All He Knew: A Story

As the summer lengthened into early autumn, Sam Kimper became more and more troubled by the necessities of his family. He had been working day after day in the shop of his acquaintance the shoemaker, when there was work enough for two, and earned enough to pay for the plainest food. But casual pay was not sufficient to all the necessities of a family as large as that for which Sam was responsible, particularly as the return of the head of the family had reminded every one, from the mother down to the youngest child except the baby, of a number of needs of which no one seemed to have thought before.

Mrs. Kimper herself, who was a feeble creature at best, shivered at every wind that penetrated the broken windows, and insisted that unless she had some warm clothing very soon she would fall into a decline. Tom, who had not yet got his growth, was protruding physically from the ends of his shirts and trousers, and assured his father that he never again could get into his last winter's jacket without subjecting himself to a series of remarks by the boys in the town, which would make him feel very uncomfortable. Billy, who had gone barefooted all summer, as was the custom with the boys in town, came home late one evening and announced triumphantly,—

"Dad, you needn't bother yourself about me any more about shoes. I've got a pair. See here!"

The head of the family took the new shoes into his hand and examined them. Then he dropped them with a sort of shiver, for they were of a well-remembered pattern,—that upon which he had worked for two years in the penitentiary.

"How did you get 'em, Billy?" the father asked, at length.

"Oh, I found 'em," said the boy, with a wink at his elder brother,—a wink which was returned to him in the shape of an evil leer.

"Found 'em! Where? Tell me all about it," said the father, very sharply and sternly, for he remembered a time when he had "found" things himself.

Billy looked appealingly at his brother Tom, but the elder brother put on a hang-dog look and sauntered out of the room and was afterwards seen disappearing rapidly through the back yard.

"Well," said Billy, at last, with the air of one who was entirely unbosoming himself, "I'll tell you how it was, dad. Down at Price's store there's a long string of shoes out at the door. They use 'em as a sign, don't you know?"

"Yes," said the father carelessly; "I've seen such signs. Go on."

"Well, I need shoes awfully, you know, an' I've been tellin' the mother about it for a week or ten days, an' she said she was tellin' you. But my feet gets awful cold late at nights and early in the mornin's. An' I didn't want to bother you, knowin' that you hadn't any money to spare, 'cause the mother told me 'bout that too, an' cried about it. Well, it blowed like ev'rythin' this afternoon as I was goin' towards Price's, an' that string of shoes just whirled around like a kite-tail, an' at last the bottom pair flew off into the street. An' I picked 'em up."

"Findin's is keepin's," said Mrs. Kimper.

"Give me them shoes, my boy," said the ex-convict.

"You're goin' to take 'em away from me? Have I got to have cold feet some more?" said Billy, appealingly.

Sam thrust his hand into his trousers-pocket, took out a very thin wad of green paper, looked at it, and finally said, "No, I s'pose not." Nevertheless he and the shoes disappeared from the house.

In a short time Mr. Price, the owner of one of the village stores, received a call from the ex-convict, who said,—

"Mr. Price, one o' my boys found a pair o' shoes in the street in front o' your store this afternoon durin' the hard blow, an', as they just fitted him, I came around to pay you for them. How much are they?"

Several men were standing about the stove in Price's store, the fire having just started for the autumn and winter season, and, as they heard Sam's remark, one of them uttered a long combination of word and whistle that sounded very much like "Whew-w?" Sam turned quickly, recognized the man as one whom he knew to be not over-honest, and said,—

"When you pay for ev'rythin' you get it'll be time to make fun of somebody else. But, Mr. Price, what I asked you was, what's the price o' them shoes?"

The storekeeper was so astonished at such a question from a member of the Kimper family that, looking at shoes of the same quality which were lying in a box behind the counter, he actually mistook the cost-mark for the selling-price, and replied, "Only a dollar and a quarter, Mr. Kimper."

Sam laid down the money, received some change, and departed, while the men who were lounging about the store began an active conversation as to whether that man was the fool he looked or whether he was not perhaps a regular sharper whose natural abilities and inclinations had been cultivated during the two years he was in State prison. They understood, those evening loafers, that prisons were nominally for the purpose of reforming criminals, but they had known a great many criminals themselves, and their astonishment at seeing one who apparently desired to do better than in his past life, and to make amends for the misdeeds of his family, was so great that the conversation which ensued after the exit of the ex-convict was very fragmentary and not at all to the point.

The next morning Sam appeared bright and early at the shoe-shop of Larry Highgetty. He had made an arrangement with the cobbler to do whatever work might be assigned him and to accept as full payment one-half the money which would be charged, most of it being for repairs. As nearly as he could discover by a close questioning of the proprietor of the establishment, the entire receipts did not exceed two dollars per day, and the owner had so few responsibilities and so much surplus that he would be quite glad if he might lounge at one or other of the local places of entertainment while some one else should do the work and keep the establishment open. Consequently Sam went at the work with great energy, and little by little nearly all the work came to be done by him.

He had hammered away for a few minutes on a sole to be placed on the bottom of a well-worn shoe belonging to a workingman, when a new customer entered the shop. Sam looked up at him and saw Reynolds Bartram. He offered a short, spasmodic, disjointed prayer to heaven, for he remembered what the judge's wife had said, and he had known Reynolds Bartram as a young man of keen wit and high standing as a debater before Sam's enforced retirement; now, he knew, Bartram had become a lawyer.

"Well, Sam," said Bartram, as he seated himself in the only chair and proceeded to eye the new cobbler, while the blows of the hammer struck the sole more rapidly and vigorously than before,—"well, Sam, I understand that you have been turning things upside down, and instead of coming out of the penitentiary a great deal worse man than when you went in, as most other men do, you have been converted."

"That's my understandin' of it, Mr. Bartram," said the ex-convict, continuing his inflictions upon the bit of leather.

"Sam," said Bartram, "I am a man of business, and I suppose you are from what I see you doing. I wish to make you a proposition: I will pay you cash for two or three hours' time if you will tell me—so that I can understand it—what being converted really amounts to."

