Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/768

 THE LIGHTER SIDE

735

THE LIGHTER SIDE SWEARING AT A SAND-HOLE. — TENNES SEE PLEADING AND PRACTICE

BY WILL J. WATSON

and well that Jim's kettle was perfectly smooth inside; that it didn't have a sign of a sand-hole about an inch long on the side, something like nine inches below the kettle's eye? No-w isn't that true, Aunt Tildy?" Aunt Tildy could hardly wait for the lawyer to get the question out of his mouth, till she answered in just as positive a manner as the question was put: "No, hit ain't true; Jim's kittle did have a sand-hole in it about yan long (indicating on her finger) an' mebby a leetle longer. I've seed that er sand-hole a thousand times an' mo', an' I know what I's talkin' about." "All right, Aunt Tildy," answered the lawyer, "just turn the kettle right side up, and show the sand-hole to the court." Aunt Tildy turned the kettle up. She gazed at its smooth inside surface for a minute. The suspense was awful. Her face was the picture of desperation itself. Great big drops of perspiration rose and stood on the back of her low-bended neck; then she literally dived into that kettle; she clawed its polished iron sides, and punched its impenetrable bottom as if to puncture it with her naked fingers. A moment more of suspense, and Aunt Tildy subsided. She was then directed to stand aside. She willingly obeyed, and another, and another, and another, came, performed, and passed on, as Aunt Tildy had done before them, till all that train of sixteen witnesses had passed before that hitherto silent crowd of bystanders; then the long bottled-up hilar ity was exploded by this waggish exclama tion from a youth in the crowd: "Them niggers swore at that sand-hole and went off crestfallen, kinder like a dog that had bit a frog!" Judgment for the plaintiff, and the kettle incident was forever closed. CHATTANOOGA, TENN., November, 1905.

John Cromwell's kettle was stolen one night in July. The thief carried it away about ten miles, and exchanged it for another kettle very much like it at the "wash-place" of Jim Sinclaire, a colored man. Cromwell subse quently found his kettle at Jim's spring, and demanded its surrender; but Jim, believing the kettle to be his own, refused to surrender. Cromwell then replevied it. The officer tak ing charge of it delivered it to Esq. Paulk, justice of the peace in Cromwell's neighbor hood, who subsequently tried the case under a large oak tree in front of his house. As is usual in the country, a crowd assembled to witness the trial. Just before the hour of trial Jim drove up with sixteen negro women, all witnesses for him, in a two-horse wagon. Cromwell was represented by the neigh borhood lawyer, a young sprig whose prac tice was bounded by the neighborhood in which he lived. Jim "plead" his own case. Some of the bystanders were inclined to nettle the lawyer on account of the formidable array of witnesses on Jim's side, but he was undaunted. He simply turned the kettle bottom up, and both sides announced "ready." Plaintiff and his wife very clearly identi fied the kettle as the property of plaintiff. Defendant first called Aunt Tildy Jerls as his star witness, all witnesses having been previously put under the rule at a safe dis tance, so that one could not hear what another swore, and Jim opened up as follows: "Aint Tildy, whose kittle is that?" Aunt Tildy. — "Dat's yo' kittle, Jim, dat's whose kittle hit is. I's washed in dat kittle a thousand times, honey, at yo' spring. I'd know dat kittle clean 'cross Tennessee Rivah. FAITH CURE Dat's yo' kittle, honey, sho as yo' bawn." Mike — Are ye much hurted, Pat? Do ye This was perfectly satisfactory to Jim, and the witness was turned over for cross-exami want a docthor? Pat — A docthor, ye fule! afther bein' nation by the young lawyer, who, in a most runned over be a trolley car? Phat Oi want positive style began: "Now, Aunt Tildy, don't you know good is a lawyer." — Judge.