THE road leading from the lake, through the sand hills, and the low stretches of the back country, over to the sleepy village, is broken—and badly broken—by numerous sections of corduroy reinforcements, which have been laid in the marshy places, across small creeks and quagmires. The portion of the road near the lake is seldom traveled. Occasionally, during the hot weather, a wagon-load of people will come over from the sleepy village, and from the little farms along the road, and go into the lake to get cool. They will then spend the rest of the day sweltering on the hot sand to get warm, and return at night.

Beyond the marsh, perhaps half way to the village, is the residence and office of Judge Cassius Blossom, the local Dogberry, the repository of the conflicting interests, and final arbiter in most of the petty dissensions of the sparsely settled country in which he lives.{230}
 
The “Jedge” was a faithful member of the solemn conclaves of the wise ones with the chin whiskers at the general store in the sleepy village, where he often reversed the decisions of the supreme court. His chair in the charmed circle around the big old-fashioned stove, and among the sawdust cuspidors, in winter, and out on the platform under the awning in summer, was looked upon as the resting-place of about as much legal wisdom, and about as much bad whisky, as one man could comfortably carry around. His dissertations were always anxiously listened to and absorbed by his auditors, each according to his capacity. His opinions and observations were variously interpreted to the home firesides around through the country at night, according to the intellectual limitations of the narrator.

“The Jedge says that they’s some cases that’s agin the common law, an’ they’s some cases that’s agin the stattoot law, but about this ’ere case he was talkin’ about, ’e said ’e’d ’ave to look up sumpen. He told about a case where some feller ’ad sued another feller fer some money that was owin’ to ’im, but ’e’d lost the notes, but ’e was goin’ to{232} git a judgment agin this feller all the same, an’ make a levy on ’im. You bet I’m goin’ to be thar when this case comes up in court an’ see wot’s doin’. The Jedge is sharper’n a tack, an’ you bet them fellers over to the county seat ain’t goin’ to put nothin’ over on’ im, if ’e’s sober. He’ll make points on all of ’em, but if ’e goes over thar an’ sets ’round Fogarty’s place boozin’, ’e’ll lose out.”

In talking with Sipes, one afternoon, about some of the roads in the back country, he suggested that we take a walk over to the Judge’s house and see him. “The Jedge has got a map that’s got all them things on it. The ol’ feller deals in law, an’ land, an’ fire insurance, an’ everythin’ else.”

After Sipes had carefully shut the door of his shanty, and secured it with an old iron padlock, we started on our journey. He said that he generally locked the place up when he went away, as “there was sometimes some fellers snoopin’ ’round that might swipe sumpen, an’ the Jedge told me oncet that if anybody ever busted open the lock, it would show bulgarious intent, an’ they’d git sent up fer it if they ever got caught, but if they went in{233} when the place wasn’t locked, it was trespass on the case, or sumpen like that.”

We trudged along through the deep sand for half a mile or so, and then turned through an opening in the dunes where the road came in. Our walk led through the broken wet country for about a mile before we came to more solid ground. On the way across the marshy strip the old man pointed out familiar spots where he had “lambasted pretty near a whole flock o’ ducks at one shot.” In another place he had once spent nearly an hour in “sneakin’ up on a bunch o’ wooden decoys that some feller had out, an’ when I shot into ’em you’d a thought a ton o’ lead ’ad struck a lumber pile. The feller yelled when I fired. He was back in some weeds, an’ I guess ’e was afraid there was goin’ to be sumpen doin’ on ’im with the other bar’l if ’e didn’t yell.”

A tamarack swamp, about half a mile away, was a favorite haunt for rabbits in the winter. He often went over there on the ice after there had been a light fall of snow.

“Them little beasts are pretty foxy, but I just go over there an’ set still, an’ when one of ’em comes{234} hoppin’ ’round out in the open, I shoot the fillin’ out of ’im. I’ve got as many as twenty there in one day.

“When we git over to the Jedge’s house, don’t you go ag’inst none o’ that whisky that ’e’s got in a big black bottle in the under part of ’is desk. He calls the bottle ‘Black Betty,’ an’ it’s ter’ble stuff. It kicks pretty near as hard as my ol’ scatter gun, an’ ’e has to keep a glass stopper in the bottle. A common cork would be et up. A man that laps up whisky like that has to have a sheet-iron stummick, an’ I guess the Jedge’s got one all right, fer ’e’s bin hittin’ it fer years.

“He fills the bottle up out of a big demijohn, that ’e gits loaded up from a partic’lar bar’l at Fogarty’s place over to the county seat when ’e goes to court, an’ lots o’ times when ’e don’t go to court. The bar’l replenishes the demijohn, the demijohn replenishes Black Betty, an’ Black Betty replenishes the Jedge, an’ after that the Jedge has to replenish Fogarty—so it all works ’round natural—an’ the Jedge keeps a skinful all the time.

“A white man could drink the grog we used to have on the ship an’ still see, but the Jedge’s dope{235} would make a hole in a pine board, an’ you pass it by.”

This I solemnly promised to do.

“I notice that them fellers that take up stiddy boozin’ have to ’tend to it all the time. When ol’ Jedge Blossom finds out that them law cases that ’e’s always talkin’ about interferes with ’is boozin’, ’e’ll quit monkeyin’ with ’em. It must a bin a sweet country that ’e bloomed in. Pretty near every time I go to see ’im, ’e ain’t home. They say ’e’s off ’tendin’ to some important cases before the master in chancery. Them cases is prob’ly mostly before Black Betty, fer I notice ’e always comes home from ’em stewed, an’ sometimes ’is horse comes home alone an’ ’e comes later. He takes drinks lots o’ times when ’e don’t need ’em. He just drops ’em in to hear ’em spatter.

