I asked Sipes if the forbidding-looking female who came to the door was the Judge’s wife.
“Not on yer life,” he replied. “If ’e had a wife, she’d kill ’im. That ol’ cactus is ’is housekeeper. She’s a distant relative o’ some kind, an’ she’s just waitin’ fer Black Betty to finish ’im up so’s she’ll git the house.”
We arrived at Sipes’s place about dusk. I had left my boat on the beach, and, as the old man helped me push it into the water, he indulged in final anathemas against the “Jedge.” He shook his fist in his direction and said that “when we go over there ag’in we’d better leave our money in the shanty.”
I happened to stop at the store in the sleepy village one hot day during the following summer. The “Jedge” was just getting into his buggy, but stopped and greeted me cordially. I intended leaving for home that evening, and he kindly offered to take me to the railroad station, about five miles away. I gladly accepted his offer, although he did not appear to be in a very good condition to drive a horse.
On the way across the country he recited his public services, discussed the details of his “important cases,” and unfolded his dreams of the future of the county.
We arrived at the station just in time to enable me to jump quickly out of the buggy and catch the train that was pulling out. I paused on the rear platform to call out a good-bye to the “Jedge,” but he had tried to make too short a turn on the narrow road, and the buggy was lying on its side, much twisted up. The horse had stopped and was looking inquiringly back from between the broken thills. The “Jedge,” who was partially under the wreck, but evidently unhurt, waved a cheerful farewell at me as the train passed the water tank, and in the distance I could see that he was getting safely out of the scrape.
The station agent and a few villagers, who had come to the depot to see that the train arrived and departed properly, were going to his assistance.
From about two miles away I saw the black buggy top slowly resume its normal position and begin to move on the road. The “Jedge” was probably by this time much in need of “refreshment,” and, as he was now on the way to the county seat, relief was not very far off. Undoubtedly his friend Fogarty would fully and deeply sympathize with him in his troubles as long as his cash lasted.