The new cobbler did not cease an instant his attention to the work in his hand. He merely said,—

"Mr. Bartram, you're a very smart man, an' I'm a very stupid one. If there's a stupider man in town the Democratic local committee has never yet been able to find him. You want to know what bein' converted means? You'd better go to Deacon Quickset, or the minister of some one of the churches hereabouts. I can't explain anythin', I don't know anythin' but what I feel myself, an' the more I feel it the more I don't know how to talk about it. Deacon Quickset says it don't 'mount to much. I s'pose it don't—to him, he bein' so much smarter than me. But, so far as it goes, I can't be paid for talkin' about it, for it didn't cost me nothin'."

This was not what the visitor had expected; nevertheless, it is a lawyer's business to know more than one way of putting a thing.

"See here, Sam; I need a new pair of shoes,—soft leather, thin soles, good cut; do you suppose you know how to measure me for them?"

"Well, I guess I've found out that much, Mr. Bartram."

"Go ahead, then; don't let me interfere with the measurement; but I want to ask you some questions; tell me what you can as you go along. You've been converted, they say, and you say so too."

"Yes, sir," said Sam, dropping the tape-line for a moment; "what other people say I'm not responsible for, but I say it myself that I'm a different man. That's all I can say, Mr. Bartram; an', as I said before, if you want to know more, you'd better ask somebody that's been in that sort o' life longer than I have."

"Nonsense, Sam! you are too modest. As they say in churches, the newest convert has the strongest opinions. Now, you know what my business is. Strong opinions amount to everything in the legal business, and so I have come to you, just as squarely as I could go to any man in the world about anything else that he understood, to ask you plainly what you know about this new life that you are said to be leading now. Tell it to me, out and out. Don't be afraid to keep back anything. Take all the time you like at it. If you can't say just what you want to, try to put it as clearly as you can. I didn't come in to worry you. Remember that I really want some distinct information on the subject."

Sam looked up keenly, and said, "Mr. Bartram, are you in earnest?"

"Sam Kimper," said the young lawyer, "if I were not in earnest do you suppose I'd come into this shop during the business hours of the day and ask questions of this kind, when there are plenty of other people I could go to and get the information I want, and perhaps a good deal more? No, sir; I have come here to ask you because I thought that whatever you could say you would say in the fewest possible words and say it right to the point."

"But, Mr. Bartram, I'm not used to talkin' to lawyers. I never talked to any but once, you know, an' then I don't think they had very much respect for what I said. I wasn't in a fix where anybody could have any respect for me."

"This hasn't anything to do with those times, Sam," said the lawyer. "A friend of yours, who is a friend of mine, has told me that you talked very straightforward and honestly on this subject a few nights ago. That's more than I have been able to find anybody do in this town in a long time. I don't mind saying to you that, according to what the people who are the most prominent in the church say, I'm a pretty hard character. Therefore whatever you have to say you needn't be afraid to put very plainly. I simply want to know about myself; that's all."

"Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler, "as I've already said, you had a good deal better talked to somebody else. But, seem' you've come to me, I've only this to say to you, an' I hope you can make somethin' out of it, because I give you my word I've made more out of it than ever I did out of anythin' else on the face of the earth. I went to jail for stealin'. I hadn't ever been an honest man in my life. The only reason I hadn't been in jail all my life was that I hadn't been caught. At last I was caught, an' I was sent up, an' I don't mind sayin' that I think my sentence was mighty light, considerin' all the heavy mischief that I'd done durin' my life. While I was in jail I was talked to by a man that used to come through there to talk to the prisoners on Sundays. An' about all he said to me was to read me a lot o' things that Jesus Christ said when He was alive in this world, an' told me to go ahead an' do all them things just as well as I knowed how to, an' if I did 'em all well as far as I could I'd find out a good deal more in the course of time."

"Go on," said the lawyer.

"I haven't anything to go on with, Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler, "except that I took his advice, an' ain't ever been sorry for it, an' I wish I'd got it a good deal sooner. I'm just the same old two-an'-sixpence that I was before I went away. That is, I'm always tired an' always poor an' always wishin' I didn't have to do any work. But when there comes a time when I get a chance to do somethin' wrong an' make somethin' by it, I don't do it, although there was a time when I would have done it. I don't keep from doin' it for anything that I can make, 'cause I always go home a good deal worse off than I might have been. I hope you get something out of what I'm tellin' you, Mr. Bartram?"

"But, Sam, my dear fellow," said the young man, "all this doesn't mean anything; that is, so far as religion goes. You are simply trying to live right, whereas you used to live wrong. Haven't you learned any more than that?"

"Well, Mr. Bartram," said Sam, ceasing to jot down measurements, and looking at his stubby pencil as if he had a question to ask, "that's all I've learned. An' I s'pose you bein' the kind o' man you are,—that is, well born an' well brought up, plenty o' money an' never done nothin' wrong that you know of,—I s'pose that don't seem much to you; but I tell you, Mr. Bartram, it's a complete upset to my old life, an' it's such a big one that I've not been able to get any further since, an' I don't mind talkin' honestly to any fellow-man that talks about it to me. I don't mind sayin' honestly that it's so much more than I'm equal to livin' up to yet that I haven't had any time to think about goin' any further along. See here, Mr. Bartram, can you tell me somethin' I can do besides that?"

"Why, Sam," said the lawyer, "that's an odd question to ask me. I have seen you in church frequently since you were first a young man, ten years older than I. You have been told frequently what else you ought to do; and what I came in particular to ask you was as to how far you've done it, or been able to do it, or were trying to do it."

"You come to the wrong shop, then, Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler. "When a man's been livin' wrong all his life an' has had somethin' put into him to make him feel like turnin' round an' livin' right, the change that's gone on in him is so big that it'll take him about half a lifetime to get to where he can think about anythin' else."

"Pshaw!" said the lawyer.

"You said you wanted these shoes made out of soft leather an' with pretty thin soles, Mr. Bartram?"

"Yes, yes; make them any way you please."

Then the lawyer left the room and closed the door with a crash that caused the new cobbler to look up apprehensively.

