“We've got to borrow some hosses,” the sheriff answered. “We want three—one fer each. We're goin' to try to dodge them blood-thirsty mobs, Mrs. Parsons, an' put this feller in jail, whar he'll be safe.”
“That boy?” The woman came down the steps, rolling her sleeves up. “Why, that boy didn't kill them folks. I know that boy, he's the son of old Mammy Linda and Uncle Lewis Warren. Now, look here, Jeff Braider, don't you and Bill King go and make eternal fools o' yourselves. That boy didn't no more do that nasty work than I did. It ain't in 'im. He hain't that look. I know niggers as well as you or anybody else.”
“No, I didn't do it, Mrs. Parsons,” the prisoner affirmed. “I didn't! I didn't!”
“I know you didn't,” said the woman. “Wasn't I standin' here in the door this mornin' and saw him git up an' go out to git his wood and cook his breakfast? Then I seed 'im shoulder his grubbin'-hoe and go to the field to work. You officers may think you know it all, but no nigger ain't agoin' to stay around like that after killin' a man an' woman in cold blood. The nigger that did that job was some scamp that's fur from the spot by this time, and not a boy fetched up among good white folks like this one was, with the best old mammy and daddy that ever had kinky heads.”
“But witnesses say he threatened Abe Johnson a month ago,” argued Braider. “I have to do my duty, Mrs. Parsons. There never would be any justice if we overlooked a thing as pointed as that is.”
“Threatened 'im?” the woman cried; “well, what does that prove? A nigger will talk back an' act surly on his death-bed if he's mad. That's all the way they have of defendin' theirselves. If Pete hadn't talked some after the lashin' he got from them men, thar'd 'a' been some'n' wrong with him. Now, you let 'im loose. As shore as you start off with that boy, he'll be lynched. The fact that you've got 'im in tow will be all them crazy men want. You couldn't get two miles in any direction from here without bein' stopped; they are as thick as fleas on all sides, an' every road is under watch.”
“I'm sorry I can't take yore advice, Mrs. Parsons,” Braider said, almost out of patience. “I've got my duty to perform, an' I know what it is a sight better than you do.”
“If you start off with that boy his blood will be on yore head,” the woman said, firmly. “Left alone, and advised to hide opt till this excitement is over, he might stand a chance to save his neck; but with you—why, you mought as well stand still and yell to that crazy gang to come on.”
“Well, we've got to git horses to go on with, and yours are the nearest.”
“Huh! you won't ride no harmless nigger to the scaffold on my stock,” the woman said, sharply. “I know whar my duty lies. A woman with a thimbleful of brains don't have to listen to a long string of testimony to know a murderer when she sees one; that boy's as harmless as a baby and you are trying your level best to have him mobbed.”