“Well, Oscar, are you acquainted with the nature of an oath?”
“Laws, Sah, ain’t I been married mos’ forty years? My wife, she’s kinda handy wif her tongue,” and Oscar smiled, deprecatingly.
“I am not alluding to swearing,” exclaimed Penfield. “I mean the sort of oath requiring you to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”
“Laws, Sah, I tells de truf every day o’ my life,” replied Oscar with some indignation. “’Tain’t no occasion to tell me that.”
“Very well.” Penfield spoke with sternness. “Remember, you are under oath to tell only the truth. When did you last see Miss Susan Baird alive?”
Oscar blinked at the abruptness of the question. “Sunday mawning, Sah, when I was servin’ dinner at one o’clock.”
“Did she appear to be in good spirits?” asked Penfield. “In good health—” he added, noting Oscar’s mystified expression.
“Yessir. She ate real hearty, and when I went in de lib’ry after dinner, she was jes’ as peaceful an’ ca’m, a-sittin’ in that great easy chair o’ hers as if she never had had no words with Miss Kitty.”
“Oh, so Miss Baird had words with Miss Kitty—and who might Miss Kitty be?”
A startled look flitted across Ted Rodgers’ face, to be gone the next instant. He had followed the testimony of each witness with undivided attention, answering only in monosyllables the muttered remarks made to him occasionally by Ben Potter, whose expression of boredom had given place to more lively interest at sight of Oscar on his way to the witness chair.