home, Sam looked at the long heap of straw and rags on which his children should have been sleeping, but which was without occupant except the baby. Then, by the light of the coals still remaining in the fire-place, he looked through some leaves of the little book which the prison visitor had given him. When he arose from the floor, he said to himself,—

"I'll stick to Him yet, deacon or no deacon,—stick to Him as if He was Andrew Jackson."

CHAPTER V.

Sam Kimper spent several days in looking about his native town for work. He found many sympathetic assurances, some promises, and no work at all. Everybody explained to everybody else that they were sorry for the poor wretch, but they couldn't afford to have a jail-bird around.

Meanwhile, Sam's stock of money, accumulated by overwork in the State prison, and augmented by Judge Prency's present, was running low. He kept his family expenses as low as possible, buying only the plainest of food-material and hesitating long to break a bill, though it were only of the denomination of one dollar. Nevertheless the little wad of paper money in his pocket grew noticeably thinner to his touch.

His efforts to save the little he had in his possession were not assisted by his family. His wife, thanks and perhaps blame to the wifely sense of dependence upon her husband, had fallen back upon him entirely after what he had said about his intention as to the future of the family, and she not only accepted his assurances as bearing upon the material requirements of several mouths from day to day, but she also built some air-castles which he was under the unpleasant necessity of knocking down. The poor woman was not to blame. She never had seen a ten-dollar bill since the day of her marriage, when, in a spasm of drunken enthusiasm, her husband gave a ten-dollar Treasury note to the clergyman who officiated on that joyous occasion.

One evening Sam took his small change from his pocket to give his son Tom money enough to buy a half-bushel of corn-meal in the village. As he held a few pieces of silver in one hand, touching them rapidly with the forefinger of the other, his son Tom exclaimed,—

"You're just overloaded with money, old man! Say, gi' me a quarter to go to the ball game with? I'm in trainin', kind o' like, an' I ain't afeard to say that mebbe I'll turn out a first-class pitcher one of these days."

"Tom," said his father, trying to straighten his feeble frame, as his eyes brightened a little, "I wish I could: I'd like you to go into anything that makes muscle. But I can't afford it. You know I'm not workin' yet, an' until I do work the only hope of this family is in the little bit of money I've got in my pocket."

"Well," said Tom, thrusting out his lower lip, slouching across the room, and returning again, "I don't think a quarter's enough to trouble anybody's mind about what'll happen to his family afterwards. I've heard a good deal from the mother about you bein' converted, and changin' into a different sort of a man, but I don't think much of any kind of converted dad that don't care enough for his boy to give him a quarter to go to a ball game."

"Food before fun, Tom," said the father, resolutely closing his hand upon such remaining silver as he had, and then thrusting the fistful into his pocket,—"food before fun. Ball isn't business to this family just now, an' money means business ev'ry time. When I was away an' couldn't help it, things mebbe didn't go as they ort to have gone, but now that I'm back again, there shan't be any trouble if I know how to stand in the way of it."

This expression of principle and opinion did not seem to impress favorably the eldest male member of the second generation. Master Tom thrust out his lower lip again, glared at his father, took his hat, and abruptly departed. There was no dinner at the Kimper table that day, except for such members of the family as could endure slices of cold boiled pork with very little lean to it. Late in the afternoon, however, Tom returned, with an air of bravado, indulged in a number of reminiscences of the ball game, and at last asked why supper was not ready.

"Tom," asked the father, "why didn't you come back to-day with what I gave you money to buy?"

"Well," said the young man, dipping his spoon deeply into a mixture of hasty pudding, milk, and molasses, "I met some of the boys on the street, an' they told me about the game, an' it seemed to me that I wouldn't 'pear half a man to 'em if I didn't go 'long, so I made up my mind that you an' the mother would get along some way, an' I went anyhow. From what's in front of me, I guess you got along, didn't you?"

"Tom," said the father, leaving his seat at the table and going around to his son's chair, on the top bar of which he leaned,—"Tom, of course we got along; there'll be somethin' to eat here ev'ry day just as long as I have any money or can get any work. But, Tom, you're pretty well grown up now; you're almost a man; I s'pose the fellers in town think you are a man, don't they? An' you think you're one yourself too, don't you?"

The young man's face brightened, and he engulfed several spoonfuls of the evening meal before he replied,—

"Well, I guess I am somebody now'days. The time you was in jail, I thought the family had a mighty slim chance o' countin'; but I tumbled into base-ball, an' I was pretty strong in my arms an' pretty spry on my feet, an' little by little I kind o' came to give the family a standin'."

"I s'pose that's all right," said the father; "but I want you to understan' one thing, an' understan' it so plain that you can't ever make any mistake about it afterwards. When I put any money into your hands to be used for anythin', it don't matter what, you must spend it for that, or you must get an awful thrashin' when you come back home again. Do you understan' me?"

The feeding motions of the eldest male of the Kimper collection of children stopped for an instant, and Master Tom leered at his father as he said,—

"Who's goin' to give the thrashin'?"

"I am, Tom,—your father is,—an' don't make any mistake about it. He'll do it good an' brown, too, if he's to die used up right away afterwards. This family is goin' to be decent from this time on; there ain't to be no more thieves in it, an' any member of it that tries to make it diff'rent is goin' to feel so bad that he'll wish he'd never been born. Do you understan'? Don't go to thinkin' I'm ugly: I'm only talkin' sense."

The cub of the family looked upward at his father from the corners of his eyes, and then he clinched his fists and turned slightly in the chair. Before he could do more, his parent had him by both shoulders, had shaken him out of the chair, thrown him upon the floor, and was resting upon him with both knees.

"Tom," said Sam to his astonished son, "you was the first boy I ever had, an' I'd give away my right hand rather than have any real harm come to you, but you've got to mind me now, an' you've got to do it until you're of age, an' if you don't promise to do it now, right straight along, from this time forth, I'll give you the thrashin' now. That ain't all, either, you've got to be man enough to stand by your dad an' say somethin to the fellers, an' explain that you're goin' to stop bein' a town loafer, an' are goin' into decent ways."

Tom was so astonished by this demonstration of spirit that he made all the desired promises at once, and was released.

But Tom was not the only juvenile member of the family who was in need of reformation. Mary, little Mary, not far beyond twelve years of age, demanded money to replenish her own wardrobe.

"Mary," said her father, "we're poor; we can't afford fancy fixin's. This ain't very cold weather. You've good enough clothes on you to keep you warm: what d'you want o' somethin' else?"

"What do I want o' somethin' else?" echoed the child, going to the door and tossing an imitation doll into the ash-heap, "why, I want better