Little by little the Kimper family was made more comfortable and put in better condition for the coming winter. Broken window-panes were mended, though frequently only with bits of board closely wedged, cracks in the wall were stuffed with dried grass and plastered with mud, and clean straw replaced the dirty substitutes for beds and mattresses. The head of the family worked hard at the cobbler's shop, yet did not cease working when he reached home.

Yet week by week Sam looked better than in old times. Conrad Weitz, the manager of the most popular drinking-place in the town, predicted that there would soon have to be a change for the worse.

"He ain't drinkin' noding," said Conrad; "and a feller dat's been drinkin' all his life can't get along midout it afterwards."

The vender of stimulants said this to Deacon Quickset, for the two men were incessantly arguing over the liquor question, and never lost an opportunity of bringing up a new point about it when they met by any chance. Weitz was a public-spirited and intelligent citizen, and the deacon believed that if his opinions about the moral nature of his business could be changed there would be a great gain for the temperance cause in Bruceton. Besides, Weitz was a well-to-do man and saved a great deal of money, some of which the deacon had invested for him, and all of which the deacon desired to handle, for he was a man of many enterprises, and, like most other men of the kind, always had more ways than money.

"You're all wrong about that, Weitz," said the deacon, sitting upon an empty beer-barrel in front of the liquor-store. The deacon was accustomed to say, with a grim smile, that he was one of the very few men in business whose reputation would allow him to sit upon a beer-barrel without giving rise to any suspicions.

"Deacon," said the liquor-dealer, "you hadn't ought to talk about vat you don't understand. How long since you stopped drinkin'?"

"Now, see here, Weitz, what do you mean, to ask me a question like that? You ought to know well enough that I never drank in my life. If I haven't told you so again and again, I should think other people could have done it."

"Never drank anyding, eh? never in your life? Vell, vell!" said the proprietor, caressing the beer-shop cat for a moment, "dat explains a good many dings about you dat I never understood before. I tell you vat I tink, deacon: if you'd been brought up in my country, mit all de brains you've got in your head, and yoost could'a'had a lot of German beer put inside of you besides, you'd been about de finest man in de United States now. Den, besides dat, of course, you ought to belong to my shurch, too."

"Your church!" sneered the deacon.

"Come, now, deacon," said the shopkeeper, abruptly dropping the cat, "you can turn up your nose at my ideas all you vant, but you mustn't turn it up at my shurch. I don't do dat to you, and don't you forget it, eider."

"That's all right, Conrad; I didn't mean to do it. Of course, every man will believe the way he is brought up. But I hope you won't go to telling anybody else in this town that that poor convict ought to be drinking and will have to do it again; because it might get to his ears, you know, and if it did it might break him down, and then he'd go to lying and stealing and loafing and fighting again, and there is no knowing whose chicken-coops and wood-piles would have to suffer. Yours might be one of the first of the lot."

"Vell," said the German, "is dat de vay you look at the question?"

"It's a fact, isn't it?"

"Yes, I s'pose it is. But I didn't tink dat vas de first ding for a man like you to tink about ven you vas talkin' about a feller dat has broke off all his bad habits and is tryin' to be yoost right."

The deacon felt awkward for a moment. He did not like to be reminded of any of his faults by a neighbor, much less by one who belonged to a church so widely different from his own.

"Why, of course not," said he; "of course, I am thinking about the man's eternal salvation and about his future; but, to tell you the truth, I haven't got much faith in his professions. A man that don't get any further than he has done, and that don't seem willing to learn from them that's his betters and has gone into such things a good deal deeper than he has, ain't very likely to hold out. And the last condition of that man will be worse than the first."

"Vell," said the shop-keeper, "a good deal depends on dat. You vas a member of von shurch and I vas a member of anoder, deacon, and we can talk togeder like brudders,—a little vay, anyhow. Now, I tell you vat it is: dere's a good many men in dis town dat's behavin' very decent dat don't belong to any shurch at all, and you'd yoost as lief discount deir notes as you vould any oder man's, and you'd go into business mit dem yoost as qvick, and you'd take deir word for anyding yoost as qvick. If dat's de vay mit dem men, vy isn't it true dat Sam Kimper is a good deal better off mit vat he's got dan he vould be midout anyding at all in de vay of religion?"

"Oh, Conrad," said the deacon, "you were brought up in darkness and error! You don't understand. I've got that Sam Kimper on my mind so much that I'm just keeping our minister after him all the time."

"Vell," said the shopkeeper, "I tell you vat I'll do, deacon. You let your minister do all he can mit him, and ven he finds he can't do noding yoost you come an' tell me, an' den I'll send our priest after him. He's a good man. You can't say noding against him; you know you can't. Neider can anybody else in dis town."

"No," said the deacon, "I don't mind saying, for I've said it a good many times before, that if Father Black belonged to my church, instead of the one he does, I couldn't find a single thing to say or think against him. He is certainly a very good man, and doing a great deal of good among a lot of people that I didn't suppose ever could be kept out of mischief; but—"

"But he didn't keep 'em out of mischief in your vay. Dat's de trouble, isn't it? Come now, own up, like an honest man, and I von't go tell nobody else about vat you say. Own up, now; isn't dat de trouble? Dem people dat you talk about as behavin' demselves is a good deal better dan some dat's smarter and has got more money an' more advantages an' more friends, an' dey don't make nobody any trouble, an' yet you ain't satisfied mit 'em; an' mit deir shurch, yoost because dey don't do everyding your vay."

"Conrad," said the deacon, putting on a lofty air, "you're a good man to do business with; you're a respectable citizen, except that you sell rum. But there's some things you can't understand, and it's no use for me to waste time talking to you about them. If your mind was clearer, if it had been enlightened in the true way, you would not be selling rum, for instance."

