Page:Teeftallow-1926.djvu/23
about rousing a churchful of people which would appeal to any hill youth. "Is that so?" said Abner.
"Yep, a juryman told me confidenshul so's I could git the boys out of harm's way before the officer reached 'em. This same feller told me also that the Gran' Jury had billed me agin for totin' concealed weepins an' disturbin' public worship." Zed gave a disgusted snort. "That comes of tryin' to ca'm some fool who ralely is disturbin' public worship; and as fer totin' concealed weepins, how'd anybody know I had a gun if it was concealed? That's one kind of bill that don't make no sense, Abner."
Zed drew out a red handkerchief and mopped his face which was wet from summer heat and the rising flush of whisky. He wadded the sour handkerchief back into his hip pocket and ruminated, "Well, I dunno whether to skip the country and go to Texas fer awhile, or hire a lawyer and beat my case, or walk up an' pay my fine, or jess please guilty and lay her out in jail. . . ." Zed sucked his teeth calmly to salvage the shreds of an orange as he pondered these four possibilities. The prospect of spending a period of time in jail did not even break the sequence of his customary movements to cleanse his teeth. He opened the blade of his jackknife to a right angle with the handle, and with this instrument got at some of the more inaccessible teeth very handily.
Now Abner was not attending Zed's account of the jury's findings; he was still thinking about Mr. Parrum's question, "Do you want to know her?" As a matter of fact, Abner did very earnestly want to know her, and now he wondered why Zed had asked such a question. The fact that Zed had not called her name told Abner Zed himself did not know the girl, so why should Zed ask, "Do you want to know her?" That sounded as if by some hook or crook Zed knew some way of crossing the conventional abyss which separated Abner from the girl and bringing them together. The boy wondered curiously and with a faint rising excitement how this could possibly be. At last he interrupted a continued