Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 122: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

400 “It’s this way,” said Nathan’ loudly. I leaned forward, breathing fast. Na- - than spoke well. I felt myself relax. “They must believe him,” I reflected; “they must!” It seemed incredible that any one should doubt him. He spoke so simply and with such evident sincerity. What he said was this: CHAPTER XXIV. A GRIM REHEARSAL, a EASLEY’S woman done it,” old Na- B than asserted. There was an incredulous silence after this, and then an outbreak. A few of the natives dared to cackle a little be- hind their hands, for stupid Mrs. Beasley did not seem the sort to whom you could moor such a crime. Undaunted, seemingly entirely undisturbed, Nathan went on, when asked to substantiate his statement: “We all know farmer Beasley,” he an- nounced. ‘ We—some of us know that he wasn’t always none too good to her, but she had washed and cooked and done all for him till this young woman arrived and wouldn't let her go in the room!” ‘“T met her one day a wanderin’ by the crick. First time I recollect ever having saw her outside of their farmyard and not a workin’. I asks her what she was doin’. She says: ‘I dunno ’"—dull like. Then I says: ‘That there nurse you have up fo your place, I reckon she helps yuh?’ And the look she gimme—weli—” Nathan paused, tugged at his whiskers, looked up at the ceiling. When he spoke again his drawl was intensified; the waiting for facts stimulated the crowd, and the. hysterically minded began to oakp audibly. “This morning,” went on Nathan, * afore sun-up, I went down to the crick to see whether the lines I’d left out over night had caught anything. I had ’em moored a good ways down the crick; one of ’em near the boat landin’ that belongs to the bungalow. While I was fassin’ around here tryin’ to untie, I hears a noise, and when I looked up I seen Beasley’s boy a tackin’ somethin’-—a bundle of rags I found later—on the bottom of a rowboat. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “He held it down, and then he’d grunt like he does when he’s a playin’ his echo games. Well, after mebbe ten minutes of this, he stops jiggling them rags in the water, and begins to tack ’em on. Steady and secure, a laughin’ all the while, like he does. And I seen it—” “What?” asked Judge. Llewellyn. “What happened that there night of the murder. aby they done it.” “Go on,” prompted a man, I did not notice who. “Tf you recollect, it was a threatenin’ night. The wind blew from the south, and rain begun about four; I don’t remember exact, not hearin’ it start, since I aim to sleep on my good ear so’s to git undee-. sturbed rest. That there night—” Na- than paused, and then he talked with em- phasis. He whispered the rest more quick- ly than he usually spoke—whispered it, but so that it carried all over the court-room and left every one shaking. . “Tt was a dark night,” he said; “ the wind moaned over Greyson’s Hill. Linda Beasley went up-stairs early, but she couldn’t sleep. Habit took her to her room where her husband slep’. Sometimes she had hated him, often he was cruel to her, but she had cooked fer him, washed fer him, done all fer him, for all the years she could remember easy. She’s laid by his side to sleep, been driven by him to work, an” he was—her man. “Well, she went to that there room. She says: ‘ Is he restin’ easy?’ And Gloria Vernon, she reesponds: ‘ Yes, Miss Beas- ley, he’s restin’ comfortable, an’ goin’ to sleép. Ef you was to come in now you’d deesturb him likely.’ So Beasley’s woman she went on up to the attic, which was the only place left for her to sleep, since the nurse had the best room, and her husband the other. ‘Well, I reckon she set on the edge of her broken-down cot lookin’ at the candle flame and seein’ nothin’, Mebbe she picked at the candle drip, like you and me does when we ain’t thinkin’ of anything ‘easy thought out, and then somethin’ flared in her brain, and she begins to laugh like her son laughs. Then she tiptoes down- stairs soft and hunts Hiram. TA Gomichooks (E(9)