Chapter 18

"Tom," said Sam Kimper to his eldest son one morning after breakfast, "I wish you'd walk along to the shop with me. There's somethin' I want to talk about."

Tom wanted to go somewhere else; what boy doesn't, when his parents have anything for him to do? Nevertheless, the young man finally obeyed his father, and the two left the house together.

"Tom," said the father, as soon as the back door had closed behind them, "Tom, I'm bein' made a good deal more of than I deserve, but 'tain't any of my doin's, and men that ort to know keep tellin' me that I'm doin' a lot o' good in town. Once in a while, though, somebody laughs at me,--laughs at somethin' I say. It's been hurtin' me, an' I told Judge Prency so the other day; but he said, 'Sam, it isn't what you say, but the way you say it.' You see, I never had no eddication; I was sent to school, but I played hookey most of the time."

"Did you, though?" asked Tom, with some inflections that caused the cobbler to look up in time to see that his son was looking at him admiringly; there could be no doubt about it. Sam had never been looked at that way before by his big boy, and the consequence was an entirely new and pleasurable sensation. After thinking it over a moment, he replied,--

"Yes, I did, an' any fun that was to be found I looked after in them days. I don't mind tellin' you that I don't think I found enough to pay for the trouble; but things was as they was. Now I wish I'd done diff'rent; but it's too late to get back what I missed by dodgin' lessons. Tom, if I could talk better, it would be a good thing for me; but I ain't got no time to go to school. You've been to school a lot: why can't you come to the shop with me, an' sit down an' tell me where an' how I don't talk like other folks?"

Tom indulged in a long and convulsive chuckle.

"When you've done laughin' at your father, Tom," continued Sam, "he'll be glad to have you say somethin' that'll show him that you ain't as mean an' low down as some folks think you be."

"I ain't no school-teacher," said Tom, "an' I ain't learned no fancy ways of talkin'!"

"I don't expect you to tell me mor'n you know," said the parent, "but if you've got the same flesh an' blood as me, you'll stand by me when I'm bothered. The puppies of a dog would do that much for their parent in trouble."

Tom did not answer; he sulked a little while, but finally entered the shop with his father and sat down, searched his mind a few moments, and then recalled and repeated two injunctions which his last teacher had most persistently urged upon her pupils,--that they should not drop letters from the ends of words, nor say "ain't" or "hain't." Then Sam devoted himself to practice by talking aloud, and Tom became so amused by the changes in his father's intonation that he finally was obliged to go home and tell his mother and Mary.

"Stop that,--right away!" exclaimed Mrs. Kimper, as soon as Tom got fairly into his story. "Your father ain't goin' to be laughed at in his own house, by his own family, while I'm around to stand up for him."

"Oh, stuff!" exclaimed Tom, in amazement. Then he laughed as he reverted to his father's efforts at correct pronunciation, and continued his story. Suddenly he was startled by seeing his mother snatch a stump of a fire-shovel from the hearth and brandish it over his head.

"You give up that talk right away!" exclaimed the woman. "Your father is astonishin' the life out of me ev'ry day by the new way he's talkin' an' livin'. He's the best man in this town; I don't care if he _has_ been in the penitentiary, I'm not goin' to hear a bit of fun made of him, not even by one of his own young ones."

All the brute in Tom's nature came to the surface in an instant, yet his amazement kept him silent and staring. It was such a slight, feeble, contemptible figure, that of the woman who was threatening to punish him,--him, Tom Kimper, whom few men in town would care to meet in a trial of strength. It set Tom to thinking; he said afterwards the spectacle was enough to make a brickbat wake up and think. At last he exclaimed, tenderly,--

"Mother!"

The woman dropped her weapon and burst into tears, sobbing aloud,--

"You never said it that way before."

Tom was so astonished by what he saw and heard that he shuffled up to his mother and awkwardly placed his clumsy hand upon her cheek. In an instant his mother's arms were around his neck so tight that Tom feared he was being strangled.

"Oh, Tom, Tom! what's got into me? What's got into both of us? Ev'rythin's diff'rent to what it used to be. It's carryin' me right off my feet sometimes. I don't know how to stand it all, an' yet I wouldn't have it no other way for nothin'."

Tom could not explain, but he did something a great deal better; for the first time since he ceased being a baby and his mother began to tire of him, he acted affectionately to the woman who was leaning upon him. He put his strong arm around her, and repeated the single word "Mother" often and earnestly. As for Mrs. Kimper, no further explanation seemed necessary.

After mother and son had become entirely in accord, through methods which only Heaven and mothers understand, Mrs. Kimper began to make preparations for the family's mid-day meal. While she worked, her daughter Jane appeared, and threw cold water upon a warm affectional glow by announcing,--

"I'm fired."

"What do you mean, child?" asked her mother.

"Just what I say. That young Ray Bartram, that's the Prency gal's feller, has been comin' to the house almost ev'ry day while I've been workin' there, an' he's been awful polite to me. He never used to be that way when him an' the other young fellers in town used to come down to the hotel an' drink in the big room behind the saloon. Miss Prency got to askin' me questions about him this morning, an' the less I told her the madder she got, an' at last she said somethin' that made me get up an' leave."

"What's _he_ ever had to do with _you_?" asked Mrs. Kimper, after a long, wondering stare.

"Nothin', except to talk impudent. Mother, what's the reason a poor gal that don't ever look for any company above her always keeps findin' it when she don't want it?"

Mrs. Kimper got the question so mixed with her culinary preparations that she was unable to answer, or to remember that she already had salted the stew which she was preparing for dinner. As she wondered and worked, her husband came in.

"Wife," said Sam, "everything seems turning upside down. Deacon Quickset came into the shop a while ago. What do you suppose he wanted? Wanted me to pray for him! I said I would, and I did; but I was so took aback by it that I had to talk to somebody, so I came home."

"Why didn't you go talk to the preacher or Ray Bartram?" asked Mrs. Kimper, after the natural expressions of astonishment had been made.

"Well," said Sam, "I suppose it was because I wanted to talk to somebody that I was better acquainted with."

Mrs. Kimper looked at her husband in astonishment. Sam returned his wife's gaze, but with a placid expression of countenance.

"I don't amount to much, Sam," Mrs. Kimper finally sighed, with a helpless look.

"You're my wife; that's much--to me. Some day I hope it will be the same to you."

There was a knock at the door, and as soon as Sam shouted "Come in!" Judge Prency entered.

"Sam," said he, "ever since I saw you were in earnest about living a new life, I've been trying to arrange matters so that your boy Joe--I suppose you know why he ran away--could come back without getting into trouble. It was not easy, for the man from whom he--took something seemed to feel very ugly. But he has promised not to prosecute."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Sam. "If now I knew where the boy was--"

"I've attended to that, too. I've had him looked up and found and placed in good hands for two or three weeks, and I don't believe you will be ashamed of him when he returns."

Sam Kimper lapsed into silence, and the judge felt uncomfortable. At last Sam exclaimed,--

"I feel as if it would take a big prayer and thanksgiving meeting to tell all that's in my mind."

"A very good idea," said the judge; "and, as you have the very people present who should take part in it, I will make haste to remove all outside influence." So saying, the judge bowed in his most courtly manner to Mrs. Kimper and Jane, and departed.

"Let us all pray," said Sam, dropping upon his knees.