"Vouldn't I, dough? Vell, I yoost vant you to understand dere's no better business in dis town dan I am a-doin' right in dis shop. But if I didn't tink it vas right, I vouldn't be doin' it at all. You talk in dis country as if de rum-sellers vas de very vorst people in de vorld. I vant you to understand over in my country, dat's a good deal older dan dis, and vere de peoples has had a good deal more experience, a man don't get no right to sell liquor unless he is a first-class citizen in every respect. It's a sign dat a man is honest an' sensible an' knows how to manage oder men, if he gets de right to sell liquor. Dat's more dan you can say about your business, Deacon Quickset. Any rascal can go in de business dat you is doin' now."

"Well," said the deacon, beginning to feel that he was on dangerous ground, "this wasn't what we were talking about, anyhow. We began to talk about Sam Kimper; and I want you to promise me that you won't talk to anybody else about his needing liquor, and about his breaking down in the course of time unless he gets it."

"Of course I von't talk about it, deacon. Do you s'pose I'm a fool? Do you s'pose I vant to see people get drunk? No, sir; people dat gets drunk don't come to my shop. Dey know dey couldn't get anyding if dey did."

Meanwhile Sam Kimper went on, after the humble manner in which he had begun, to try to bring his family to his new standard of respectability. He introduced family prayers, much to the disgust of his son Tom and the amusement of his daughter Mary. The privacy of family affairs was not entirely respected by the Kimper family, for Sam soon heard remarks from street loafers, as he passed along, which indicated that the devotional exercises of the family had been reported, evidently by his own children, and he heard quotations from some of his weak and halting prayers pass from mouth to mouth and elicit peals of coarse laughter.

Nevertheless he found some encouragement. His son Tom was not quite so much of a cub at home as he had been, and actually took to trying, in a desultory way, to find work, although his father's offer to teach him the trade which had been learned in the penitentiary was declined very sharply and without any thanks whatever. Billy, the younger boy, had an affectionate streak in his nature, which his father succeeded in touching to such an extent that complaints of Billy's truancy were nowhere near so numerous as they had been just after his father's return. Mary, the youngest daughter, was a less promising subject. Her precocity was of a very unpleasant order, and caused her father a great deal of annoyance.

When everything else failed him, Sam had the baby for consolation. The little wretch had been so utterly uncared for since its appearance that it seemed surprised for some time by its father's demonstrations of affection, but finally the meaning of this seemed made known to it, probably in the way the same meanings are translated to babies everywhere else, and from being a forlorn and fretful child it gradually became so cheerful that its own mother began to display some interest in it and make a plaything of it, to her own manifest advantage.

But Jane, the elder daughter, who was a woman in stature and already knew more of the world than is good for women in general, was a constant source of anxiety to Sam. Many a night the unhappy father lingered in the neighborhood of the hotel, seeking for an opportunity to see his daughter and talk with her; not that he had much to say, but that he hoped by his presence to keep more congenial company away from her. When he heard any village gossip in the house, he always could trace it to his daughter Jane. Whenever Mary broke out with some new and wild expression of longing, he understood who put it into her mind. Whenever his wife complained that she was not so well dressed as some other women whose husbands were plain workmen, and expressed a wish for some tawdry bit of finery, Sam could trace the desire, by very little questioning, back to his daughter Jane.

He prayed about it, thought about it, groaned over it, wept over it, and still saw no means within his power to bring the girl back to an interest in her family and to bring her up so that she should not disgrace the name which he was trying to rehabilitate. But the more thought and effort he gave to the subject, the less seemed his chance of success.

Eleanor Prency was the handsomest girl in all Bruceton. Indeed, she so far distanced all other girls in brilliancy and manners, as well as in good looks, that no other young woman thought of being jealous of her. Among her sex she occupied the position of a peerless horse or athlete among sporting men; she was "barred" whenever comparisons were made.

As she was an only child, she was especially dear to her parents, who had bestowed upon her every advantage which their means, intelligence, and social standing could supply, and she had availed herself of all of them apparently to the fullest extent. She was not lacking in affection, sense, self-control, and a number of virtues which some girls entirely satisfactory to their parents possessed in less measure.

Nevertheless the judge and his wife were deeply anxious about their daughter's future. She was good—as girls go; she attended regularly the church of which the family, including herself, were members; she had no bad habits or bad tastes; her associates were carefully selected; and yet the judge and his wife spent many hours, which should have been devoted to sleep, in endeavoring to forecast her future.

It was all a matter of heredity. At middle age the judge and his wife were fully deserving of the high esteem in which they were held by the entire community. They were an honest, honorable, Christian couple, living fully up to the professions they made. In their youthful days they had been different—in some respects. Well off, handsome, and brilliant, they had both been among the most persistent and successful of pleasure-seekers. Reviewing those days, Mrs. Prency could say that utter selfishness and self-love had been her deepest sins. Her husband, looking back at his own life, could truthfully say the same, but the details were different. He had looked upon the wine-cup and every other receptacle in which stimulants were ever served. He had tried every game of chance and gone through all other operations collectively known as "sowing one's wild oats." Respect for his wife caused him to break from all his bad habits and associations, at first haltingly and with many relapses, but afterwards by joining the church and conforming his life to his faith. But the inheritance of the child was from her parents, as they were, not as they afterwards became.

Therefore the couple became anxious anew when they discovered that their daughter had become very fond of Reynolds Bartram, for the young man forcibly reminded both of them of the judge himself in his early days, yet without Prency's strong and natural basis of character, while the daughter was entirely devoted to the pleasures of the day. If Bartram were to remain as he was, and his self-satisfaction to continue so strong as to be manifest upon all occasions and in all circumstances they foresaw a miserable life for their daughter. Hence Mrs. Prency's solicitude about young Bartram.

One day Mrs. Prency made a business excuse to call again on the cobbler's assistant.

"Mr. Kimper," said she after leaving a dainty boot with some instructions about repairs, "Reynolds Bartram came to see you, I suppose, as I warned you he would?"

"Yes, ma'am, he came," said the cobbler, selecting some buttons from a box and beginning to affix them to one of the lady's boots.

"Did he talk with you on the subject that I supposed he would."

"Yes," said Sam, "he did; quite a long time."

"Did you change your views at all under his arguments?"

