Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-05-01
in THE MIDDLEWEST.
A Story of Life in the Great
Mississippi Valley.

nothing save what pertained to 1t.
Judge Bower and the States Attorney,
in an hour after the trial opened felt
themselves guided and borne along by
him. They felt that his grasp was
greater than theirs, that his eyes pierced
the matter as theirs could not. All!
they had not felt as he had felt, their
hearts had not been torn like his, their
souls had not gone with slain love
through all the intricate horrible meshes
of the deed, feeling its cause worked
in amending blight.
But he did not take the blood
sprinkled writing from his breast pocK-
ct, to save the dead girls name he
kept it there, and it seemed to Judge
Bower and his colleages that the trial
must end in their defeat They proved
that Fowler had gone up the wooded
hill but a little time before Maun
Woodman had assembled it; that the
button with its little strip of gray
cloth and having q strand of the muir
dered maiden's hair clinging to 1t, be-
longed to a vest which Fowler had worn
that fatal day; that some foot-tracSs
in the bloody dust by the roadside
seemed to correspond with the size and
shape of Fowler's boots, and that he
was not in his room at twelve o'clock
that night. Other hints and shadows
and indications were produced, but
nothing seemed clear save that he had
gone that way and that the button and
bit of cloth were his.
Fowler, when put upon the witness
stand, sat there pale and worn, eXcit-
ing no little sympathy in the breasts
of the hundreds who watched him,
and answered in a quiet restrained
way, as if he were shutting his teeth
hard upon some deadly, inward strug-
gle. John Earling kept his clear,
earnest eyes upon the prisoners face,
irving with ali his strength to pierce
the secret of his life, to learn what
cruel crime or dark abnormal appetite
Law vaguely mirrored in his Inca
ments. But the man kept his eyes
ayerted, only now and then lift
in them with kind of black and gilt
tering flutter to answer some question,
but never letting them touch John
Earrings face. He averred under oath
that he did not see Maun Woodman
on the evening of her death; that
he walked two miles west of the town
and one mile north, and returned at
, half-past ten o'clock by the north road
and went directly to his room by the rear
stars; that he often took such walks;
that he met a tramping stranger one
half mile west of the mill, and that the
man wore q coat but no vest and that
after passing him the man hailed him
, and wished to buy his vest, and that
as it was an odd one, he sold it to him,
naming the amount and denominations
of the money paid him, and giving 6
/, minute description of the man; that he
was in his room at the time John Earl
ing claimed to have visited it; that he
was exceedingly difficult to arouse
when sound asleep, and that no re
membered hearing some one calling
him as in a dream. Nothing coulc
shake him from this statement, nor was
any motive for the crime apparent il
the evidence, nor did it appear that the
: murdered girl and the prisoner were
O in any manner connected prior to the
t dark event; that evidence was safe il
John Earnings pocket.
Then, too, scores of OpenStonerS ties
tilted to the utterly blameless life h,
had lived among them. but at the enc
= John Earring wished the prisoner re
called, and when the still man took thu
Z witness-chair he sat down with dis
tended nostrils and blazing eyes befor
lie him. For a long time he sat Their
n gazing on the prisoners averted eyes
l. and the restless audience grew hushe'
y and breathless. Still he remained mo
=, J. tionless, gazing, silent. The audienc
I. thrilled, and at last the black eyes flut
tered wildly up and remained gain
into John Earrings. When they ha
grown steady the young man said
with slow. deep distinctness:
Did you ever commit murder pre-
vious to this oneP'
In an instant the prisoner started u
with his thin fingers claSping the chai
"a and the blood surging into his face
81 the counsel for the defense objected
y. ~ the Judge ruled the question out, an
~ John Earling said, quietly:
y That is ALL" and the book-keepc
went, weak and trembling. to his sea
But he recovered himself as the a
guments went forward, and he hear
the pleading in his defense, his meri
extolled. his praises borne aloft on bee
of flowery clauses, and all the beaut
Gus, glittering, perplexing tangle I
-. warning, hope, imprecation an
prayer, that was woven between h
life and the twelve men who were
Judge it.
But at the last, on the third day of Il
speeches in the afternoon, John Earlir
walked out before the jury. Oh! f
\. words that were blazing fire, to SCI
u.s. up and dissipate the rosy, plausibl
Lse impalpable clouds of doubt with whi'
"a. the powerful opposing council had 81
'a veloped them! The great audien
Till leaned forward breathless and expeC
mn ant he looked so young,
white, so vivid, SO intense wi
re- passion. In deep vibratil
voice that thrilled throughout the roo
he began. and without touching &
evidence. brought the murder at on
before them. All the horror, agon
fear, pain and terror of the deed sho
in his voice and face and hands al
- eyes. Atom by atom he illuminated
moment by moment unfolded it. stro
by stroke, cash by cash, drop by dro
W breath by breath, cry by cry, until t
~ dead girl he had loved splashed in {
dark water from the mnrdercr's rec