Eli | Page 7

join you."
Eli looked up at him.
"Did n't you ever know," he said, "of a man's takin' a cat off, to lose, that his little girl did n't want drownded, and leavin' him ashore, twenty or thirty miles, bee-line, from home, and that cat's bein' back again the next day, purrin' 'round 's if nothin' had happened?"
"Yes," said Mr. Eldridge--"knew of just such a case."
"Very well," said Eli; "how does he find his way home?"
"Don't know," said Mr. Eldridge; "always has been a standing mystery to me."
"Well," said Eli, "mark my words. There's such a thing as arguin', and there 's such a thing as knowin' outright; and when you 'll tell me how that cat inquires his way home, I '11 tell you how I know John Wood ain't guilty."
This made a certain sensation, and Eli's stock went up.
An old, withered man rapped on the table.
"That's so!" he said; "and there's other sing'lar things! How is it that a seafarin' man, that 's dyin' to home, will allers die on the ebbtide? It never fails, but how does it happen? Tell me that! And there's more ways than one of knowin' things, too!"
"I know that man ain't guilty," said Eli.
"Hark ye!" said a dark old man with a troubled face, rising and pointing his finger toward Eli. "Know, you say? I knew, wunst. I knew that my girl, my only child, was good. One night she went off with a married man that worked in my store, and stole my money--and where is she now?" And then he added, "What I know is, that every man hes his price. I hev mine, and you hev yourn!"
"'Xcuse me, Mr. Speaker," said George Washington, rising with his hand in his bosom; "as de question is befo' us, I wish to say that de las' bro' mus' have spoken under 'xcitement. Every man don' have his price! An' I hope de bro' will recant--like as de Psalmist goes out o' his way to say 'In my haste I said, All men are liars.' He was a very busy man, de Psalmist--writin' down hymns all day, sharpen'n' his lead-pencil, bossin' 'roun' de choir--callin' Selah! Well, bro'n an' sisters "--both arms going out, and his voice going up--" one day, seems like, he was in gre't haste--got to finish a psalm for a monthly concert, or such--and some man in-corrupted him, and lied; and bein' in gre't haste--and a little old Adam in him--he says, right off, quick: 'All men are liars!' But see! When he gits a little time to set back and meditate, he says: 'Dis won' do--dere's Moses an' Job, an' Paul--dey ain't liars!' An' den he don' sneak out, and 'low he said, 'All men is lions,' or such. No! de Psalmist ain't no such man; but he owns up, 'an 'xplains. 'In my haste,' he says, 'I said it.'"
The foreman rose and rapped.
"I await a motion," said he, "if our friend will allow me the privilege of speaking."
Mr. Washington calmly bowed.
Then the foreman, when nobody seemed disposed to move, speaking slowly at first, and piecemeal, alternating language with smoke, gradually edged into the current of the evidence, and ended by going all over it again, with fresh force and point. His cigar glowed and chilled in the darkening room as he talked.
"Now," he said, when he had drawn all the threads together to the point of guilt, "what are we going to do upon this evidence?"
"I 'll tell you something," said Eli. "I did n't want to say it because I know what you 'll all think, but I 'll tell you, all the same."
"Ah!" said the foreman.
Eli stood up and faced the others.
"'Most all o' you know what our Bar is in a southeast gale. They ain't a man here that would dare to try and cross it when the sea's breakin' on it. The man that says he would, lies!" And he looked at the foreman, and waited a moment.
"When my wife took sick, and I stopped goin' to sea, two year ago, and took up boat-fishin', I did n't know half as much about the coast as the young boys do, and one afternoon it was blowin' a gale, and we was all hands comin' in, and passin' along the Bar to go sheer 'round it to the west'ard, and Captain Fred Cook--he's short-sighted--got on to the Bar before he knew it, and then he hed to go ahead, whether or no; and I was right after him, and I s'posed he knew, and I followed him. Well, he was floated over, as luck was, all right; but when I 'd just got on the Bar, a roller dropped back and let my bowsprit down into the sand, and then come up quicker'n lightnin' and shouldered the