Read "Back Home" by Irvin S. Cobb online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WHEN Breck Tandy killed a man he made a number of mistakes. In the first place, he killed the most popular man in Forked Deer County -- the county clerk, a man named Abner J. Rankin. In the second place, he killed him with no witnesses present, so that it stood his word -- and he a newcomer and a stranger -- against the mute, eloquent accusation of a riddled dead man. And in the third place, he sent north of the Ohio River for a lawyer to defend him.
On the first Monday in June -- Court Monday -- the town filled up early. Before the field larks were out of the grass the farmers were tying their teams to the gnawed hitch-racks along the square. By nine o'clock the swapping ring below the wagonyard was swimming in red dust and clamorous with the chaffer of the horse-traders. In front of a vacant store the Ladies' Aid Society of Zion Baptist Church had a canvas sign out, announcing that an elegant dinner would be served for twenty-five cents from twelve to one, also ice cream and cake all day for fifteen cents.