He caught hold of her convulsively, and she pressed his head against her breast.  Then he saw that she was crying, and he grew quiet, and wiped his eyes with his ragged coat sleeve.

“I’m all right now, Ma,” he said; but he looked at her wildly.

She did not follow him into his little unceiled bedroom.  She must have known that he had reached that age where no woman could help him.  It must be a man now to whom he could pin his faith.  And while he lay awake, tumbling and tossing, along with bitter thoughts of Old Man Thornycroft came other bitter thoughts of Mr. Kirby, whom, deep down in his boy’s heart he had worshipped—­Mr. Kirby, who had sided with Old Man Thornycroft and sent a summons with—­no message for him.  “God!” he said.  “God!” And pulled his hair, down there under the covers; and he hated the law that would take a dog from him and give it back to that old man—­the law that Mr. Kirby represented.

It was still snowing when next morning he and his mother drove out of the yard and he turned the head of the reluctant old mule in the direction of Belcher’s store.  A bitter wind cut their faces, but it was not as bitter as the heart of the boy.  Only twice on that five-mile ride did he speak.  The first time was when he looked back to find Buck, whom they had left at home, thinking he would stay under the house on such a day, following very close behind the buggy.

“Might as well let him come on,” said the boy.

The second time was when they came in sight of Belcher’s store, dim yonder through the swirling snow.  Then he looked up into his mother’s face.

“Ma,” he said grimly, “I ain’t no thief!”

She smiled as bravely as she could with her stiffened face and with the tears so near the surface.  She told him that she knew it, and that everybody knew it.  But there was no answering smile on the boys set face.

The squire’s gray mare, standing huddled up in the midst of other horses and of buggies under the shed near the store, told that court had probably already convened.  Hands numb, the boy hitched the old mule to the only rack left under the shed, then made Buck lie down under the buggy.  Heart pounding, he went up on the store porch with his mother and pushed the door open.

There was a commotion when they entered.  The men, standing about the pot-bellied stove, their overcoats steaming, made way for them.  Old Man Thornycroft looked quickly and triumphantly around.  In the rear of the store the squire rose from a table, in front of which was a cleared space.

“Pull up a chair nigh the stove for Mrs. Allen, Tom Belcher,” he said.  “I’m busy tryin’ this chicken-stealin’ nigger.  When I get through, Mrs. Allen, if you’re ready I’ll call your case.”

Davy stood beside his mother while the trial of the negro proceeded.  Some of the fight had left him now, crowded down here among all these grown men, and especially in the presence of Mr. Kirby, for it is hard for a boy to be bitter long.  But with growing anxiety he heard the sharp questions the magistrate asked the negro; he saw the frown of justice; he heard the sentence “sixty days on the gang.”  And the negro had stolen only a chicken—­and he had run off with another man’s dog!