Faithful Unto Death

Appealing to a Higher Court

and Mrs. Shaw appeared to be barely speaking to one another Wednesday evening, and nobody knows why but we’re just sure it has to do with the trial. I don’t like to be un-Christian, but I’m glad he’s off to prison, and that’s a fact. Everyone can ‹nd something else to talk about, now.” “Well, I’m sorry for those children, anyhow. Even their relatives seem to have washed their hands of them.” She shook her head. “That’s what they get for telling lies in court.” “Sounds like you’re doing a pretty good job of taking sides your own self.” She pressed her lips into a solid line and began to clear the table briskly. Archibald gloomily folded his paper and took himself off to work. Neither one said goodbye. Joe Pettit, widower, had nobody with whom to share his morning’s musings over the headlines. His children were grown and moved away. His son Johnnie was now the Reverend John Pettit, married to Anne and living in Benzonia. Joe had dined with Johnnie and his family while Orah had boarded there. He felt her an uppity young snippet, for a hired girl. His tea cooled as he read the sordid story. Even the cat was still outdoors , probably stalking rats in the shed. He pulled his watch out for the third time. Still too early, he decided, to walk uptown. He knew that gossip was a devil’s tool, but still, he set his jaw like a toothless old bulldog and thought, “If he can do it, I can talk about it.” Appealing to a Higher Court “roy? Roy!” Roy came down the stairs half dressed, mumbling. “Can you give me a hand today? You said you’d help put out the potatoes.” “Oh, Ralph, what’s the use? We can spend the next two weeks planting those things and any money we make on them will go out the door and into Old Covell’s pockets.” “Don’t call him ‘Old Covell’ that way. He did his best.” “No, he did not do any ‘best.’ He showed up at the court, mumbled ‘objection’ a few times, and sent us the bill.” “Oh? What would you have done differently?” Ralph was surprised to ‹nd himself arguing against an opinion that, secretly, he’d held just as strongly as Roy. It’s just that Roy had become so everlastingly ›ippant and know-it-all. It got on his nerves. Ralph, personally, had played over 173 in his mind some of the arguments. It did look, on the surface, as though the prosecution had had the best arguments, and Mr. Covell hadn’t really made any arguments at all, except to point out what a kind person Father was. Still, Roy just had a talent for being annoying. Ralph felt the need to argue just for orneriness. “How would you have earned that handsome lawyer’s fee? You heard the testimony, Mother was poisoned, the tests all showed it.” “Well, and doesn’t a man have to be proven guilty ‘beyond the shadow of a doubt’? How is it that Old Covell didn’t even mention the fact that Auntie was with Mother just as often as Father was? Or why didn’t he advance the possibility that Mother’d gotten it by accident somehow? Or even that she took it on purpose?” “Roy!” Mother, whose life had been dedicated to serving the Lord since her earliest childhood, deliberately take her own life? Knowing the trial she would face at the seat of judgment? Ludicrous, and Roy knew that as well as anyone. Still, he and Roy both jumped guiltily when Lottie ’s voice broke in behind them. “Roy!” “I didn’t say she did do it, did I? I just said that Old—that Mr. Covell could have at least suggested the possibility, as an alternative to accusing Father.” “Mother would have hated that,” said Ralph. Slowly Lottie nodded her agreement. “Still, Mother would hate seeing Father in prison even more. She’d have hated this whole ruckus, Auntie away at a boardinghouse , not speaking to us nor us to her, the town all taking sides, her poor, sick body argued over in the court, and now all over town . . .” He broke off, seeing Lottie begin to chew her lip again. She’d ‹nally left off that dreadful habit now things had calmed down again. It pained him to see her, a...