'n a day.'

"The old man harnessed up an' took Jone to the court-house, an' I went
too, for I might as well keep up the idea of a bridal-trip as not. I
went up into the gallery, and Jone, he was set among the other men in
the jury-box.

"The case was about a man named Brown, who married the half-sister of a
man named Adams, who afterward married Brown's mother, and sold Brown
a house he had got from Brown's grandfather, in trade for half a
grist-mill, which the other half of was owned by Adams's half-sister's
first husband, who left all his property to a soup society, in trust,
till his son should come of age, which he never did, but left a will
which give his half of the mill to Brown, and the suit was between Brown
and Adams and Brown again, and Adams's half-sister, who was divorced
from Brown, and a man named Ramsey, who had put up a new over-shot wheel
to the grist-mill."

"Oh my!" exclaimed Euphemia. "How could you remember all that?"

"I heard it so often, I couldn't help remembering it," replied Pomona.
And she went on with her narrative.

"That case wasn't a easy one to understand, as you may see for
yourselves, and it didn't get finished that day. They argyed over it a
full week. When there wasn't no more witnesses to carve up, one lawyer
made a speech, an' he set that crooked case so straight, that you
could see through it from the over-shot wheel clean back to Brown's
grandfather. Then another feller made a speech, and he set the whole
thing up another way. It was jus' as clear, to look through, but it was
another case altogether, no more like the other one than a apple-pie is
like a mug o' cider. An' then they both took it up, an' they swung it
around between them, till it was all twisted an' knotted an' wound up,
an' tangled, worse than a skein o' yarn in a nest o' kittens, an' then
they give it to the jury.

"Well, when them jurymen went out, there wasn't none of 'em, as Jone
tole me afterward, as knew whether is was Brown or Adams as was dead,
or whether the mill was to grind soup, or to be run by soup-power. Of
course they couldn't agree; three of 'em wanted to give a verdict for
the boy that died, two of 'em was for Brown's grandfather, an' the rest
was scattered, some goin' in for damages to the witnesses, who ought to
get somethin' for havin' their char-ac-ters ruined. Jone he jus' held
back, ready to jine the other eleven as soon as they'd agree. But they
couldn't do it, an' they was locked up