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Show 59 when my father would expect me to be in the fields working. When I saw that there was absolutely no other way, I decided I could not tell a lie and told the truth. He looked at me amazed: you were speeding, breaking the law? He clamped his jaw, twirled his mustache, and drove me to town like a sheriff delivering his prisoner. Buck was there before us, joshing with the chief in his office about the recent loss of his fourth tooth, and my father and I went on into the courtroom to wait. The room was almost bare, the American flag on a staff like a coat rack looked ominous, but I was determined to bear my warning with dignity and courage. The J.P. came into the chief's office, a small man who joked with Buck. "So you're here again?" he said, almost jolly. "Yes, sir, but this time it ain't my fault." "I've heard that before," said the J.P. with an amiable grin, and they all laughed. He looked like a great guy. His name was Castle, Rodney Castle, and he was a farmer like my father, had a small place out around the Hogback. Parked to neck, I'd probably looked out over his snowy fields often these past winters. But then he entered the courtroom. The fat young cop who had caught me told us to stand up, and he came in without a smile, without a nod to my father, all business. He went directly to a large desk set up on a raised platform, and when he sat down behind it he wasn't short any longer, he looked towering. His face had grown tight-lipped and grave, and when he said he'd take me first, that Buck didn't have anything to do but wait anyhow, I didn't appreciate the favor. I was told to stand alone in the middle of the room facing him. My father sat off behind me, the fat young cop stood beside the J.P.'s desk, in the chief's office everybody stopped talking, everybody concentrated on me, and I looked at the J.P-He towered above me, grim and hostile. I was numb. Still, when the charge was read, I thought of how unsupported it was, of how I could have seen the chief |