The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-03-31

ly, shame and a desperate defiance in
the passionate eyes that confronted
her audience. "He wouldn't see that
I loved him better'n anything else in
all this world and that 1 wanted him
to love me the same way. And the
reason he wouldn't see what was al
ways a-showfA' him was that he was
SO dead in love with Miss Mary Tod
hunter. That's what made me tell
| that lie against him when 1 knowed
that Mrs. Todhunter was a-goin' to
| ask me to leave the party
There was pitifuI break in the
| girls voice.
"'I didn't care the tip of my finger
| for Jesse Bream!' she cried. 81 hated
| and despised him. But he was willin'
| to marry me and take me away from
| Nineveh, and so KEEP my mouth shet
| and waited for him to come and do it,
81 am going to ask you, Miss Dog
gett,'' said Major Gentry Dryden.
when was the first time you saw
Jesse Dream after Colonel Todhun-
ter's visit to you that day?''
"I didn't see him till the day before
| this here trial begun, sub. He had
| gone away to tx things up for mar
ryin' me and takin' me down some
| where in Oklahoma, and he didn't
| come back till then"
What time OF the day did you see
him?'
''I reckon twas long about three or
TO- o'clock in the day, sub. He didn't
come clear to the house cause he saw
! grandfather settin' on the front gal
lery. But he give a whistle knew,
and went out and met him."
"'Where did you meet him7"
'In a little ciump O woods cross the
/ III
Aunt Mirandy Ransom and old Jed
Ransom, her husband, two colored peo-
| pie, are livin', suh."
| What had he come to see you
about|'
HE come to tell me that everything
! was ready for US to run away that
very night He was plannin' to drive
over into Rails county, and we'd get
married there and then start for Okla
| homa. And he'd been drinkin' and was
| braggin' about how he'd killed STAN
Tucker. 1t was then knowed for the
| first time, from his own lips, that it
was him that killed STAN, but I'd been
certain of 1t in my mind all the time"
did you consent to go away with
him?'
Eyes, subj and we went away togeth-
er. The first day and night he got to
drinkin', and when we stopped at the
| hotel in Sidon he quarreled with me,
! keeptn' on sayin' that I was in love
| with Tom Strickland and would blab
about who did really murder STAN
Tucker If got half a chance. And
somethin' I said then about my wish
| in 1 had told the truth at first skeered
him. STEAD O. stayin' in Sidon till he
was ready to go straight to Oklahoma,
| he took me away from there the next
| day. We went fur, too, and he was al
| ways a-watchin' me. At daybreak one
mornin' we come to .tumbledown
| cabin deep In the woods, and he said
| that's where we'd stay till dark, and
| then I begun to be skeered myself"
"Of what were you afraidT'
''I begun to feel skeered that he was
a-goin' to kill me- We had Quarreled
and quarreled, and whenever I lost my
temper good ana proper told him the
| tPuth-that I oughtn't to leave Tom
Strickland to be hung when knowed
| Tom wasn't guilty and knowed who
was. Then-well, all of a sudden we
| had our biggest quarrel, and what I'd
| been skeered of come to passr'
What do you mean by that, Miss
Doggett?'
"I mean that Chickasaw Jesse tried
and jumped for me with his bowie
| knife in his hand. and I'd ha' been
dead the next minute If it hadn't been
| for Colonel Todhunter, subj
i For Colonel Todhunter?''
| Eyes, sub. Colonel Todhunter bust
| ed in the door o. the cabin that very
minute, bringin' the sheriff o. Rails
county along with him. Him and the
sheriff both had their pistols sighted on
Jesse and made him throw his knife
down. And then done what I'd want
| ed to do all the time. I told them tt
was Ch1ckasaw Jesse Bream who had
killed STAN Tucker"
"And what happened when you did
that?"
The girl silivered at don't like to
think about it. He made me feel like
q coWardly hound dog!' she said, a
new shame in her reckless eyes. Jesse
| Bream just laughed and folded his
arms and looked at me and then at
Colonel Todhunter and the sheriff and
| said that I told the truth. I killed
Siam Tucker becaus he ruined Lottie-
May he said. smilin'. And I run
away with her to marry her. But she's
| tellin' the truth now to get shet O. me,
\ and I don't care what comes next.
Take me and hang me. I'm doneF"
A moment later the witness was
| turned over to the state. The cross
examination strengthened rather than
shook her testimony for the defense.
Briefly under the questioning Of the
leading counsel for the defense Colonel
| Todhunter told of his visit to Lottie-
| May Doggett on the forenoon following
the murder of Stamford Tucker.
Where did you go, Colonel Todhun-
| ter" asked Major Dryden, when you
| left the poggetts' house after that
visit?''
81 went to a cabin across the road,
| just a few yards down from the Dog
GETS gate, to see Aunt Mirandy Ran
| som. an old colored woman who lived