daubing the floor with his rag. “Six months to claim.”
“He ain’t here six months.”
“I know it.”
“I claim him, I’d even sell him back to that Ohio college they like him so much. He don’t look like a worker to me.”
“You can’t do it, Finn.”
“You sure about the six months?”
“I am.”
“That long?”
“That long.”
“A man could starve.”
“Or work.”
“I’ve run up against the law before.”
“I know it.”
“I don’t mean this.” Indicating with a flick of his eyes the cell, the crust of vomit still visible upon the bedframe, the recent past. “I mean the Judge.”
“I know.”
“Him and my own rightful inheritance, which it looks like I’ll never get as long as I live.”
“Stealing a nigger ain’t the way to fix your problem.”
“I reckon.”
But Finn is not without alternatives. When evening comes he takes up a position in the doorway of the Reform Church, where Professor Morris will be speaking, and assumes the pose of a mendicant, hat in hand and cheeks hollow and eyes brimming with woe. To the forward-looking faithful he is the veriest picture of need, unbesmirched by such associations as his figure may possess for those acquainted with the taverns and the marshal’s office and the courts, and they do unto him as they would have others do unto themselves.
He is gone before the professor climbs the steps to the pulpit, and on his tramp back to the cabin he stops at the riverside redoubt of a bootlegger for a gallon of whiskey that will hold him until he has an opportunity to use the rest of his newfound riches to lay in proper supplies.
J UDGE T HATCHER PERMITS the boy three dollars and before he can make use of it Finn has claimed it for his own. He awakens in the marshal’s office to discover that Thatcher is riding the circuit and he’ll be seeing a new man instead.
“This one a kindly sort?”
“Don’t know. Mostly he’s on the circuit.”
Finn looks as if he’s just been cheated at poker. “Time served’s always enough for Thatcher.”
“I know.”
“A person gets in the habit.”
“I know it.”
“Ain’t there a law on that subject?”
“Not that I know.”
“How one of them has to do like the other’n already done?”
“You mean following precedent.”
“Think I’d be smart to mention that?”
“I wouldn’t. No.”
Stone is the new judge’s name and he has a house in the village where he lives with his wife and his son and his daughter, a fine Christian gentleman presiding over a fine Christian family, and for Finn he has nothing in his heart but forgiveness. “I believe that a fellow such as yourself can be improved,” he says, careful not to say “saved” although “saved” is what he means.
“I do too. I believe it.”
Stone looks childlike to Finn, cherubic as a soprano in a boys’ choir. Tall and thin and pale, his high forehead crowned by a frill of swept-back hair the color of rust, he eyes Finn with the look a gardener would use upon a hedgerow that he means to prune.
“I have made a promise to myself, Mr. Finn. A promise that I shall never permit myself to give up on so much as a single soul. And I have kept that promise, regardless of how much evil and criminality I have witnessed.”
“You ain’t been a judge long.”
“No.”
“You giving me time served or some other?”
“Time served,” says Judge Stone, “with the admonition that rather than visiting a tavern tonight you spend the evening dining with my family and myself.”
In order to make Finn presentable to his wife and children the judge takes him to a dry-goods store and has him fitted with a new suit of clothes and a sturdy overcoat and a felt hat and a pair of boots, all at his own expense. Finn observes out loud that he will need to bedeck the left boot-heel with a cross of nails in order to keep away the devil, an idea that Stone receives as if it were the quaintest superstition from out of some impenetrable
“He ain’t here six months.”
“I know it.”
“I claim him, I’d even sell him back to that Ohio college they like him so much. He don’t look like a worker to me.”
“You can’t do it, Finn.”
“You sure about the six months?”
“I am.”
“That long?”
“That long.”
“A man could starve.”
“Or work.”
“I’ve run up against the law before.”
“I know it.”
“I don’t mean this.” Indicating with a flick of his eyes the cell, the crust of vomit still visible upon the bedframe, the recent past. “I mean the Judge.”
“I know.”
“Him and my own rightful inheritance, which it looks like I’ll never get as long as I live.”
“Stealing a nigger ain’t the way to fix your problem.”
“I reckon.”
But Finn is not without alternatives. When evening comes he takes up a position in the doorway of the Reform Church, where Professor Morris will be speaking, and assumes the pose of a mendicant, hat in hand and cheeks hollow and eyes brimming with woe. To the forward-looking faithful he is the veriest picture of need, unbesmirched by such associations as his figure may possess for those acquainted with the taverns and the marshal’s office and the courts, and they do unto him as they would have others do unto themselves.
He is gone before the professor climbs the steps to the pulpit, and on his tramp back to the cabin he stops at the riverside redoubt of a bootlegger for a gallon of whiskey that will hold him until he has an opportunity to use the rest of his newfound riches to lay in proper supplies.
J UDGE T HATCHER PERMITS the boy three dollars and before he can make use of it Finn has claimed it for his own. He awakens in the marshal’s office to discover that Thatcher is riding the circuit and he’ll be seeing a new man instead.
“This one a kindly sort?”
“Don’t know. Mostly he’s on the circuit.”
Finn looks as if he’s just been cheated at poker. “Time served’s always enough for Thatcher.”
“I know.”
“A person gets in the habit.”
“I know it.”
“Ain’t there a law on that subject?”
“Not that I know.”
“How one of them has to do like the other’n already done?”
“You mean following precedent.”
“Think I’d be smart to mention that?”
“I wouldn’t. No.”
Stone is the new judge’s name and he has a house in the village where he lives with his wife and his son and his daughter, a fine Christian gentleman presiding over a fine Christian family, and for Finn he has nothing in his heart but forgiveness. “I believe that a fellow such as yourself can be improved,” he says, careful not to say “saved” although “saved” is what he means.
“I do too. I believe it.”
Stone looks childlike to Finn, cherubic as a soprano in a boys’ choir. Tall and thin and pale, his high forehead crowned by a frill of swept-back hair the color of rust, he eyes Finn with the look a gardener would use upon a hedgerow that he means to prune.
“I have made a promise to myself, Mr. Finn. A promise that I shall never permit myself to give up on so much as a single soul. And I have kept that promise, regardless of how much evil and criminality I have witnessed.”
“You ain’t been a judge long.”
“No.”
“You giving me time served or some other?”
“Time served,” says Judge Stone, “with the admonition that rather than visiting a tavern tonight you spend the evening dining with my family and myself.”
In order to make Finn presentable to his wife and children the judge takes him to a dry-goods store and has him fitted with a new suit of clothes and a sturdy overcoat and a felt hat and a pair of boots, all at his own expense. Finn observes out loud that he will need to bedeck the left boot-heel with a cross of nails in order to keep away the devil, an idea that Stone receives as if it were the quaintest superstition from out of some impenetrable
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