One of Ours
Book III: Sunrise on the Prairie
Chapter IX
One bright June day Mr. Wheeler parked his car in a line of motors before the
new pressed-brick Court house in Frankfort. The Court house stood in an open
square, surrounded by a grove of cotton-woods. The lawn was freshly cut, and the
flower beds were blooming. When Mr. Wheeler entered the courtroom upstairs, it
was already half-full of farmers and townspeople, talking in low tones while the
summer flies buzzed in and out of the open windows. The judge, a one-armed man,
with white hair and side-whiskers, sat at his desk, writing with his left hand.
He was an old settler in Frankfort county, but from his frockcoat and courtly
manners you might have thought he had come from Kentucky yesterday instead of
thirty years ago. He was to hear this morning a charge of disloyalty brought
against two German farmers. One of the accused was August Yoeder, the Wheelers'
nearest neighbour, and the other was Troilus Oberlies, a rich German from the
northern part of the county.
Oberlies owned a beautiful farm and lived in a big white house set on a hill,
with a fine orchard, rows of beehives, barns, granaries, and poultry yards. He
raised turkeys and tumbler-pigeons, and many geese and ducks swam about on his
cattleponds. He used to boast that he had six sons, "like our German Emperor."
His neighbours were proud of his place, and pointed it out to strangers. They
told how Oberlies had come to Frankfort county a poor man, and had made his
fortune by his industry and intelligence. He had twice crossed the ocean to
re-visit his fatherland, and when he returned to his home on the prairies he
brought presents for every one; his lawyer, his banker, and the merchants with
whom he dealt in Frankfort and Vicount. Each of his neighbours had in his
parlour some piece of woodcarving or weaving, or some ingenious mechanical toy
that Oberlies had picked up in Germany. He was an older man than Yoeder, wore a
short beard that was white and curly, like his hair, and though he was low in
stature, his puffy red face and full blue eyes, and a certain swagger about his
carriage, gave him a look of importance. He was boastful and quick-tempered, but
until the war broke out in Europe nobody had ever had any trouble with him.
Since then he had constantly found fault and complained,—everything was better
in the Old Country.
Mr. Wheeler had come to town prepared to lend Yoeder a hand if he needed one.
They had worked adjoining fields for thirty years now. He was surprised that his
neighbour had got into trouble. He was not a blusterer, like Oberlies, but a
big, quiet man, with a serious, large-featured face, and a stern mouth that
seldom opened. His countenance might have been cut out of red sandstone, it was
so heavy and fixed. He and Oberlies sat on two wooden chairs outside the railing
of the judge's desk.
Presently the judge stopped writing and said he would hear the charges
against Troilus Oberlies. Several neighbours took the stand in succession; their
complaints were confused and almost humorous. Oberlies had said the United
States would be licked, and that would be a good thing; America was a great
country, but it was run by fools, and to be governed by Germany was the best
thing that could happen to it. The witness went on to say that since Oberlies
had made his money in this country—
Here the judge interrupted him. "Please confine yourself to statements which
you consider disloyal, made in your presence by the defendant." While the
witness proceeded, the judge took off his glasses and laid them on the desk and
began to polish the lenses with a silk handkerchief, trying them, and rubbing
them again, as if he desired to see clearly.
A second witness had heard Oberlies say he hoped the German submarines would
sink a few troopships; that would frighten the Americans and teach them to stay
at home and mind their own business. A third complained that on Sunday
afternoons the old man sat on his front porch and played Die Wacht am Rhein on a
slide-trombone, to the great annoyance of his neighbours. Here Nat Wheeler
slapped his knee with a loud guffaw, and a titter ran through the courtroom. The
defendant's puffy red cheeks seemed fashioned by his Maker to give voice to that
piercing instrument.
When asked if he had anything to say to these charges, the old man rose,
threw back his shoulders, and cast a defiant glance at the courtroom. "You may
take my property and imprison me, but I explain nothing, and I take back
nothing," he declared in a loud voice.
The judge regarded his inkwell with a smile. "You mistake the nature of this
occasion, Mr. Oberlies. You are not asked to recant. You are merely asked to
desist from further disloyal utterances, as much for your own protection and
comfort as from consideration for the feelings of your neighbours. I will now
hear the charges against Mr. Yoeder."
Mr. Yoeder, a witness declared, had said he hoped the United States would go
to Hell, now that it had been bought over by England. When the witness had
remarked to him that if the Kaiser were shot it would end the war, Yoeder
replied that charity begins at home, and he wished somebody would put a bullet
in the President.
When he was called upon, Yoeder rose and stood like a rock before the judge.
"I have nothing to say. The charges are true. I thought this was a country where
a man could speak his mind."
"Yes, a man can speak his mind, but even here he must take the consequences.
Sit down, please." The judge leaned back in his chair, and looking at the two
men in front of him, began with deliberation: "Mr. Oberlies, and Mr. Yoeder, you
both know, and your friends and neighbours know, why you are here. You have not
recognized the element of appropriateness, which must be regarded in nearly all
the transactions of life; many of our civil laws are founded upon it. You have
allowed a sentiment, noble in itself, to carry you away and lead you to make
extravagant statements which I am confident neither of you mean. No man can
demand that you cease from loving the country of your birth; but while you enjoy
the benefits of this country, you should not defame its government to extol
another. You both admit to utterances which I can only adjudge disloyal. I shall
fine you each three hundred dollars; a very light fine under the circumstances.
If I should have occasion to fix a penalty a second time, it will be much more
severe."
After the case was concluded, Mr. Wheeler joined his neighbour at the door
and they went downstairs together.
"Well, what do you hear from Claude"' Mr. Yoeder asked.
"He's still at Fort R—. He expects to get home on leave before he sails.
Gus, you'll have to lend me one of your boys to cultivate my corn. The weeds are
getting away from me."
"Yes, you can have any of my boys,— till the draft gets 'em," said Yoeder
sourly.
"I wouldn't worry about it. A little military training is good for a boy. You
fellows know that." Mr. Wheeler winked, and Yoeder's grim mouth twitched at one
corner.
That evening at supper Mr. Wheeler gave his wife a full account of the court
hearing, so that she could write it to Claude. Mrs. Wheeler, always more a
school-teacher than a housekeeper, wrote a rapid, easy hand, and her long
letters to Claude reported all the neighbourhood doings. Mr. Wheeler furnished
much of the material for them. Like many long-married men he had fallen into the
way of withholding neighbourhood news from his wife. But since Claude went away
he reported to her everything in which he thought the boy would be interested.
As she laconically said in one of her letters:
"Your father talks a great deal more at home than formerly, and sometimes I
think he is trying to take your place."