Chapter 10

The genuineness of the change which had come over Sam Kimper slowly became the subject of general conversation in Bruceton. Judge Prency frequently spoke of it; so did his wife; and, as the Prencys were leaders of village society, whatever interested them became the fashion. People with shoes which needed repairing visited the new cobbler in great numbers, each prompted as much by curiosity as by business, for they seldom haggled about prices.

Sam's family, too, began to receive some attention. Mrs. Prency, having first secured a promise from Sam that the children should go to Sunday-school if they could be decently clad, interested several ladies to the extent of bestowing some old clothing, which she hired a sewing woman to make over into becoming garments for Billy and Mary. Mrs. Kimper, too, was enabled to dress well enough to appear in church, though she stipulated that she should go only to evening services.

"I don't 'mount to much, Mrs. Prency," said she to the family's benefactor; "there ain't much left of me as I once was, but I ain't goin' to have people look at me the way they do, any more than I can help."

"The feeling does you credit, Mrs. Kimper," said the lady, "but you won't long be troubled that way. The oftener you let people see you, the less curious they'll be."

Sam's new way of life, too, began to be discussed where men most congregated. Loungers at stores, the railway station, and the post-office talked of the town's only ex-convict who had not yet gone back to his old ways. Most of the men who talked of him did it in about the manner of spectators of the gladiatorial combats in ancient Rome: they admired the endurance and courage of the man, but seldom did it occur to them to stretch out a hand to help him. There were exceptions to this rule, however. An old farmer who had brought a load of wheat to the station listened to the tale, asked a great many questions about the case, and said, finally,--

"I s'pose you're all doin' all you can to help him along?"

The by-standers looked at one another, but no one answered in the affirmative. One man at last found words to say, "Why, he's tryin' to help hisself along, and we're watchin' to see how he'll succeed. Now, I was along by his place this mornin', an' seen him carryin' in the last wood from his wood-pile. 'Sam,' I hollered, 'don't you want to buy a load of wood? I've got some I want to sell.' 'I need it,' said Sam, 'but I ain't got a cent.' Well, mebbe I'd have trusted him for a load if he'd asked me, but it occurred to me to stand off an' see how he'd manage it. It's cold weather now, an' if he don't get it some way, his family'll go cold. I went by there again at noon-time, but he hadn't got none yit."

"He's as independent like," said another, "as if he hadn't never been in jail."

"You're a pack of heartless hogs!" roared the farmer, getting into his wagon and driving off.

"Can't see that he's any different from the rest of us," muttered one of the by-standers.

Could the group have known the trouble in the new cobbler's heart, as he bent all day over his work and thought of the needed wood, their interest in the subject would have been enhanced. Sam's wife was a cold-blooded creature; the baby was somewhat ailing; it would not do for the fire to go out, yet the fuel he had carried in at morn could not more than last until evening. The little money that had come into the shop during the day would barely purchase some plain food, of which there was never in the house a day's supply. He had not the courage to ask credit for wood; his occasional attempts to "get trusted" had all failed, no matter how small the article wanted. He looked for Larry Highgetty, his employer, to beg a small loan, but Larry, though he came into the shop every morning for his share of the previous day's earnings, could not be found that afternoon.

Suddenly, when the sun was almost down, Sam remembered that a house was being built several squares away. Carpenters always left many scraps behind them, which village custom allowed anyone to pick up. The cobbler devoutly thanked heaven for the thought, closed the shop, and hurried away to the new building. The men were still at work, and there was a great deal of waste lying about.

"May I have some of these leavin's?" asked Sam of the master builder.

The man looked down from the scaffolding on which he stood, recognized the questioner, turned again to his work, and at last answered, with a scowl,--

"Yes, I suppose so. It would be all the same, I guess, if I didn't say so. You'd come after dark and help yourself."

Sam pocketed the insult, though the weight of it was heavy. So was that of the bits of board he gathered; but he knew that such thin wood burned rapidly, so he took a load that made him stagger. As he entered the yard behind his house, he saw, through the dusk which was beginning to gather, a man rapidly tossing cord-wood from a wagon to a large pile which already lay on the ground.

"My friend," gasped Sam, dropping his own load and panting from his exertion, "I guess--you've made a--mistake. I ain't ordered a load of wood from nobody. Guess you've come to the wrong house."

