e was dressed; and where
Temple Scott and Joe Rainey was when he first saw them, and if he knew
Harold Carman, and what the names of the other people were who came
out; and what he did the day before, and the week before, and the week
after; and whether he didn't fight and whip Kit O'Brien, and everything
you ever heard of from the time Mitch was a baby. It took all the
afternoon. And when Mitch got off the witness stand he was kind of weak,
and his pa went up to him and led him out, and then they locked up the
jury to keep 'em from hearin' anything. And the case went over till the
next morning.

And the next mornin' we was all down there as before. When court took
up, Major Abbott and my pa and the judge went into the judge's room and
nobody knew what was said, the same as before, and when they came out,
Major Abbott said:

"Your honor, such unusual things have been done in this case that I am
compelled to do some myself. I shall call the defendant to the witness
stand." So he called Temple Scott and he went up and was questioned. He
went on to say that Joe Rainey called him an awful name, and said, "I'll
kill you, and I'll get my pistol." That Joe Rainey went in the house and
came out and fired, and that he fired then, and that he saw Joe Rainey's
pistol fall out of his hand right down by the porch somewheres; that
then he gave himself up, and that's all he knew.

My pa cross-questioned him awful hard for about an hour, and asked him
how he happened to have a pistol on him. He said he was afraid of Joe
Rainey on account of the threats. And then my pa asked him why he didn't
tell his story in the first place, and not wait till Mitch testified;
and he said he didn't have to, the law didn't require him to. And so it
went, and at last he got off the stand, and the case was closed. Then
the speeches began. My pa talked calm like, reviewin' the evidence and
so forth. And then Major Abbott got up and put a glass of water on the
table and wiped his glasses off and said, "May it please your honor,"
and began.

He said it was a privilege to be here in the community that Lincoln had
hallowed, and to stand in the very room he had stood in so many times,
pleading for right and justice, and to plead for right and justice too.
And that all his client wanted was justice; that he, as a defending
lawyer, was as much sworn to support the law as the State's Attorney,
and he wanted to see it enforced, and meant to have it enforced. An