Even the funeral had the quality of something seen in a dream. Or a play, Johnny thought. This might be
The Comfort undertaker’s hearse had started from the Adams house and all of Shinn Corners — men and women and children — trudged along behind it up Shinn Road toward the Corners, women fanning themselves with their hands, men wiping their foreheads in the sticky forenoon haze; and they had slowly turned right at the intersection into Four Corners Road and passed the horse trough and the parsonage and come to the sagging iron gate of the cemetery. And Cy Moody and his helper eased the expensive-looking casket out of the hearse, and Ferriss Adams and Judge Shinn and Hubert Hemus and Orville Pangman and Merton Isbel and Peter Berry took hold of the handles and began the death march among the ancient stones to the raw hole dug by Calvin Waters in the very early, morning; and Johnny shivered.
He hardly heard the nasal monotone of Samuel Sheare reading the service for the dead, for it was not good to listen closely to such things read in the dedicated mumble of a man addressing God directly, without regard for neighbor or murderer or even his own troubled soul. Johnny looked instead among the graves and beyond, to Isbel’s cornfield, and farther to the south the barn and lean-to of the departed old woman, so near to the place of her birth and yet so far from its living beauty. How often had Fanny Adams stood here listening to Samuel Sheare mutter the final farewell to others? How often had she painted this very scene — the field, the cemetery, perhaps these same mourners? He remembered the liveliness of her eyes and the warmth of her old hands, the deep wise voice with its touch of Yankee asperity; and Johnny was saddened and depressed.
He searched the headstones and saw Shinns scattered among them like sterile seed, Shinns whose blood ran in his veins and who were stranger strangers to him than the Chinese and Koreans. He saw dates so old they had worn away, names so forgotten they seemed visitants from another planet.
And you, Fanny Adams, he thought. You and me both.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” said Ferriss Adams, standing before the twelve campchairs, “I’m not going to make a long speech. On trial for his life before you is one Josef Kowalczyk, who came tramping through your fine little town on the afternoon of Saturday last, the fifth of July, was here less than one hour, and left behind him a tragedy that none of you will ever forget — the murdered body of Aunt Fanny Adams, good neighbor, benefactor of Shinn Corners, from one of your oldest families, and a world-famous person.
“The question before you is: Did Josef Kowalczyk willfully, and with malice aforethought, and during the commission of a felony, pick up a poker belonging to deceased and with it beat her so savagely on the head as to cause her death?
“The People believe that Josef Kowalczyk did so murder Fanny Adams and that his guilt can be proved...”
As Adams went on to sketch in general terms the nature of the “People’s” proofs, Johnny watched the faces of his fellow jurymen. They were listening with grim intensity, nodding at every third word. Even Calvin Waters’s blank features were lightly stamped with intelligence.
Josef Kowalczyk was mercifully so occupied in trying to follow Ferriss Adams’s English that he might have been a mere spectator. The furred brows were painfully one; the bruised lips curled back over his poor teeth in the effort. When Adams sat down and Andy Webster rose, a look of pleasure passed over Kowalczyk’s face.
