FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>   >|  
n the jury, and I wasn't there, so he didn't sell it. Been tryin' to for a week. He told the old lady that was his last day here, and he was leavin' then." "And about what time of night was it when you heard the shot in Isom Chase's house, and ran over?" "Along about first rooster-crow," said Sol. "And that might be about what hour?" "Well, I've knowed 'em to crow at 'leven this time o' year, and ag'in I've knowed 'em to put it off as late as two. But I should judge that it was about twelve when I come over here the first time last night." Sol was excused with that. He left the witness-chair with ponderous solemnity. The coroner's stenographer had taken down his testimony, and was now leaning back in his chair as serenely as if unconscious of his own marvelous accomplishment of being able to write down a man's words as fast as he could talk. Not so to those who beheld the feat for the first time. They watched the young man, who was a ripe-cheeked chap with pale hair, as if they expected to catch him in the fraud and pretense of it in the end, and lay bare the deceit which he practised upon the world. The coroner was making notes of his own, stroking his black beard thoughtfully, and in the pause between witnesses the assembled neighbors had the pleasure of inspecting the parlor of dead Isom Chase which they had invaded, into which, living, he never had invited them. Isom's first wife had arranged that room, in the hope of her young heart, years and years ago. Its walls were papered in bridal gaiety, its colors still bright, for the full light of day seldom fell into it as now. There hung a picture of that bride's father, a man with shaved lip and a forest of beard from ears to Adam's apple, in a little oval frame; and there, across the room, was another, of her mother, Quakerish in look, with smooth hair and a white something on her neck and bosom, held at her throat by a portrait brooch. On the table, just under that fast-writing young man's eyes, was a glass thing shaped like a cake cover, protecting some flowers made of human hair, and sprigs of bachelor's button, faded now, and losing their petals. There hung the marriage certificate of Isom and his first wife, framed in tarnished gilt which was flaking from the wood, a blue ribbon through a slit in one corner of the document, like the pendant of a seal, and there stood the horsehair-upholstered chairs, so spare of back and thin of shank that the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

knowed

 

coroner

 

bridal

 
mother
 
papered
 

arranged

 
seldom
 

bright

 

smooth

 

Quakerish


forest
 

shaved

 

picture

 

father

 

colors

 
gaiety
 

shaped

 

flaking

 

ribbon

 
tarnished

petals

 
marriage
 

certificate

 

framed

 

chairs

 

upholstered

 

horsehair

 
corner
 

document

 

pendant


losing

 

writing

 

brooch

 

portrait

 

throat

 

sprigs

 

bachelor

 

button

 

flowers

 

protecting


pretense

 

twelve

 

stenographer

 

testimony

 

leaning

 

solemnity

 
ponderous
 

excused

 

witness

 

leavin