"Oh, no, ma'am," said the man, looking up with an eager expression of countenance. "How could I?"

"I'm so glad," murmured the woman. "Well, what did he say?"

"I can't repeat all his words, Mrs. Prency, because he talks a good deal better than I do, you know, an' maybe I wouldn't give them the sense that they had,—the way that he meant them."

"How did he seem to take what you said to him?"

"I'm afraid, ma'am," said Sam, "that what I said didn't entirely suit him; because when I got through all he said was, 'Pshaw!'"

Mrs. Prency looked at the shoe through which the needle was rapidly passing back and forth, and finally said,—

"He hasn't come again, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, he has,—several times. I never knew any other man to be so much interested in the makin' of one pair of shoes as he has been about them that he ordered of me that day. He says they're not in any hurry, an' yet he comes in every day or two to talk about them."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Prency, her face brightening. "Doesn't he talk of anything but his shoes?"

"Yes, ma'am," sighed Sam; "he comes back to the old subject always; an' it does seem to me as if the one thing he was thinkin' about an' tryin' to do was to break me down in what I've learned to believe. It don't seem, ma'am, to me that it's very big business for a smart feller like him to be in, when he knows what a common sort of a feller I am, an' what little I've got, an' how much I need all that I've got, if I'm goin' to keep straight any more."

"Mr. Kimper," said the lady, "try not to look at it in that way. He is not trying to break you down; he is trying to satisfy himself. Don't give way, and he dare not. If he did not believe a great deal of what you have been saying to him, he would not keep up his interest in it. Mr. Kimper, it may not seem possible to you, but there is a chance of your doing better work in the missionary cause for that young man than anybody and everybody else in this town has yet been able to do."

"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Prency!" said the cobbler, dropping the shoe and looking up incredulously. "He's got a thousand times as much head-piece as I have, an' if he can't learn what he wants to from other people there ain't the slightest likelihood of my ever learnin' him anythin'."

"Sam," said Mrs. Prency, earnestly, "in the book that you have been reading so industriously, from which you have learned so much, and from which I hope you will continue to learn a great deal, don't you remember something that is said about the Lord having selected the feeble ones of this world to confound the wise?"

Sam looked down meditatively at the dropped shoe, and replied in a moment,—

"Well, now you speak of it, ma'am, I think I do."

"You certainly will believe that as much as everything else you have read there?"

"Why, of course; I'll have to."

"Very well, then; apply it to yourself, and try to be patient the next time that young man comes to annoy you."

Sam rested his elbows on his knees and dropped the shoe again for a moment, and at last, resuming his work, said,—

"Well, I'll take your word for it, ma'am: you know a good deal more about such things than I do."

Gradually the cobbler's face began to contract. His needle and thread moved more and more rapidly through the buttons and the leather. At last he laid the shoe aside with an air of desperation, looked up defiantly, and said,—

"Mrs. Prency, I don't mean no offence, an' I ain't the kind of person that meddles with other people's business, an' I hope you won't feel hurt or angry at anythin' that I'm goin' to say to you, because there is somethin' behind it. So I hope you won't think I'm meddlin' with your affairs, if you'll listen to me just a little while. I—I—"

"Well?" said the lady, for Sam seemed to be hesitating about what he wanted to say.

"I don't hardly know how to say it, ma'am, an' I'm awfully afraid to say it at all; but—well, there, Mrs. Prency, I guess I know why you are so very much interested in the religious welfare of that young lawyer."

The judge's wife had naturally a very good complexion, but her face flushed deeper as she looked inquiringly at the cobbler but said nothing.

"I've seen him," said Sam,—"I can't help seein' things when I'm goin' along in the street, you know, or happen to look out through the windows,—I've seen him in company once in a while with that daughter of yours, Mrs. Prency,—with that young lady that seems to me to be too good to talk to any young man that lives in this town. He is very fond of her, though; nobody can help seein' that."

"I suppose he is," said Mrs. Prency, with an embarrassed manner. "Young men have very quick perceptions and correct tastes in matters of that kind, you know."

"Yes, ma'am," said the cobbler, "and they don't differ much from young women. Seems to me your daughter, ma'am, seems to think a good deal of him, too. Well, I don't wonder at it, for he's the finest lookin' young feller anywhere about here; an' if they go to thinkin' more and more of each other as they go on, you would like him to be a good deal better man than he is."

The judge's wife dropped her eyes and seemed in doubt for an instant as to whether to be angry or only amused. Finally she looked up frankly and said,

"Mr. Kimper, you're a parent and so am I. I see you have been putting yourself in my place. It is quite natural that you should do so, and it is very creditable to you that you have done it in the way you have. You are quite right in your surmise; but may I ask why you have spoken to me about it in this way?"

"That's just what I was comin' to, ma'am," said the cobbler. "I've got a daughter, too. I suppose you think she ain't fit to be mentioned in the same day with that glorious gal of yours."

"Oh, Mr. Kimper!" murmured the lady.

"Well if you don't, I don't see how you can help doin' it; that's all. Your daughter is a lady. She shows in her everythin' that there is in her father and mother, an' everybody knows that they're the finest people hereabouts. My child is the daughter of a thief an' a brawler an' a loafer, an' she's a servant in a common hotel, which is about as low down, I s'pose, as any gal can get in this town that don't go to the bad entirely. Mrs. Prency, that gal has broke my heart. I don't have no influence over her at all. You want me to help you out about your daughter. I am goin' to do it just as far as heaven will give me the strength to do it. Now I want to throw myself right at your feet an' beg you, for the love of God, to try to do somethin' for my child."

"Why, Mr. Kimper, certainly," said the judge's wife. "I am very glad you spoke to me about her. But, really, I have tried to do a great deal for her. While you were away I used to send clothing to your wife for her, so that the child might be able always to make a proper appearance at school."

