The Glass Village

Johnny lay down flat on his stomach with his head over the tailboard and was sick all over the road. The Judge held onto his legs, looking away.

The rain stopped and the late afternoon sun came out just as they passed old man Lemmon’s hovel on Holy Hill.

Hubert Hemus’s car was parked just beyond the Adams house, before the church. The prisoner, Burney Hackett, the three Hemus men were nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” demanded Judge Shinn, pushing through the crowd of women and children at the church gate. “What did they do with him?”

“Don’t you worry, Judge, he’s safe,” said Millie Pangman. The sun flashed off her gold eyeglasses. “They’re fixin’ up the coalbin in the church cellar as a jail. He won’t get away!”

“Too good for him, I say,” bellowed Rebecca Hemus. “Too good for him!”

“And that Elizabeth Sheare runnin’ to make him a cup of tea,” said Emily Berry venomously. “Tea! Poison’s what I’d give him. And gettin’ him dry clothes, like the church was a hotel. Peter Berry, you get on home and take those wet things off!”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you all went home?” asked the Judge evenly. “This is no place for women and children.”

“What did he say?” shouted old Selina Hackett. “Who went home? At a time like this!”

“We have as much right here as you men, Judge,” said Prue Plummer sharply. “Nobody’s going to budge till that murdering foreigner gets what’s coming to him. Do you realize it was only by the grace of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost that I wasn’t the one he murdered? How many times I told Aunt Fanny, ‘Don’t take in every dirty stranger who comes scraping at your kitchen door,’ I told her. ‘Some day,’ I said, ‘some day, Aunt Fanny, you’ll let in the wrong one.’ The poor dear wouldn’t ever listen. And now look at her!”

Mathilda Scott said in a low voice, “I’d like to get my hands on him. Once, just once.”

Judge Shinn looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

Hackett and the Hemuses appeared on the church steps. As the Judge led the way through the group of women and children to meet them, Johnny noticed Mert Isbel’s daughter Sarah and her child hanging about the edge of the crowd. The woman’s face was lively. But the liveliness died as her father pushed by her. She drew away, gripping her little girl’s hand.

“Burney, what’s the meaning of this?” cried Judge Shinn. “Locking him in a coalbin!”

“Got no jail to lock him in, Judge,” said the constable.

“He shouldn’t be here at all! Have you notified Coroner Barn-well yet?”

“I got to talk that over with Doc Cushman. Doc’s waitin’ for us over at Aunt Fanny’s.”

“All Dr. Cushman can legally do is bring in a finding that death was caused by a criminal act, and report that finding at once to Coroner Barnwell in Cudbury. From that point on, the case is in Barnwell’s hands. He will either summon a coroner’s jury of six electors—”

“Judge.” Hubert Hemus’s gaunt face was granite, only the jaws moving, like millstones grinding away at the words to come. “For ninety-one years Fanny Adams belonged to the town. This is town business. Ain’t nobody goin’ to tell us how to run town business. Now you’re an important judge and you know the law and how things ought to be done, and we’ll be obliged for your advice as a judge and a neighbor. We’ll let Coroner Barnwell come down here and make his findin’s. If he wants a coroner’s jury, why, we got six qualified electors right here. We’ll do everythin’ legal. Ain’t nobody goin’ to deprive this murderin’ furrin trash of his legal rights. He’ll have his lawyer and he’ll have his chance to defend himself. But he ain’t leavin’ Shinn Corners, no matter what.”

A murmur formed behind them like an oncoming wave. The sound tickled Johnny’s scalp. He fought down another attack of nausea.

Hube Hemus’s cheerless glance went out over his neighbors. “We got to get this organized, neighbors,” the First Selectman said. “Got to set a day and night guard over the prisoner. Got to set guards against outside meddlin’. Got to see that the milkin’s done — we’re a full hour late now! — got lots to do. Right now I b’lieve the big boys better get on home and attend to the cows. Mert, you can send Calvin Waters back in your wagon with Sarah and the child to do your milkin’; we need you here. We men stay and figger out what we got to do. The women with small children can take ’em home, give ’em somethin’ to eat, and put ’em to bed. Bigger children can watch over ’em. The women can get together and fix a community supper...”

Somehow, the Judge and Johnny found themselves shut off. They stood about on the periphery, watching and listening, but groups fell silent and drifted apart at their approach.

“It must be me,” Johnny said to the Judge. “Shinn or no Shinn, I’m an outsider. Wouldn’t it make it easier all around, Judge, if I packed and got out?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said the Judge scornfully.

“What do you mean?” said Johnny.