Losing Battles by Eudora Welty

but Nathan—he was out of reach. The majority of Banner community was there, right behind us. Harmony had another record attendance, to make Dolphus and Birdie feel real good, and Morning Star to a man was packed in behind Curtis and Beck, and I think Percy and Nanny drew at least their side of Panther Creek. Even a few Ludlow folks was there, with nothing better to do, I reckon, than come to get a peep at a bunch of country monkeys.” Uncle Noah Webster smiled at them tenderly.
    Uncle Percy downed a gourdful of water and shook his head. “From the opening tune he give on the gavel,” he said, “I commenced praying that Judge Moody might drop dead before the trial was over and the whole thing be called off out of respect. Can happen! I never witnessed it myself, but there’s such a thing in the memory of Brother Bethune—he’s there telling it while Judge Moody’s bringing us to order.
    “ ‘You’re pleading innocent, I suppose,’ says he to Jack.
    “ ‘Yes sir, I’m needed,’ says Jack.
    “Judge Moody calls, ‘Hush that crying! Or I’ll send the whole crowd out and order the doors shut. This is a courtroom.’ That’ll give you some idea. ‘Call Marshal E. P. Stovall,’ he says.”
    “Who in the world was that?” asked Aunt Cleo.
    “That’s Curly. His mama named him Excell Prentiss. In he comes, parading that coffin behind him. Mr. Willy Trimble’s holding up the foot,” said Uncle Curtis.
    “Wearing his Sunday harness, sporting a tie,” said Aunt Nanny. “Red tie. You could have packed Curly back in that coffin and sent him straight to meet his Maker without a thing more needed.”
    “And Mr. Willy was saying down the aisle, ‘If anybody in Ludlow wants one just like it, you’re looking at the artist right now.’
    “ ‘Stand that thing in the corner until it’s called for and show some respect for this court!’ Judge Moody says to Curly. I don’t know why I took heart,” said Uncle Percy in a wavering voice. “Then they carried in the safe and the Judge wants a good look at that.”
    “Just as empty as before?” asked Aunt Cleo.
    “Not only that, a bird had built a nest in it.”
    “Oh, we know how to make things dangerous around here!” cried Uncle Noah Webster. “And she was setting!”
    “ ‘Am I going to have to forgo examining that safe in the face of a nesting robin?’ That’s the Judge,” said Uncle Percy.
    “Well, it was spring!” Aunt Nanny interrupted. “That’s what Curly got for leaving the safe out front with the door wide open to show the passing public what had happened. I’d been surprised if there wasn’t a nest in that safe, by the time it comes to the trial.
    “Jack says, ‘Judge Moody, I hate to come in the courthouse and act like I know more than you do, but that’s a purple martin.’
    “ ‘What kind of a safe is that?” says Judge Moody. ‘And I want the best answer I can get from the owner.’
    “Curly tells him it’s a Montgomery Ward safe with a Sears Roebuck door.
    “ ‘You kept it locked?’ says Judge Moody, and Curly says he didn’t have to just exactly lock it if he leaned on it good. ‘Can you tell me why you don’t keep it locked?’ says Moody, and Curly says it’s because every time he locks it it costs him another sack of coal to get Mr. Willy Trimble to stop his horses and open it again. And he says when that door is leaned on good, it’s stuck so tight nothing will open it but a good rain of blows from his own fist in just the right tender spot on top, and that’s where he keeps his lamps setting.”
    “To me, that safe looked as poor an excuse for something to make a big fuss over as anything you could hope to see at a trial,” Uncle Curtis said.
    “Oh, the safe was on show, the coffin was on show, everything was on show but the ring! The only thing in the world that would have told the true story and spoken for itself!” screamed Miss Beulah. “That’s missing!”
    “That safe was the evidence,