"Yes, ma'am, so you did," said the cobbler, "an' it's a shame that I should ask anythin' else of you, for I know you're generous-hearted, an' the Lord knows there's enough other poor an' wretched people in this town that needs lookin' after, an' I know you're doin' a good deal for all of 'em. But this ain't a matter of poverty, Mrs. Prency; it goes a good deal deeper than that. I'm not thinkin' about her appearance; she's better dressed now than she ort to be, though I don't think she shows much good taste in what she buys to put on her. But I want to have somebody take some interest in her that'll make her change her thoughts an' feelin's about the way she's livin' an' the kind o' company she's keepin'."

The judge's wife looked thoughtful, and Sam contemplated her with wistful eyes. There was a long silence. When at last Mrs. Prency spoke she said,—

"Mr. Kimper, I think I know what you mean, but I am puzzled as to what I can do and how I can do it. Can you suggest anything?"

"That's just the trouble, ma'am," said Sam; "I can't; I don't know how. I've thought an' cried an' prayed about that gal more than anybody'd ever believe, I s'pose,—anybody that knows me an' knows her too. But I can't get no light nor no sense about it. But I'm only a man, Mrs. Prency, an' you're a woman. She's a woman too, an' it did seem to me that maybe you, with all you're good sense an' all your good-heartedness, could think of somethin', some way, that would bring that gal back to what she ort to be before she goes an' does what her mother done—marry some worthless fool before she's old enough to marry at all, an' then be helpless and downcast all the rest of her life."

"I might," said the lady, after musing a little while, "I might possibly make her a place among my own servants, but I imagine she would not care for such a position, for I have always discovered that the servants who have been in hotels are dissatisfied with any other sort of service. Besides, you probably do not wish her to associate with the servant class, and it would be far better for her if she did not."

"She'd have to go, ma'am, if you was willin' to take her," said the cobbler, "but, as you say, whether she'd stay or not is a question. Oh, Mrs. Prency," said he, resuming his work again with violent energy, "it's the hardest question that ever come up to me in all my life. It's harder than bein' in jail or breakin' off drinkin' or anythin' else that I ever tried. It's even harder than goin' to work; I give you my word it is."

"Mr. Kimper," said the lady, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I give you my word that I will think earnestly on the subject, and do it at once, and give myself no rest until I have devised some plan to do what you have asked me."

"God bless you, ma'am! God bless you!" said the cobbler, dropping a tear upon one of the grimy hands at work upon the shoe.

Reynolds Bartram was greatly annoyed by the results of the several interviews he had imposed upon the new assistant cobbler at Bruceton. He had silenced, if not conquered, all the other religious controversialists of the town, and found the weak spots in the armor of many good people not given to controversy, whom he had beguiled into talking on religious themes. Why he should want to converse at all upon such subjects puzzled the people of the town, all of whom had known him from boyhood as a member of a family so entirely satisfied with itself that it never desired any aid from other people, to say nothing of higher powers. Sometimes the Bartrams went to church for social purposes, but always with an air of conferring a favor upon the power in whose honor the edifice was erected.

But Bartram had good enough reasons for his sudden interest in religion. He was in love with Eleanor Prency, and, after the manner of his family regarding everything that interested them, he was tremendously in earnest with his wooing. Like a judicious lawyer, he had endeavored to make his way easier by prepossessing the girl's parents in his favor; but when he began to pass the lines of pleasing civility, within which he had long known the judge and his wife, he was surprised to find an undercurrent of seriousness, the existence of which in the Prency family he never had suspected. The judge appeared to estimate everything from the stand-point of religion and righteousness; so did his wife; so, though in less measure, did the daughter.

Such nonsense, as the self-sufficient youth regarded it, was annoying. To visit a pleasant family with the intention of making a general conquest and find himself confronted by a line of obstacles which he always had regarded as trifling, yet which he was unable to overcome, and to be told that religion was a reality because it had changed Sam Kimper, one of the most insignificant wretches in town, from a lazy, thievish drunkard to an honest, sober, industrious citizen,—all this was to make war upon Reynolds Bartram's constitutional opinions as to the fitness of things.

A change of opinion somewhere was necessary: so it must occur in the Prency family, and as soon as it could be brought about. This was Bartram's first conclusion, after an hour of deep thought. He had started upon a love-making enterprise, and he objected to a complication of interests. If the Prencys chose to talk theology in the privacy of their family life, they were welcome to do so, but he wished none of it, and, unless his head had lost its cunning, he believed he could devise a method of preventing further inflictions of it.

He convinced himself that his best method would be to discover and expose the weakness, perhaps hypocrisy, of the wretched cobbler's professions. Maybe Kimper meant all he said, and thought he believed something which was essential to religion; but had not scores of other common fellows in the town done likewise, during "revivals" and other seasons of special religious effort, only to fall back into their old ways soon afterwards? It was all a matter of birth and training, argued Bartram to himself: the feeblest and most excitable intellects, the world over, were the first to be impressed by whatever seemed supernatural, whether it were called religion, spiritualism, mesmerism, or anything else. It was merely a matter of mental excitement: the stronger the attack, the sooner the relapse. Sam Kimper would lose faith in his fancies sooner or later; it might be somewhat cruel to hasten this result, but what was a little more or less of the life of such a fellow, compared with the lifelong happiness of one of the Bartrams,—the last of the family, and, as the young man fully believed, the best? Should the cobbler's fall be hastened, Bartram would make it right; indeed, he would volunteer in his defense the first time he should again be arrested for fighting or stealing.

But his plan did not work. Day after day he had made excuses to drop into the cobbler's shop and worry the ex-convict into a discussion, but not once did he depart without a sense of defeat. As he said to himself,—

"What can be done with a man who only believes, and won't argue or go to the bottom of things? It's confoundedly ridiculous."

During his last visit, he said,—

"Sam, if the power you profess to believe in can really work such a change as you think He has done in you, He ought to be able to do almost anything else. Don't you think so?"

"That I do," said the cobbler, working away.

"You believe He has power to any extent, I suppose?"

"You're right again, Mr. Bartram."

"Of course you think he loves you dearly?"

"I'm ashamed to think it,—that any such bein' should love a good-for-nothin' feller like me. But what else can I think, Mr. Bartram, after all that's gone on in me, an' what He's said Himself?"