“They’ll find ’im in a catamose condition some day when ’e’s over to the county seat, that ’e won’t come out of, an’ when it’s all over they can dispose of ’is remains by just pourin’ ’im back into Fogarty’s bar’l. All that’ll be left of ’im’ll be ’is thirst, an’ they’d better put wot’ll be left of ’is fire insurance business in with ’im, fer ’e’ll need some.{236}”

The old man’s entertaining review of the frailties of the “Jedge,” and of alcoholic humanity in general, continued until we arrived at our destination.

The small frame house, which was once white, but now a dingy gray, was adorned with faded green blinds. It stood about fifty feet back from the road. Some mournful evergreens stood in painful regularity in the front yard. The fence was somewhat dilapidated, and on it was a weather-beaten sign:

Cassius Blossom, J.P.,
Attorney and Counsellor at Law,
Notary Public,
Fire Insurance, Real Estate.

A gravel walk, fringed with white shells, led from the rickety gate to the rather ecclesiastical-looking front door. Sipes remarked in passing that “them white shells was to help the Jedge steer ’is course on dark nights, when ’e was three sheets in the wind, an’ beatin’ up aginst it.”

There was a brown bell-handle near the door, and when it was pulled we could hear a prolonged, hoarse tinkling somewhere off in the rear of the{237} house. We soon heard footsteps, and a forbidding-looking female opened the door. She was quite tall and angular. A few faded freckles around the nose—a mass of frowsy red hair, liberally streaked with gray—a general untidiness—and a glint in her yellowish-brown eyes, as she peered out at us over her brass-rimmed spectacles, produced impressions that were anything but assuring.

On being admitted to the house, we were ushered into the “library,” which also evidently served as a dining-room and office. A round table stood in the middle of the room, covered with a soiled red and white fringed table cloth. A hair-cloth sofa, with some broken springs and bits of excelsior protruding from underneath, occupied one side of the apartment, and there were several chairs of the same repellant material. A narrow roll-top combination desk and bookcase, freely splotched with ink-stains, stood near the window. Behind the dusty glass doors of the bookcase were a few well-worn books, bound in sheepskin. The first volume of Blackstone’s Commentaries, a copy of Parsons on Contracts, two or three volumes of court reports, and the Revised Statutes of the state, completed the assemblage of legal lore.{238}

The pictures on the walls consisted of some stiff-looking crayon portraits in gloomy frames, evidently copied from old photographs—all of which were very bad—another somber frame containing a fly-specked steel engraving of the justices of the U. S. Supreme Court, and still another, out of which the stern and noble face of Daniel Webster looked into the room. His immeasurable services to his country did not prevent him from leaving a malign influence behind him. His unfortunate example convinces many budding statesmen and promising lawyers that the human intellect is not soluble in alcohol, and they are lulled into the belief that the brilliancy of his mind was not dimmed by his indulgences. They emulate his weakness, as well as his strength, and console themselves in their cups with the greatness of Webster.

The “Jedge” sat at the desk, without his coat, writing, his back toward us. His shirt-sleeves, and his wide stand-up collar, were not clean. Evidently he was very busy and must not be disturbed just yet. With a solemn wink of his solitary eye, and an expressive gesture, Sipes attracted my attention to a faint wreath of softly ascending smoke{239} issuing from a cob pipe, which was lying on a window-sill on the opposite side of the room, which suggested that the important business at the desk may have commenced when the bell rang.

Evidently the “Jedge” appreciated the tactical advantage which preoccupation always establishes when business callers come. The visitor, in being compelled to await the disposal of more weighty matters, is duly humbled and impressed with the fact that, at least so far as time is concerned, he is a suppliant and not a dictator.

Dissimulation is an universal practice of man and woman kind. A pessimistic student of the complexities of the human comedy might, with much justice, conclude that at least half of the people on the globe—and especially of those who are super-civilized—pretend, to a greater or less degree, to be something that they are not, and the other half pretend not to be something that they are.

Further thought upon this subject was interrupted by the “Jedge.” The cane-seated swivel chair turned with a loud squeak, and we were before the disciple of Blackstone & Bacchus—that{240} famous firm whose dissolution the shade of Webster will never permit.

He was a spare, red-faced man, of perhaps sixty-five, with white hair and tobacco-stained whiskers. His prominent nose appeared to be a little swollen and wore a deep blush. With a learned frown he looked out of his deep-set and bloodshot eyes, over the tops of his spectacles. His voice was deep and hoarse.

“Good morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”

It was afternoon, but, as the uncharitable Sipes suggested later, “the Jedge prob’ly hadn’t got home last night yet, or mebbe ’e’d just got up.”

“You will have to excuse me for keeping you waiting, but I’ve just been preparing the final papers in a very important case that I’ve got to file in court by Saturday. I’ve had to work on them steadily for the past few days, as there are some very complicated questions of law involved, and I’ve had to look up a lot of decisions. I am now entirely at your service.”

After being formally introduced by my friend Sipes, I explained the object of the visit. The{241} “Jedge” was very cordial. He arose from his chair, walked impressively, and with much dignity, across the room, resumed his cob pipe, which was still alive, and raised the lid of an old leather-covered trunk, bound with brass nails. After a long search he produced the desired map and spread it out on the table.

“Before we take up this matter of the roads, I think............