business. "Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort
of semi-official voice, "before we move things about, you tell Mr.
Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday
morning."

The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.

"By the way," he said, "has anything been moved?" He turned to the
sheriff. "Are things just as you left them yesterday?"

Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a
little to one side of the kitchen table.

"It's just the same."

"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said the county
attorney.

"Oh--yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of
yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of. "When I had
to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy--let me tell
you, I had my hands full _yesterday_. I knew you could get back from
Omaha by to-day, George, and as long as I went over everything here
myself--"

"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was
past and gone go, "tell just what happened when you came here yesterday
morning."

Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of
the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered
along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this
straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make
things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn't begin at once, and she
noticed that he looked queer--as if standing in that kitchen and having
to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.

"Yes, Mr. Hale?" the county attorney reminded.

"Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes," Mrs. Hale's
husband began.

Harry was Mrs. Hale's oldest boy. He wasn't with them now, for the very
good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was
taking them this morning, so he hadn't been home when the sheriff
stopped to say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and
tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all
out. With all Mrs. Hale's other emotions came the fear now that maybe
Harry wasn't dressed warm enough--they hadn't any of them realized how
that north wind did bite.

"We come along this road," Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand
to the road over which they had just come, "and as we got in sight of
the house I says to Harry, 'I'm goin' to see if I can't get John W