"Very well; then, if He is so powerful and cares so much for you, I suppose He brings you more work and better prices than any one else in your business?"

Sam did not reply to this at once, but after a while he said,—

"It amounts to the same thing: He makes me work harder than I ever knowed how to do before. That brings me more money an' gives me a hope of gettin' along better after a while."

"Oh, well, you have a family,—quite a large family, I believe. Does He do as much for your wife and children as for you?"

"Whatever He's doin' for me is done for all of us, Mr. Bartram."

"Just so. But do you mean to say that what you're making enables you to do for your family all that you should?"

The cobbler's face contracted, under the shade he wore over his eyes. An evil smile overspread the lawyer's countenance. A little time passed; the discussion was becoming sport,—such sport as the angler feels when a wounded fish, a hundred times smaller than he, is struggling and writhing in agony on his hook.

"You don't seem certain about it, Sam," the tormentor finally said.

"Mr. Bartram," the cobbler answered in a little while, "what He done for me came about so quiet an' unknown like that I don't know what he may be doin' for the wife an' children. God knows they need it; an', as He came to look after them that was needy, I don't believe He can make a mistake an' pass by my house."

"But I should think you would be sure about it. You're so sure about your own affairs, you know,—what are called your spiritual affairs."

"I don't know, though," said Sam, simply.

"Have all the children got good shoes and stockings and warm clothes? Winter is almost here, you know."

"No, sir, they haven't," Sam sharply replied.

The lawyer quickly caught the change of tone, and made haste to explain:

"I didn't mean to disturb your peace of mind, Sam; I asked only in order to learn how much foundation there was to your faith. They haven't them, you say. How will they get them?"

"I'll earn 'em," said the cobbler, with a savage dash of his awl which one of his fingers barely escaped.

"But suppose you can't; suppose trade slackens, or Larry takes a notion to a new helper."

"Then I'll beg, rather than have 'em suffer."

"And if folks won't give?"

"Then my folks'll have to go without."

"In spite of your new, loving, strong friend,—your Saviour? If He's all you take Him to be, aren't you sure He'll look out for your family?"

"Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler, resting for a moment, and straightening his weary back, "if I was in trouble,—been doin' somethin' wrong, for instance, an' was hauled into court, an' had you for my lawyer,—though of course I couldn't expect to have so smart a man,—I'd ort to believe that you'd do everythin' that could be done an' ort to be done, ortn't I?"

"Certainly, Sam, certainly," said the lawyer, with his customary professional look of assurance.

"But I wouldn't know all about it in advance, would I? Even if you was to tell me all you meant to do an' how you'd do it, I couldn't take it in. If I could, I'd be just as smart as you,—the idee!—an' wouldn't need you at all."

Both suppositions were so wildly improbable that the lawyer indulged in a sarcastic smile.

"Well, then," continued Sam, "here's somebody helpin' me more than any man ever could,—somebody that's smarter than any lawyer livin'. I s'pose you'll own up to that?"

The idea that any being, natural or supernatural, could be wiser than one of the Bartrams was not pleasing to the lawyer, when suggested so abruptly, but it was conceded, after a moment of thought, by a condescending nod of the head.

"Then," Sam continued, "how am I goin' to be supposed to know all that He's doin' an' not doin' for me, an' when He's goin' to do somethin' else, or whether He's goin' to do it at all. If I was as smart as a lawyer, I wouldn't need one; if I was as smart an' good as Him that's lookin' after me, there wouldn't need to be any God or Saviour, would there?"

"Then you are satisfied He is God and Saviour, eh? Some wiser men have believed differently."

"I only know what I was told an' what I've read for myself, sir. The man that put me up to it told me not to try to believe everythin' that everybody else did, but to believe as much as I could an' live up to it, bein' extra particular about the livin' up."

"But you ought to know something—have some distinct idea—as to whom you're believing in. What do you know about Him, after all?"

"I know," said the cobbler, "just what I've told you before, when you've asked me the same question. I know He was once in the world, an' didn't do anybody any harm, an' done a good deal of good, an' taught folks to do right an' how to do it. Everybody believes that, don't they?"

"I suppose it's safe to admit that much."

"Well, sir, I'm tryin' to foller Him an' learn of Him. I'm believin' in Him just like I believe in old Andrew Jackson."

"Is that all?"

"That's enough,—as far as I've got. You're a good deal smarter than I be, sir: won't you tell me how to go further?"

The lawyer shook his head and departed. The cobbler fell on his knees and buried his face in his hands. The lawyer, chancing to look in the window, saw the movement; then he drew his hat down over his eyes and sauntered off.

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.

One bright, breezy October afternoon, Sam Kimper's daughter Jane got "an hour off" from her duties at the hotel, and proceeded to devote it to her highest ideal of possible enjoyment. There were many other pleasures for which she longed, but, as they were unattainable just then, she made the most of that which was within her reach for the time being. It was to array herself in her best and saunter to and fro in the principal streets, look into shop windows, and exchange winks and rude remarks with young men and women with whom she was acquainted.

Although her attire was about what one would expect of a drunkard's child who had spent her later years in the kitchen and corridors of a hotel, Jane was not an unsightly creature. There must have been good physical quality in one side or other of her family, in past generations, which was trying to reappear, for Jane had a fine figure, expressive eyes, and a good complexion. Had any one followed her during her afternoon stroll, and observed her closely during her successive chance meetings with young men and women of her acquaintance, he would have seen hard lines, coarse lines, ugly lines, in her face; yet when in repose the same face was neither unwomanly nor without an occasional suggestion of soul. It was a face like many others that one may see on the streets,—entirely human, yet entirely under the control of whatever influence might be about it for the time being,—the face of a nature untrained and untaught, which would have followed either Jesus or Satan, or both by turns, had both appeared before it in visible shape.

During a moment or two of her afternoon out, Jane found herself approaching Mrs. Prency and Eleanor, those ladies being out on one of those serious errands known collectively as "shopping."

"Do see that dreadfully dowdy girl!" exclaimed Miss Eleanor, whose attire was always selected with correct taste.

