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Teeftallow

second story. Abner heard the crowd whispering about this trial, "Peck Bradley's got Buckingham Sharp for his lawyer." "The Sheltons have fee'd John A. Stone." A murder trial is the one event in Lane County where life is sufficiently concentrated and foreshortened for the hill folk to feel the grip and drama of its flow. Listening to these rumours, Abner forgot the girl again and struggled forward with a desire to get into the Circuit Court and see this legal battle. Unfortunately, his serious business of avoiding an education lay in the relative penny show of the county court on the lower floor. He followed Railroad Jones and Mr. Sandage through a dirty door into the county courtroom, which was itself congested. The best the trio could do was to press themselves around the walls and finally line up when they came to an open space. Here they stood and looked over the crowded house. In a little railed-off chancel sat the justices of the peace of the county who composed the court. Behind a desk facing the justices lolled a musty old man who was the county judge, and by virtue of his office, the chairman of the court. At his side sat the county court clerk, a rough blond young man with a bored look. An officer "waited" on the court; this was a constable from an outlying district. The constable now beckoned a crippled man inside the chancel before the justices. The county judge leaned over to expectorate into a private cuspidor beside his chair, then looked appraisingly at the cripple.

"Gentlemen of the court," he mumbled around a quid of tobacco, "this crippled man wants to peddle goods in Lane County without a license; you-all see how crippled he is, are you ready for the question?"

A voice from the justices signified readiness.

"All in favour of lettin' him peddle without a license vote aye; all opposed, no."

A grunting of ayes filled the courtroom.

"Ayes have it. Mr. Clerk, enter among yore notes that Tobe Weatherby can peddle goods in Lane County without a license. What's next on docket?"

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