THE FOREMAN. You lie.
THE SHERIFF. Youve got to tell us the truth. Thats the law, you
know.
THE WOMAN. The man looked a bad man. He cursed me; and he cursed
the child: God forgive him! But something came over him. I was
desperate, I put the child in his arms; and it got its little
fingers down his neck and called him Daddy and tried to kiss him;
for it was not right in its head with the fever. He said it was a
little Judas kid, and that it was betraying him with a kiss, and
that he'd swing for it. And then he gave me the horse, and went
away crying and laughing and singing dreadful dirty wicked words
to hymn tunes like as if he had seven devils in him.
STRAPPER. She's lying. Give her the oath, George.
THE SHERIFF. Go easy there. Youre a smart boy, Strapper; but
youre not Sheriff yet. This is my job. You just wait. I submit
that we're in a difficulty here. If Blanco was the man, the lady
cant, as a white woman, give him away. She oughtnt to be put in
the position of having either to give him away or commit perjury.
On the other hand, we don't want a horse-thief to get off
through a lady's delicacy.
THE FOREMAN. No we don't; and we don't intend he shall. Not while
I am foreman of this jury.
BLANCO [with intense expression] A rotten foreman! Oh, what a
rotten foreman!
THE SHERIFF. Shut up, will you. Providence shows us a way out
here. Two women saw Blanco with a horse. One has a delicacy about
saying so. The other will excuse me saying that delicacy is not
her strongest holt.
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