Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1907-04-03

struck in anger, those who had stolen
at night, those who owed and could
not pay, those who lived by the dice,
and to his other titles to notoriety was
added that of defender of the poor
and wicked. He found his hands full,
especially after winning his first i'm
portant case, on which occasion Ca
man thought the jury mad and was in
dignant with the puzzled judge, who
could not see just how it had happened.
Joe did not stop at that. He kept on
winning eases, clearing the innocentand
tightening the burdens of the guilty.
He became the most dangerous at
torney for the defense in Canaan. His
honorable brethren, accepting the pop
ular view of him, held him in personal
contempt, but feared him profession
ally, for he proved that he knew more
law than they thought existed. Nor
could any trick him, failing which
many tempers We're lost, but never
Joe's. His practice was not all criimi-
nal, as shown by the peevish outburst
of the eminent Buckalew Qhe squire's
nephew, esteemed the foremost lawyer
in Canaan). Before long there won't
be any use trying to foreclose mort
gage or collect a note unless this shy
ster gets himself in jailv'
The wrath of Judge Martin Pike was
august-there was a kind of sublimity
in It's immenseness-on day when 1t
befell that the shyster stood betwlxt
him and money.
That was mOnstrOuS taSk-to stand
between these two and separate them
to hold back the hand of Martin Pike
from what it had reached out to grasp
1t was in the matter of some tax titles
which the magnate had acquired, and
in court Joe treated the case with such
horrfying simplicity that it seemed al
most credible that the great man had
counted upon the ignorance and be-
sottedness Of Joe's client, a hard drink
ing, disreputable old farmer, to get his
land away from him without paying
for it. Now, as every one knew such
n thing to be ludicrously impossible, it
was at once noiscd abroad in Canaan
that Joe had helped to swindle Judge
Pike out of large sum of money-it
was notorious that the shyster could
bamboozle court and jury with his
tricks, and it was felt that Joe Lou
den was getting into very deep wa
| tiers indeed. This was serious. If
| the young man did not look out he
| might find himself in the penitentiary.
Joe did not move into larger Of
flee; he remained in the little room
with its one window and its fine
view of the Jail His clients were
nearly all poor, and many of his tees
quite literally nominal. Tatters and
rags came up the narrow stairway to
his door-tatters and rags and pitiful
fineries; the bleared, the sodden, the
Haunting and rouged, the furtive and
wary, some in rags, some in tags and
some-the sorriest-in velvet gowns.
With these, the distressed, the wrong
doers, the drunken, the dirty and the
very poor, his work lay and his days
and nights We're spent.
When Joe went about the streets he
was made to feel his condition by the
elaborate avoidance, yet furtive at
tention, of every respectable person he
met, and when he came home to his
small rooms and shut the door behind
him lie was as one who has been
Missed and shamed in public and runs
to bury his hot face in his pillow. He
petted his mongrel extravagantly (well
he might and would sit with him In
his rooms ut night holding long con-
verse with him, the two alone togeth-
er. The dog was not his only con-
fidant. There came to be another, q
more and more frequent partner to
their conversations, at last familiar
spirit. This third came from brown
jug which Joe kept on shelf in his
bedroom, vessel too frequently re-
plenshed. When the days work was
done he shut himself up, drank alone
and drank hard. Sometimes when the
jug ran low and the night was late he
would go out for walk with his dog
and would awake in his room the next
morning not remembering where he
had gone or how he had come home
Once. after such II lapse of memory
he woke amazed to find himself n,
! Beaver Beach, whittier, he learned
from the red bearded man, Happy Fear
had brought him. having found him
wandering daZedly in n field near by.
These lapses grew more frequent until
1 there occurred that which was one OF
, the strange things Of his life.
1t was June night. n little more
than two years after his return to
/, Canaan. and the Tocsin had that day
announced the approaching marriage
of Eugene Bantry and his employers
daughter. Joe ate nothing during the
day and went through his work clumsi-
| ly, visiting the bedroom shelf at inter-
walls. At 10 in the evening he went out
to have the jug retilled, but from the
moment he left his door and the fresh
air struck his face he had no clear
knowledge Of what lie did or of what
went Oh about him until he woke in
his bed the next morning.
And yet, whatever little part of the
soul of him remained that night still
undulled, not numbed, but alive, was
in some strange manner lifted out of
its pain toward n strange delight. His
body was an automat0n, his mind in
bondage, yet there was still small
consciousness in him which knew that
in his wandering something incredible
and unexpected was happening. What
this was he did not know, could not
see, though his eyes were open, could
not have told himself any more than
a baby could tell why II laughs, but it
seemed something so beautiful and
wonderful that the night became a
night of perfume, its brcezes bearing
| the music of ha.ps and violins. while
nightingales sang from the naples that
bordered the streets of Canaan.
CHAPTER Y.
Y Y T. woke to the light of morning
| amazed and full of a strange
wonder because he did not
q \ know what had amazed him.
chime of bells sounded from church
| leo ,,;,y -