"Yes," says the doctor, very quiet, but raising his voice a little and looking him hard in the eyes.
"You and your gang can mean only one of two things. Either a bad joke, or else--"And he stopped a second, leaning forward in his chair, with the look of half raising out of it, so as to bring out the word very decided--"MURDER!"
The way he done it left that there word hanging in the room, so you could almost see it and almost feel it there, like it was a thing that had to be faced and looked at and took into account. They all felt it that-a-way, too; fur they wasn't a sound fur a minute. Then Will says:
"We don't plan murder, and you'll find this ain't a joke. And since you refuse to accept counsel--"Jest then Buck Hightower interrupts him by yell-ing out, "I make a motion Billy Harden be prosecut-ing attorney, then. Let's hurry this thing along!"And several started to applaud, and call fur Billy Harden to prosecute. But Will, he pounded down the applause agin, and says:
"I was about to suggest that Mr. Harden might be prevailed upon to accept that task.""Yes," says the doctor, very gentle and easy.
"Quite so! I fancied myself that Mr. Harden came along with the idea of making a speech either for or against." And he grinned at Billy Harden in a way that seemed to make him wild, though he tried not to show it. Somehow the doctor seemed to be all keyed up, instead of scared, like a feller that's had jest enough to drink to give him a fighting edge.
"Mr. Chairman," says Billy Harden, flushing up and stuttering jest a little, "I b-beg leave to d-d-decline.""What," says the doctor, sort of playing with Billy with his eyes and grin, and turning like to let the whole crowd in on the joke, "DECLINE? The eminent gentleman declines! And he is going to sit down, too, with all that speech bottled up in him! O Demosthenes!" he says, "you have lost your pebble in front of all Greece."Several grinned at Billy Harden as he set down, and three or four laughed outright. I guess about half of them there knowed him fur a wind bag, and some wasn't sorry to see him joshed. But I seen what the doctor was trying to do. He knowed he was in an awful tight place, and he was feeling that crowd's pulse, so to speak. He had been talking to crowds fur twenty years, and he knowed the kind of sudden turns they will take, and how to take advantage of 'em. He was planning and figgering in his mind all the time jest what side to ketch 'em on, and how to split up the one, solid crowd-mind into different minds. But the little bit of a laugh he turned against Billy Harden was only on the surface, like a straw floating on a whirl-pool. These men was here fur business.
Buck Hightower jumps up and says:
"Will, I'm getting tired of this court foolishness.
The question is, Does this man come into this county and do what he has done and get out again?
We know all about him. He sneaked in here and gave out he was here to turn the niggers white--that he was some kind of a new-fangled Jesus sent especially to niggers, which is blasphemy in itself--and he's got 'em stirred up. They're boilin' and festerin' with notions of equality till we're lucky if we don't have to lynch a dozen of 'em, like they did in Atlanta last summer, to get 'em back into their places again. Do we save ourselves more trouble by stringing him up as a warning to the negroes? Or do we invite trouble by turning him loose? Which? All it needs is a vote."And he set down agin. You could see he had made a hit with the boys. They was a kind of a growl rolled around the room. The feelings in that place was getting stronger and stronger. Iwas scared, but trying not to show it. My fingers kept feeling around in my pocket fur something that wasn't there. But my brain couldn't remember what my fingers was feeling fur. Then it come on me sudden it was a buckeye I picked up in the woods in Indiany one day, and I had lost it. I ain't super-stitious about buckeyes or horse-shoes, but remem-bering I had lost it somehow made me feel worse.
But Doctor Kirby had a good holt on himself; his face was a bit redder'n usual, and his eyes was spark-ling, and he was both eager and watchful. When Buck Hightower sets down the chairman clears his throat like he is going to speak. But--"Just a moment," says Doctor Kirby, getting on his feet, and taking a step toward the chairman.
