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Show Cumberland County Filed Smoulders at Murder Trial Scene, at the tint of a esrle. of Virginia feud trials. Upper pletura ehewe slohHeer. WieJ ea the, "oeacMne fenee s round Cumberlend eouirty eeurtheuee, tha stile at left being the only entrance. Below, Be-low, oergesitt M. A. Eden ef Portemeuth, Ve, polios, searching e vie.tor for ww ' uu . doer. Pertreit at Hght ehewg Larkia Garrett, and at left hie Brother, Robert Oerrett, both- aceused af murder, , - By BOB DORMAN NCA tervke Steff Writer. CUMBERLAND COURTHOUSE, Vs Aug. ID. There Is melodrama I and half the gathered countryside greets them with handshakes and smiles, and the other halt stares at : them silently, with grim Upe. -Vigilant officers. tsnse and watchful In thla strange scene to which they have been transplanted, transplant-ed, slap pistol pockete Indiscriminately Indiscrimi-nately at the courthouse steps. Pew guns have been iound. though or corn liquor either for careful persona per-sona park both at the little hotel, where seven rooms bulge with lawyere and partisan spectators. There la an armistice for the moment In the smoldering feud of Cumberland county. . Teu observe It beet In the siring of Idlers sitting sit-ting en the wooden fence perched there, llie birds before the storm, watting for the breatitleee thing that may come. "' - -' here. And the tenss breathlessneel of the mountain feud. - 1 For daya the murder trials ol the Garrett brothers have beer dragging on In ths ' little brick ' courthouse, a 10-year-old relic. They are being tried separately for the killing of Rev. K. C. Pierce, clrcult-rldlng pastor of five email Baptist churches in Cumberland county. First ths trial of Lark In Clar-rett, Clar-rett, and then of Robert Garrett. The one already has been epec-tacularly epec-tacularly halted, a mistrial; Lark In will be tried again next month, and meanwhile the task of preparing pre-paring a jury panel occuplee the Interval before Robert Oarretfs trial August 10. Tho brothers were Indicted for murder for the death; of the mln' Istsr and a gun dusi that followed a bloody fist fight while the clergyman's wife and her ei-weeks-old baby In her arms struggled strug-gled to sars his Ufa. Who fired first LarkJn or Bob Garrstt or the pastor, his skull fractured. Dose broken and face streaming with blood, staggering Into his house end out again with a shotgun la ons hand and a pistol In ths olherT rislola are the fear and dread In the little courthouse now. Deputy sheriffs, detectives, and policemen borrowed from neighboring neigh-boring towns, patrol the courthouse. court-house. Every men entering ' the courtroom Is searched for weapona There le the dread of a sudden explosion of the fued that has sep-arated sep-arated thla countryside Into two hostlls camps such a sudden tragedy aa the melodramatic scene of a few years ago when I bullets flew In a Virginia courtroom and murder rams swift on ths beetg of Just euch a murder frlaL Ton must go to fiction to parallel ths scens here now: A sleepy country coun-try village, dosing under a placid, burning sky; winding roads, flower-bordered, leading Into duety Main atreet: mulea with flopping ears, elbowing dingy fllvvere; tha general etore where you can buy anything under the sun. or get Into an argument Instanter. Barefoot urchins and their elders In overalle perch like blrde en the wooden fence that bare the crowd from the velvety lawn of the courthouse, court-house, The stile is guarded, and vou must have a pass from Jtidgi R. D. Whits or from King Adams, 10-year-old sheriff. There are many queer angles to this melodrama of a Virginia village. vil-lage. Bob Garrett le clerk of tht court trying htm for murder, end Larkln Garrett Is chancellor In chancery. A temporary clerk ol courts wae brought from Powhatan Pow-hatan county, and a Judge from Prlnceae Ann county. Politics and family ties make , tangled akeln running through tht . machinery of the law. The.Oer-Iretta The.Oer-Iretta walk about among the depu-ftlee depu-ftlee and detectives and policemen. |