in the morning, nice, respectable looking fellows too, and charged with being drunk and disorderly the night before. Very likely brought in from behind an ash barrel or something of that sort. The saddest sight of all were the women, some of ’em real bright-looking likely girls with faces as pretty as angels, but their showy clothes and a good deal of bogus jewelry gave a clue to how they came to fall, and indicated their bad occupation. One morning I remember there was among the prisoners a boy—a bootblack—charged with stealing something or other. He had a bright brown eye and a way of speaking right out and looking you square in the face. I never believed he was guilty from the way he argued his own case and the way his eyes filled with tears when he told the judge that he was an orphan; he had been obliged to commence prettly low down in life, he knew, but he was trying to make an honest living and get some education, hoping sometime to be somebody, because his mother told him when she lay sick that she should watch over him and watch his career in life from her home in heaven. When he got to talking this way I just says to myself, ‘That boy has got the sand in him,’ and as I am a sinner I believe he had. I had hard work to keep from blarting right out like a calf right before the whole kit of ’em. The judge looked kinder hazy around the eye when he began to question the boy, and he went on and talked real handsome to him. He said he would look into the matter thoroughly, and if he found there was a mistake he would provide for him in his own office. And by grief that little chap spoke up as smart as a man, and said he, ‘That ain’t the usual practice of judges if I am rightly informed, but I appreciate your kindness and shall try to merit your esteem. The charge is as baseless as anything, and I am sure of the place you promise me.’ And he was, too, for the day afore I come away I dropped into the judge’s law office, and there sot that boy reading a calfskin book with a quill pen behind his ear and feeling as big as Cuffy. And I heard from that boy after that, and he was admitted to the bar. I always had a good opinion of judges ever since that one there in New York acted so human like, and I’m glad to know that Judge P—is one of the right sort. Them are the only two judges I ever knew, and they both had the sand in them.”

I was greatly interested in this little story, homely though it was; there was a quiet earnestness about the speaker which made every word of importance. I expressed myself much pleased that an acquaintance so unpromisingly begun should have terminated so well for the youth, and tried to say something appropriate about judges exercising more discretion in their edicts in cases of juvenile misdemeanor or apparent depravity, with all of which my companion agreed. We had now reached a difficult point in the road which ran up the mountain-side at an angle, it seemed to me, of about eighty-nine degrees, and for half an hour neither of us spoke, but as the old gentleman gave the animals their bit as we came into a short space of flat country, he said:

“Somehow a court-room has always been an attractive spot to me. I never get into Concord but what I have to go up to the court-house and see what is the matter. About ten years ago I was visiting a sister of mine who lives down in Rhode Island, at a little place called Greenville. There is nothing there but mills and factory people, with a farmer now and then, not very near together. I didn’t particularly like around there, but the day before I came away I heard there was going to be a trial of a young man who had married a pretty hard case, for desertion and non-support. It was coming off before a country judge, a hardheaded old farmer, living about a mile from our place. I went over there the day it was down for. It was some kind of a State holiday, and the old farm-house was packed from the front room way back into the kitchen. There was lots of men, and more women than you’d think lived within a hundred miles. A young lawyer from Providence came out to argue the case for the woman, and the boy, who was pretty stuffy, had no lawyer and wouldn’t get any. He’d just as soon go to jail, he said, and no one doubted he would have to go, either. There was great excitement while the lawyer was talking, and the women whispered and had a good deal to say among themselves that wasn’t complimentary to the girl, but they rather favored her as agin the boy, and the old judge was swallowing every word that the oily chap was saying. After a little, three young fellows with fishing-rods and tackle came riding along, and they stopped and came in. They were city bred; you could tell that easy enough; and there was a sensation as they took their seats in among the women, who made a place for ’em mighty quick. I was attracted to one of them before he had been there long, by the way he watched the lawyer, and a quick way he had of asking questions of the folks sitting near him. Pretty soon he took out a book and wrote down a few words now and then, and when the other chap sat down he jumped up as quick as a cat and made the politest bow to the judge, and smiled on everybody in the sweetest way and said, that as