks, anxious to see. Charlie Pickett was on his feet, his face flushed, his breast heaving with emotion, his eyes fixed on the two figures at the witness stand. When Abner Pickett lifted his face from Dannie’s neck, his eyes were filled with tears.
“Where did you come from, Dannie?” he asked; and Dannie answered:—
“I came from home, Gran’pap.”
“Not to-day?”