They begin to meet us and shake hands from the time we hitched in front of Urfer’s big dry-goods store until we got clear inside the fence that surrounds the judge’s seat and divides the high-toned cattle from the low-toned breed. They all wanted to know if we had “ingaged counsel.”
When I told them that our family had counsel of its own blood, in the person of myself, Betsy Gaskins, wife of Jobe Gaskins, the defendant, they would kind a sneer and walk off. They looked hurt like, jist as a feller does when he loses a ten-dollar bill.
These lawyers seem kind a anxious that the people who are bein foreclosed should have “counsel,” but I could never see where “havin counsel” changes the foreclosin act any.
Well, we got inside the lawyers’ field, the officer opened court and the judge called the case of “Vinting, plaintiff, vs. Gaskins, defendant, for money only.” Says he:
“Are the parties to the case ready for trial?”
Jim Patrick, the lawyer, nodded his head and says, “Ready,” without even takin his feet off the table.
I dident have my feet on the table. But when the judge looked our way I nodded and says, “Ready.”
I hadent that word out of my mouth till Lawyer Porter riz to his feet, and, addressin the court, says:
“We hitched in front of Urfer’s big dry goods store.”