As the train slowed down two more trainmen appeared and the three began kicking me. I jumped off and fell into the hands of the constable, who came up reënforced by some natives from the depot. They all fell on me and gave me an unmerciful skull dragging. After they got done scruffing me around, two of them took me by each arm and the constable fastened both hands in my coat collar from behind. The ones that couldn’t find a place to lay hold on me surrounded us, a tribe of small boys appeared from nowhere, and I was dragged, pushed, and bumped across the fields to the village and thrown into the jail.
When I was safely locked in, the constable mopped his forehead with his sleeve, and, shaking his fist at me, said: “Sure as God made little apples I’ll see that you get ten days.” They all went away then except the small boys. They lingered around all afternoon peeping in at the windows.
It was a mail-order jail—two steel cells on a concrete foundation. A cheap wooden shack had been built around the cells to keep the weather out. The door of the shack was always open and there was plenty of light. The cell they put me in was clean, and there was a roll of new blankets in it. I was the only prisoner.
I unrolled the blankets and, stretching out on the floor, tried to figure out what had happened. I couldn’t understand the constable’s threat to get me ten days, and concluded he was so excited that he said ten days when he meant ten years.
He turned out to be a very decent fellow. He was postmaster, section boss, and constable. He appeared at the jail in the evening with a big dishpan full of food—bread, meat, butter, a fruit jar full of fresh milk, and half a pie. He apologized for having lost his temper and treating me so roughly, asked me if I wanted tobacco, and made a special trip back to his house for some old magazines.
I was surprised to learn that I had been arrested for trespass, or stealing a ride. He explained that the bums had burned a string of box cars farther up the road and the “company” had sent out orders to arrest them on sight and give them ten days.
“It’s a wonder somebody along the road didn’t tell you about it,” he said. “You’re the first one I’ve seen for a month. The bums are all going over the Union Pacific now instead of the Rio Grande. It’s too bad, you’ll get ten days sure in the morning. Company’s orders. Good night.”
I put in most of the night trying to think up a talk for the judge next morning. After bringing my breakfast the constable went after him, and about nine o’clock they appeared, a few town loungers following them. They didn’t even take me out of the cell for my “trial.”
The judge asked my name, read the law from a code he brought along, listened patiently to my talk, and solemnly sentenced me to ten days in the jail. I asked him to take my ten-dollar bill and let me go, but he refused it.
“Sorry, young man. Can’t do it. Company’s orders, ten days.”