"Guess not," replied the man, who was the farmer that had freed his mind at the railway station during the afternoon.

"This is Sam Kimper's," explained the cobbler.

"Just where I was told to come," said the farmer, tossing out the last sticks and stretching his arms to rest upon them.

"Who was it told you to bring it?" asked the resident.

The farmer stooped and took a large package from the front of the wagon and threw it on the ground; then he threw another.

"Won't you tell me who sent it?" Sam asked again.

The farmer turned his head and shouted,--

"God Almighty, if you must know; and He told me to bring that bag of flour and shoulder of bacon, too."

Then the farmer drove off, at a gait quite unusual in farm-teams.

The cobbler burst into tears and fell upon his knees. When he arose he looked in the direction from which came the rattle of the retreating wheels, and said to himself,--

"I wonder if that man was converted in the penitentiary?"

The story, when Sam told it in the house, amazed the family, though little Mary giggled long on hearing the name of the supposed giver. No sooner was supper ended than the child slipped out of the house and hurried to the hotel to tell her sister Jane all about it. Within half an hour the story had passed, through the usual channels, to all lounging-places that were open, and at one of them--the post-office--it was heard by Deacon Quickset. It troubled the good man a great deal, and he said,--

"There's no knowing how much harm'll be done the fellow by that speech. If he thinks the Lord is going to take care of him in such unexpected ways, he'll go to loafing and then get back into his old ways."

"Didn't the Lord ever help you in any unexpected way, deacon?" asked Judge Prency, who nearly every evening spent a few moments in the post-office lobby.

"Why, yes,--of course; but, judge, Sam and I aren't exactly the same kind of men, I think you'll allow."

"Quite right," said the judge. "You're a man of sense and character. But when Jesus was on earth did He give much attention to men of your general character and standing? According to my memory of the record,--and I've re-read it several times since Sam Kimper's return,--He confined His attentions quite closely to the poor and wretched, apparently to the helpless, worthless class to whom the Kimper family would have belonged had it lived at that time. 'They that are whole need no physician,'--you remember?--'but they that are sick.'"

"According to the way you seem to be thinking, Judge Prency," said the deacon, coldly, "them that's most deserving are to be passed by for them that's most shiftless."

"Those who deserve most are those who need most, aren't they, deacon?--that is, if anyone is really 'deserving,' as we use the word."

"Your notions would break up business entirely, if they were carried out," asserted the deacon.

"Not at all; though I've never discovered that business is the first interest of the Almighty."

"You mean to say that because I work hard and get a little fore-handed I ought to take a lot of shiftless folks and teach them to be lazy and dependent on me?"

"Certainly not, deacon. How you do jump at conclusions! There aren't a lot of shiftless people in this town; there are very few; and even they might be helped, and shamed into taking care of themselves, if you and I and some more fore-handed people were to follow our Master's example."

"I've spoken to every unbeliever in this town about his soul's salvation," said the deacon; "I've always made it a matter of duty. Christ came to preach salvation, and I'm following His example, in my humble way."

"Didn't He do anything else?" asked the judge. "You remember what answer He sent to John in prison, when the Baptist seemed to have lost heart and wondered whether Jesus were really He who should come? He said that to the poor the gospel was preached, but He gave half a dozen other proofs, each of them showing special care for men's bodies."

"Judge, you're talking materialism," said the deacon. "It's a spirit that's getting too common everywhere."

"Oh, no, I'm not; I'm talking the words of Jesus Himself. Aren't they good enough for you? or are you like children at the table who will take only what suits them, and ignore everything else?"

"Such talks never do any good, judge," said the deacon, buttoning his overcoat and turning up the collar. "I've spent a good deal of my life thinking about sacred subjects and trying to lead my fellow-men in the right way. You're not going to make me believe at my time of life that I've been all wrong, and that Jesus Christ came on earth only to start a charity society."

"Nor to teach people to live right?"

"He wants them first to know how to die right. I should think, judge, that Sam Kimper had been converting you over again and doing it backwards. That fellow has only got hold of one end of the Scripture--one little jag end of it."

"Too small an end to be worthy of your attention, I suppose, deacon?"

"This is all wasted time and idle talk, Judge Prency," said the deacon, leaving the place so quickly that he forgot to ask for his letters.