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36 The trousers were long and the bow tie a sporty bright red. Deputy Gilliam tied it for him and helped him into a jacket. The boy beamed when Gilliam told him he looked quite the dandy in the new suit. He couldn’t believe his luck. A wealthy Pomeroy wheat farmer, J. B. Tucker, had come in with a tailor the other day. They measured him and fashioned him a fine, gray-striped suit and a bow tie like none he’d ever worn before. He was speechless as he stood before the man, unable to even thank him. Now on the day of the trial, he was all dressed up, looking like a cherub-faced nine-year-old. His dark curling lashes and dimples made him look like he “stepped right out of one of Booth Tarkington’s Penrod stories,” a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter wrote in his account of the trial. The boy hadn’t been back to Asotin since his arraignment on September 3, when he had pleaded not guilty due to mental irresponsibility . While the courtroom had been packed at that time, hours Chapter 5 Chapter 5 37 before jury selection began, it overflowed with so many people that they spilled onto the lawn outside. Enterprising members of the nearby First Methodist‑Episcopal Church began frying chicken in the morning, preparing to sell lunches to the spectators when the court broke for recess at noon. From the window in his chambers, Judge Elgin Kuykendall watched as the Asotin police car pulled up before the courthouse. Immediately, the crowd surrounded it until a deputy forced them back. Bezona, the newly appointed sheriff, emerged from the car, scowled at the crowd and then opened the rear door. Bright-eyed and smiling, the boy stepped out. Cameras clicked and voices called to him. Obligingly, he turned his head to each and beamed, until Bezona, holding him by the elbow, guided him through the crowd into the courthouse. As he passed through the heavy doors into the room, spectators in the gallery buzzed and turned, craning their necks to get a better look. He smiled and waved to them and a ripple of laughter filled the room. But then came a shriek, and Herbert saw his grandmother flapping her way toward him, her arms outstretched. His smile quavered, and then he broke into tears. She paused, clasped her hands to her bosom, gazed down upon him, and sobbed. Then his grandmother reminded him—and all who watched—that it was never too late to repent. Cameras clicked like crickets and Applewhite and Doyle drew the boy to the table at the front of the courtroom. In his chambers, Judge Kuykendall read the trial briefs on State v. Niccolls. Never in the many years since he had passed the bar had he seen someone so young facing such serious charges. It was inconceivable . The laws of the state were not set up to handle such cases. The state reform school dealt with thieves—not murderers. The whole affair was troublesome. During his years as a state senator, he and his colleagues never once considered that a murderer might be a child. Kuykendall couldn’t help being angry. The case had even made the European press. The trial hadn’t 38 even begun and he’d received hundreds of letters from around the country calling him, the prosecutor and the deputies the most uncivilized names. “May every possible bad fortune descend upon you and all your family. May every evil over take you. May you suffer the eternal condemnation . . . of the damned,” one anonymous scribe wrote. “Crackpot,” Kuykendall muttered as he filed the letter away. The boy was responsible for the predicament facing them all. The eyes of the world were trained on little Asotin. Herbert Niccolls had emerged as a symbol of the new generation of troubled, violent youth that brought with them a new era of social-minded, sentimental dogooders who had no sense of justice. As far as Kuykendall was concerned, the world was an open slate of opportunity. All one had to do was obey the law and work hard. Kuykendall was raised a doctor’s son and grew up on the Yakama Indian Reservation where his father worked. He had been expected to go into medicine, too, but he bucked tradition. He became a teacher and the Pomeroy superintendent of schools. Then he took an interest in law and hired on as a clerk at Sam...

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