Mr. Pennington was often mentioned in connection with her and the opinion expressed that he would yet turn up in Oak City. He had turned up there and was dead,—shot by Paul Ralston, for whom there were scarcely words enough in their vocabulary to express their indignation, until Stokes, who had heard Miss Hansford’s letter read, made them understand that it was not a case for lynching, as they had at first imagined. That New York had backslidden did not surprise them, but he was a good sort of cuss after all, and they stopped work half a day in honor of his memory, and suggested that a set of resolutions should be drawn up and forwarded to Elithe as a testimonial of respect for New York and sympathy for her. Naturally the task fell upon Stokes, who said he could not do it. He exhausted himself when he presented Sunshine to Elithe. Sam Blye was their next choice. His father had written some verses for a paper in Maine and he was supposed to come of literary stock. It was to be a kind of obituary as well as a testimonial, they said, and, proud of the honor conferred upon him, Sam went to work with a will and wrote: “Whereas, it has pleased God to take New York from us, we, the undersigned, hereby express our disapproval of the same, and think it a shabby thing to do.”
This, when read aloud, was received with howls of disgust as something highly disrespectful to the Almighty; but Sam would not give it up, and commenced again, with: “When in the course of human events,” and went on quite glibly until told it was an obituary they wanted, and not a Declaration of Independence.
“That’s so, by Gosh!” Sam said. “I’ll have to give it up and let New York slide. But we’ll send our regrets to Miss Elithe and tell her if she wants us to come down and break the chap’s head for her, we’ll do it. Ain’t he the ‘P. R.’ who sent so many telegraphs when Miss Elithe was sick that New York looked black as thunder? I’ll bet you they both wanted her and fit over her, and that’s what’s the matter. Maybe she likes ‘P. R.’ the best. There’s no tellin’ what a woman will do.”
Taking a fresh sheet of paper, Sam wrote in a very scrawling hand: “To Miss Elithe Hansford, Greeting:—We, the undersigned, send our Regrets, and are just as sorry for you as we can be, and if you want us to come down in a body and break that ‘P. R.’s bones, we’ll do it, or if you want us to come and get him out of jail, we’ll do it. Take your choice. Yours to command,
“SAMUEL BLYE, Secretary.”
Then followed a list of the men’s names, written in every sort of calligraphy, from good to bad, some of them X marks, and the whole covering a sheet of foolscap. This was taken to Mr. Hansford, with a request that he send it in his letter to Elithe.
“Don’t do it. It’s too ridiculous,” his wife said, but Mr. Hansford did not think so.
It would divert Elithe’s mind a little from herself, he said, and it did. It made her laugh and cry both, but laugh the most, and that did her good. The last part of her father’s letter was a help and comfort to her. Her aunt had written: “She don’t know what to do when she is on the stand. She’ll tell the truth, of course, but she don’t want to give Paul away.”
To this Roger replied: “You’ll find out fast enough what to do. When once you are on the stand, if you go there, answer what is asked you, telling the exact truth, but do not volunteer information and open doors for the lawyers to enter. Keep up your courage. We are all praying for you here, and something tells me it will yet be right and Mr. Ralston freed.”
Elithe had more faith in her father’s prayers and beliefs than in her aunt’s bones. The latter were very apt to forbode evil and in Paul’s case they prognosticated the worst. Still Miss Hansford tried to keep up and to keep Elithe up with her, while the days slipped by and the whole town talked of little beside the coming trial, which attracted the attention of the entire State, for the Ralstons were well known and Paul’s friends were legion. The newspapers were full of it and several came out with the story that Jack Percy had been engaged to the girl who was to appear against Paul Ralston. This added fresh interest to the affair, and although many of the summer visitors had gone home, and among them most of the guests bidden to the wedding, the town was seldom more crowded than it was for a part of that September long to be remembered in Oak City.