She said I had been in the house too much, looked pale, and that she was going to take me shopping. As we got up from the table she lingered a moment, saying something to father about taking some one's mind off something. And father said, yes until we can tell which way it will go. So I supposed they were talking business.
Señora Mendez is such a great grand sort of lady that usually one is a little in awe of her; but to-day she made me feel very much at home, as we drove down the street in her big open carriage. She never once mentioned the shooting, and I didn't have courage to speak of it myself. But we heard of it all around us. In the first shop we went into a woman just behind me said in a loud voice, "Do the rebels think they can shoot us all down as Wilkes Booth shot the president?" And then, again, at another shop where we were looking at lace, the clerk said, "This is a terrible thing for the city, Madam, the loss of such a valuable citizen." But Señora Mendez seemed not to hear him, and went on explaining to me the difference between honiton and thread, and showing me how beautiful embroidered net looked over pale blue silk, until I felt quite cheerful just through listening to her and looking at the pretty things. She wound up by buying me a lovely pair of thread lace sleeves, and swept me out in the wake of her train feeling almost happy again.
Just as we had got into the carriage two gentlemen with silk hats, very elegant indeed, came up and talked over the carriage door with her. The one with yellow gloves said, "This is a bad business. It's a good thing poor old lady Montgomery never lived to see this day." And the other said, "I wonder what the effect on the city will be?"
Señora Mendez said she hoped the effect would be a law requiring our young men to settle disputes with their fists instead of firearms, and that it was a shame nice boys would brawl in gambling-houses. She smiled and looked most easy and pleasant over it, and all the way up the street she chatted right along as if nothing serious had ever happened. But when we stopped at the house, just as I was leaving the carriage, she quickly took my face between her hands and kissed me hard on the forehead. "You poor little motherless duck," she said, and left me with the impression there had been tears in her eyes.
I wondered why she should feel so suddenly sorry for me; nevertheless I felt cheered and consoled—hadn't she spoken kindly of Johnny Montgomery as a nice boy? But it was the last good word I was to hear of him for a week. I needed the memory of that cheer and consolation through the next hard days.
For now that I was recovered from the shock of the first day I began to realize that the shooting of Martin Rood was not at all an ordinary shooting. It had stirred up great excitement. Only one month had passed since the president's assassination; the feeling against the Southerners was still very bitter, and not only were all the Montgomerys dyed-in-the-wool Alabamians, but some of the relatives had fought on the Southern side. Rumors flew about the city of a mob attacking the prison. There was a guard of soldiers around it the first night, and when they took him from there to the jail on Broadway, it was in the middle of an armed escort. All sorts of stories as to what had caused the shooting were abroad, but the one thing the reports agreed upon was the fact that the quarrel had been of long standing. This was very exciting to hear about, yet I didn't enjoy talking of it as the other girls did.
Only when I was alone, with hot cheeks and anxious eyes, I read through the long accounts that filled the papers, hoping to find some word in his favor. It seemed to me that the whole city was against Johnny Montgomery. The Bulletin had stories of another shooting down South, though it appeared that that time he had been the one who was shot at; and of how he had lost his money in land speculations of a doubtful character. The Alta California called him a rebel, and said that his career had been "a demoralizing influence to the youth of the city." Though, on the other hand, it called Mr. Rood our esteemed and lamented citizen, which was puzzling to me, for he was only a gambling-house keeper whom none of the best men in town was friendly with. But the papers spoke very warmly of him; called Mrs. Rood, Senior, his sorrowing mother, and then they mentioned the Spanish Woman. They said she had been in love with Rood, and that he had expected to marry her. That recalled a memory of what father had told me when I first asked him about the Spanish Woman—that she had money, and influence in high places—and I wondered what that influence could do to Johnny Montgomery's case. Altogether I was much disturbed. I hated to ask questions of father, he had been so distressed over my part in the affair; and besides he had been very busy that week, so many men interviewing him when he was at home—Mr. Dingley, and others who were not elegant, but very businesslike—that I hardly saw him except at meals. Once or twice I had caught him, when he thought I wasn't looking, watching me with an anxious and harassed expression; but most of the time he was preoccupied.
On the morning of the fourth day after the shooting, as I sat at breakfast, I took up the paper and read that the trial of the People Versus John Montgomery was set for the last week of May. I glanced down the column and a sentence caught my eye. "It is said the prosecution is in possession of sensational evidence which will materially affect the aspect of the case." I sat for some minutes with the paper in my hand, listening to it rustle, gathering my courage.
"Father," I finally said, "do you think that Mr. Montgomery is really wicked?"
He looked over at me with that smile of his which is most serious. "My dear child, I am not Almighty God."