Even the red-faced man was
listening now.
For an instant there was a pause. Then the old man reached forward in
his seat, his elbows on his knees, his hands held out as if in appeal,
and in a low, pleading tone addressed the jury. Strange to say, neither
the buzzard nor the Judge interrupted the unusual proceeding:
"Men, I hope you will let me go home now; won't you, please? I ain't
never been 'customed all my life to bein' shut up, and it comes purty
hard, not bein' so young as I was. I ain't findin' no fault, but it
don't seem to me I ever done anythin' to deserve all that's come to me
lately. I got 'long best way I could over there"--and he pointed in
the direction of the steel cages--"till las' week, when Sam Jelliff come
down to see his boy and told me the wife was took sick bad, worse than
she's been yet. She ain't used to bein' alone; you'd know that if you
could see her. The neighbors is purty good to her, I hear, but nobody
don't understand her like me, she and me bein' so long together--mos'
fifty years now.
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