The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-03-14
CHAPTER XVIII.

week of mid-July, and Canaan lay
inert and helpless beneath a broil-
- ing sun. The few people who
moved about the streets went languid-
ly, keeping close to the wall on the
shady side; the women in thin white
fabrics; the men, often coatless. carry
ing palm leaf fans and replacing col
lars with handkerchiefs. In the court
house yard the maple leaves, gray with
blown dust and grown to great breadth,
dropped heavily, depressing the long
motionless branches with their weight
so low that the four or FIVE shabby
idlers upon the benches beneath now
and then f1icked them sleeplly with
whitfield sprigs.
The doors and windows OF the stores
stood open, displaying limp wares Of
trade, but few tokens of life, the clerks
! hanging over dim counters as far as
possible from the glare in front. Cos
siping fragmentarily. usually about the
| Cory murder and anon upon a subject
suggested by the sight of an occasional
pedestrian passing perspiring by with
SCIOOSSO Ky CllNS pdA pllli5 Shlh
From street and sidewalk transparent
hot waves swan up and danced them
selves into nothing, while from the riv-
| err bank q half mile away came a
sound hotter than even the locust's
midsummer rasp, the drone Of plan
ing mill.
Greater heat than that of these blaz-
ing days could not have kept one of
the sages from attending the conclave
now, for the battle was on in Canaan,
and here upon the National House cor
ner, under the shadow of the west
wall. it waxed even keener. Perhaps
we may find full justification for call
ing what was happening a battle in so
far as we restrict the figure to apply
to this one spot. Elsewhere in the
Canaan of the Tocsin the conflict was
too one sided. The Tocsin had indeed
tried the case of Happy Fear in ad-
vance, had convicted and condemned
and every day grew more bitter. Nor
was the urgent vigor of its attack with
out effect.
Sleepy as Main street seemed in the
heat, the town was incensed and rous-
ed to tensity of feeling it had not
known since the civil war, when, on
occasion, it had set out to hang half a
dozen "Knights Of the Golden Circle"
Joe had been Kissed On the street
many times since the inimical clerk
had whistled at him. Probably dem
onstrations of that sort would have
continued bod he ropna{oad {n Canaan
. but for almost a month he had been
absent and his Office closed, its thresh-
old gray with dust There were peo-
pie who believed that he had run
, away again, this time never to return,
among those who held to this opinion
! being Mrs. Louden and her sister, Joe
step-aunt. Upon only one point was
t everybody agreed-that twelve men
{ could not be found in the county who
| could be so far persuaded and befud-
? died by Louden that they would dare
[ allow Happy Fear to escape. The
} women of Canaan, incensed by the ter
rible circumstances of the case, as the
5 Tocsin colored it-a man shot down ID
the act Of begging his enemy's for
= giveness-clamored as loudly as the
! men. There was only the difference
2 that the latter vociferated for the
t hanging of Happy; their good ladies
. used the word punishment
And yet, while the place rang will
condemnation of the little man In tht
: jail and his attorney, there were voice:
5 here and there uplifted on the othel
G side. People existed, it astonishingly
5 appeared, who liked Happy Fear
-? These were for the greater part OBJ
scure and even darkling in their lives
s yet quite demonstrably human beings
able to smile. suffer. leap, run and t
4 entertain fancies; even to have, &C
r cording to their degree, a certain rud
r mentary sense of right and wrong. i
spite OF which they strongly favore
A the prisoners acquittal. Precisely o
: that account, it was argued, an az
= quittal would outrage Canaan and la
it open to untold danger. Such peopl
needed lesson.
The Tocsin interviewed the town
- great ones, printing their opinions c
= the Nervousness Of the crime and tn
= character Of the defendants LAWYER.
ITO Be COntinuedI