"She has never had any one to teach her to dress properly, my dear," suggested the mother.

"She might have some one who cared enough for her to keep her from appearing in public in red hair and a blue ribbon," said the daughter.

"Such girls have no one to keep them from doing anything they like, my dear. Let us try to be sorry for them, instead of being disgusted."

"But, mother—"

"Sh-h! she'll hear you. I'm going to bow to her; I wish you'd do the same."

"Mother!"

"To oblige me; I'll explain afterwards."

The couple were now within several steps of Jane, who, with an odd mixture of wistfulness and scare, had been studying Eleanor's attire. When she saw both women looking at her, she began to take a defiant attitude, but the toss of her head was met by one of Mrs. Prency's heartiest smiles, accompanied by a similar recognition from Eleanor. Short as was the time that could elapse before the couple had passed her, it was long enough to show a change in Jane's face,—a change so notable that Eleanor whispered,—

"Did you ever see any one alter looks so quickly?"

"Never; but I sha'n't lose any opportunity to see it again," said Mrs. Prency.

"Mother, dear," said Eleanor, "I hope you're not suddenly going to recognize every common person you may meet on the street. You're so enthusiastic."

"And so different from my daughter in that respect,—eh, dear?"

"But, mother, you've always been so careful and fastidious about your associations and mine. I remember the time, only a year or two ago, while I was at school, when you would have been horrified if I'd had anything to do with a creature like that."

"You were a child then, my dear; you're a woman now. That girl is the daughter of the poor fellow—"

"Sam Kimper?—that you and father talk of so frequently? Yes, I know; she was a horrid little thing in school, two classes below me. But, mother, I don't see why we ought to recognize her just because her father has been in the penitentiary and behaved himself since he came back."

"Because she needs recognition, dear child; because she gets it from plenty of people of her own class, and if she has it from no others she never will be any better than she is; perhaps she will become worse."

"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Eleanor, with a toss of her handsome head, "such people never change. There were plenty of such girls in the same class with me in the public school, and they've all gone off and married common low fellows. Some of them were real pretty girls while they were young, too."

"All the more reason why others of the same kind should have some encouragement to do better, my child."

"But, mother," persisted Eleanor, "what possible good will it do that Kimper girl for us merely to recognize her in the street?"

"You may do as much more for her as you choose, if you think mere courtesy is not enough. Eleanor, you are a healthy, happy girl; you know—and I remember—all a girl's natural fancies and longings. Do you imagine that being badly born and reared can keep that girl from having the same feelings? She probably wishes she could dress as well as the best, attract attention, be respected, have a real fine fellow fall in love with her—"

"The idea!" exclaimed Eleanor, laughing merrily. "But suppose it were all true; how can mere notice from us help her? I'm sure the minute we passed her she made a face and envied me my better clothes."

"You will think differently when you have more experience, my dear. When I was as young as you, I thought—"

"Oh, mother, there she is again," said Eleanor, "crossing the street; she's turning right towards us. And," murmured the young lady, after assuring herself that it was really the same combination of red hair and blue ribbon, "how different she looks!"

"Because two women of some standing and position chanced to notice her. Let's help the good work along, daughter." Then, before Miss Eleanor had time to object, and just as the cobbler's daughter was in front of them, Mrs. Prency stopped, extended her neatly gloved hand, and said, with a pleasant smile,—

"How these girls do grow! You were little Jane only a year or two ago, Miss Kimper."

Never before had Jane Kimper been addressed as "Miss." The appellation sent color flying into her face and brightness into her eyes as she stammered out something about growing being natural.

"You haven't grown fast enough, though, to neglect good looks," continued Mrs. Prency, while Eleanor, endeavoring to act according to her mother's injunctions, drawled,—

"No, indeed!"

Then the cobbler's daughter flushed deeper and looked grateful, almost modest, for girls read girls pretty fairly, and Jane saw that Eleanor was regarding her face with real admiration.

"You girls of the new generation can't imagine how much interest we women who used to be girls have in you," said the judge's wife. "I'm afraid you'd be vain if you knew how much Eleanor and I have looked at you and talked about you."

"I didn't s'pose any lady that was anybody ever thought anything about girls like me," Jane finally managed to say.

"You're greatly mistaken, my dear girl," said the lady. "Nearly every one in this world talks a good deal about every one else whom they know by sight. You really can't imagine how much good it does me to see you looking so well and pretty. Keep right on looking so, won't you? The girls of to-day must be our women a few years hence; that's what I keep impressing upon my daughter day by day,—don't I, dear."

"Indeed you do, mother." Eleanor said it with a look at Jane which was almost a signal for sympathy: the cobbler's daughter was greatly mystified by it.

"I don't see," said Jane, after standing awkwardly for a moment in meditation, "how a girl's goin' to be much of a woman that amounts to anything one of these days if she's nothin' to do now but dirty work at a hotel."

"Maybe she could change her work," suggested the lady.

Jane's lips parted into some hard and ugly lines, and she replied,—

"Some things is easier sayin' than doin'."

"Should you like a different position?" asked Mrs. Prency. "I'm sure it could be had if people knew you wanted it. For instance, I need some one every day for weeks to come to help my daughter and me with our sewing and fitting. There are always so many things to be done as winter approaches. I sometimes feel as if I were chained to my sewing-machine, and have so much to do. But I'm afraid such work would seem very stupid to you. It would mean sitting still all day, you know, with no one to talk to but Eleanor and me."

Jane looked wonderingly at the two women before her. No one but them to talk to! She never had imagined an opportunity to talk to such people at all. She supposed all such women regarded her as part of the scum of the earth, yet here they were speaking pleasantly to her,—Mrs. Prency, a woman who naturally would fill the eye of an impulsive animal like Jane,—Eleanor, the belle of the town,—two women whom no one could look at without admiration. No one but them to talk to! All her associates faded from Jane's mind like a fleck of mist under a sunburst, as she answered,—

"If there's anything you want done that I can do, Mrs. Prency, I'd rather work for you for nothin' than for anybody else for any money."