第53章 CHAPTER XVI.(3)

"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 three days and four nights. You'd better believe Igot pretty wild about it, but I come to court every day an' waited an' waited, bringin' somethin' to eat in a baskit.

"One day, at dinner-time, I seed the judge astandin' at the court-room door, a-wipin' his forrid with a handkerchief, an' I went up to him an' said, 'Do you think, sir, they'll get through this thing soon?'

"'I can't say, indeed,' said he. 'Are you interested in the case?'

"'I should think I was,' said I, an' then I told him about Jone's bein' a juryman, an' how we was on our bridal-trip.

"'You've got my sympathy, madam,' says he, 'but it's a difficult case to decide, an' I don't wonder it takes a good while.'

"'Nor I nuther,' says I, 'an' my opinion about these things is, that if you'd jus' have them lawyers shut up in another room, an'

make 'em do their talkin' to theirselves, the jury could keep their minds clear, and settle the cases in no time.'

"'There's some sense in that, madam,' says he, an' then he went into court ag'in.

"Jone never had no chance to jine in with the other fellers, for they couldn't agree, an' they were all discharged, at last. So the whole thing went for nuthin.

"When Jone come out, he looked like he'd been drawn through a pump-log, an' he says to me, tired-like, "'Has there been a frost?'

"'Yes,' says I, 'two of 'em.'

"'All right, then,' says he. 'I've had enough of bridal-trips, with their dry falls, their lunatic asylums, and their jury-boxes.

Let's go home and settle down. We needn't be afraid, now that there's been a frost.'""Oh, why will you live in such a dreadful place?" cried Euphemia.

"You ought to go somewhere where you needn't be afraid of chills.""That's jus' what I thought, ma'am," returned Pomona. "But Jone an' me got a disease-map of this country an' we looked all over it careful, an' wherever there wasn't chills there was somethin' that seemed a good deal wuss to us. An' says Jone, 'If I'm to have anything the matter with me, give me somethin' I'm used to. It don't do for a man o' my time o' life to go changin' his diseases.'""So home we went. An' there we is now. An' as this is the end of the bridal-trip story, I'll go an' take a look at the cow an' the chickens an' the horse, if you don't mind."Which we didn't,--and we gladly went with her over the estate.