The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-13

got a lift along the road in somebody's
wagon or buggy. but it was generally
case of walking and never mind the
weather. Little Bill was I'm jail six
months-court sits only three, times
year and he got a postponement the first
time-and through the last of spring, all
the summer, and the first of winter the
TALLER heard the girls umid knock at the
front door Just after dusk Saturday night
and found her standing with her baby i'm
her arms, a big sun bonnet covered with
checkered linsey wooden on her head, and
wearing a shapeless dress of the same ma
terial. You know what a sun bonnet is
don't you? Well she never said anything,
for these mountain people are taciturn as
Indians with strangers-just bobbed her
head and waited to be led up to Bilfs cell.
Let into his cell? Why of course. What
do you take the Greenville sheriff for?
Keep "a girl away from her husband after
she'd walked twenty miles over
mountain roads, carrying a baby, too, TO
see him? Why, 1t would have started
riot.
Monday mornings just before day, the
cell door would rattle and the jatler would
let Mary and the baby out and go back
to bed after the girl had nodded good
by just as she nodded 'howdy'
AT the trial the evidence was mighty
strong against Bill. The court room was
fun of Howards and Mary and her baby
sat on a back bench all the three days the
case was on and listened. Mary heard
Bah convicted ana sentenced, and never
blinked her eyes or shut her mouth-just
sat and looked and listened like she had
nothing TO do with it, l reckon she was
doing some thinking, too. After the trial
she gathered her baby up in her arms and
left. She never finched and neither did
Little Bill.
They took an appeal, of course, and got
a stay of execution, but things looked
black. Little BilPs wife kept on walking
in Saturday night walking out Monday
morning.
zone Monday morning the jaiIer heard
the usual rattle at the cell door, found the
usual figures waiting, got his usual nod of
farewell and opened the door. His ntten-
ton was attracted for a moment by the
stride the bearer of the baby had, but Re
reflected that a woman with twenty-seven
miles before her could not stop 10 study
grace and went back 20 bed. When he
went up stairs at breakfast time, two
hours later he found in Little Bill's cell
Little BilPs wife, looking sorter ashamed,
wrapped in Little BilPs blanket. Just a
flicker of a sheeplsh kind of a grin came
over her face but except for that there
was no more expression in 1t than usual.
Little Bill had stopped at a friends
house, left the baby and his wife's dress
and sunbonnet, and dug out for tain timber.
Catch him? Give a mountaineer and a
Howard two hours start In that country
and catch him2 You might as well try to
catch flash of lightning in tin dipper.
Mary Howard got her clothes and went
home Nobody thought Of prosecuting her.
Every woman in the county would have cut
the solicitor II he'd tried 1t, and they
IN -
And Il all turned out pretty well-from the
Towards standpoint. After about six
months Little Bin got gay, and went to
staggering about In the mountains telling
that no sheriff could arrest him, and the
sheriff heard about Il. He wasn't the man
to take that kind of dare, so he got on
his horse one night, headed for the Blue
Ridge dropped In ON Little Bin, catching
him asleep in a friends house. and got him
out and away before day had broken or
Howard could be warned. Maybe the SUI
preme Court read about what Mary did.
However that was, II gave Little Bill
new trial soon after he got back In jail.
Here the man from the South paused and
looked mysterious.
mighty curious condolences happen Up
in the mountains" he said, mighty Gu
rious condolences. 1t is a remarkable fact
that not long after his second arrest the
principal witness against him was killed
stone dead on a mountain road one day.
The states case collapsed. When Little
Bill was leaving the court house after his
acdulttal he found his wife sitting on the
back bench with her sunbonnet on 0nd
her baby In her arms waiting for MIN.
when people gathered around her and
tried to make a fuss over what she had
done. she smiled her slow SMILE showing
a pretty set of white teeth that never felt
a brush, and said she had been 'a-studyin'
about gettin' Bin outer the scrape' long
time. Whether she had 'a-studied' out the
Supreme Court and the lost witness part
of It. too, / don't know and am not cay
ing There's no telling what those wo-
men in the mountains do know and think.
You never find out anything about Il ex-
cept by what's done.
"They talked about getting up a sub
sctiption for her, but she said she didn't
know that she was a-wantin of anything
In pertick Ter. unless ii was "a little mite
of candy for the baby. The baby, she
said, as she contemplated II with maternal
pride. did love candy powerful
80 she took Little Bill and the baby
home. That was In 1892 ! beleve-about
six years ago. I'm told she has kept a
pretty tight hand over Little BIZ ever
since. He hasn't been in any more
scrapes. I've no doubt on earth there are
five or six babies there now"