All He Knew(@@) by John Habberton (ebooks online reader TXT) 📕

He retraced his steps, moodily muttering to himself, and apparently arguing also, for the forefinger of one hand was occasionally touching the palm of the other, and, apparently without knowing in what direction he was walking, he found himself opposite the shop of the shoemaker who had been the indirect cause of his quarrel with his sweetheart.

"Confound that fellow!" muttered Bartram, "he's in my way wherever I move. I've heard too much of him in the stores and the courts and everywhere else that I have been obliged to go. I have to hear of him at the residence of my own sweetheart whenever I call there, and now I find Eleanor herself, who has never been able to endure any of the commoner specimens of humanity, apparently taking up the cudgels in his defence. I wish I could understand the fascination that fellow exerts over a number of people so much better than himself. Hang it! I am going to find out. He is a fool, if ever there was one, and I am not. If I can't get at the secret of it, it will be the first time that I have ever been beaten in examining and cross-examining such a common specimen of humanity."

Thus speaking, the lawyer crossed the street and entered the shop, but, to his disgust, found both the cobbler's sons there with their father. The boys, with a curiosity common to all very young people, and particularly intense among the classes who have nothing in particular to think of, stared at him so fixedly that he finally rose abruptly and departed without saying a word. The boys went out soon after, and Billy remarked to Tom, as the two sauntered homeward,--

"Tom, what do you s'pose is the reason that feller comes in to see dad so much?"

"Gettin' a pair of shoes made, I s'pose," said Tom, sulkily, for he had just failed in an attempt to extract a quarter of a dollar from his father.

"The shoes that dad was makin' for him," said Billy, "was done two or three weeks ago, 'cause I took 'em to his office myself. But he comes to the shop over an' over again, 'cause I've seen him there, an' whenever he comes he manages to get talkin' with dad about religion. He always begins it, too, 'cause dad never says nothin' about it unless the lawyer starts it first."

"Well," said Tom, "seems to me that if he wants to know anythin' on that subject he could go to some of the preachers, that ought to know a good deal more about it than dad does."

"Can't tell so much about that sort o' thing," said Billy. "There's lots of men in this town that don't know much about some things that knows a good deal about some others. You know when that dog we stole last summer got sick, there was nobody in town could do anythin' for him except that old lame nigger down in the holler."

"Well, you're a sweet one, ain't you?" said Tom. "What's dogs got to do with religion, I'd like to know? You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, even if you ain't never been to church."

"Well," said Billy, "what I was meanin' is, some folks seem to know a good deal about things without bein' learned, that other folks will give their whole time to, an' don't know very much about. Every place that I go to, somebody says somethin' to me about dad an' religion. Say, Tom, do you know dad's mighty different to what he used to be before he got took up?"

"Of course I do. He's always wantin' folks to work, an' always findin' fault with everythin' we do that ain't right. He didn't use to pay no attention to nothin'; we could do anythin' we wanted to; and here I am, a good deal bigger, an' just about as good as a man, an' he pays more attention to me than he ever did, an' fusses at me as if I was little bit of a kid. An' I don't like it, either."

"Well, as he said to me t'other day, Tom, he's got to be pretty lively to make up for lost time."

"Well, I wish, then," said Tom, meditatively, "that he hadn't never lost no time, 'cause it's takin' all the spirit out o' me to be hammered at all the time in the way he's a-doin'. I just tell you what it is, Billy," said Tom, stopping short and smiting the palm of one hand with the fist of the other, "I've half a mind, off and on, to go to steady work of some kind, an' I'll be darned if I don't do it, if dad don't let me alone."

"Mis' Prency was talkin' to me the other day about dad," said Billy, "an' she asked me whether he wasn't workin' awful hard at home after he left the shop, an' I said, 'Yes,' an' she said, 'I hope you all do all you can to help him?' an' I kind o' felt ashamed, an' all I could say was that I didn't see nothin' I could help him about, an' she said she guessed if I'd think a little while I could find out. Say, Tom, let's go to work a-thinkin', an' see if there ain't some way to give dad a lift. Seems to me he's doin' everythin' for us all the whole time, an' we ain't doin' nothin' at all for him."

"Oh, now, quit your preachin'," said the elder brother, contemptuously. "If you don't, I'll lamm you."

The younger brother prudently lapsed into entire silence, and the couple soon reached home. Tom strolled about the room, his lower lip hanging down, bestowing glares of different intensity upon every individual and object present, and even making a threatening motion with his foot towards the baby, who had crawled about the floor until it was weary and fretful and was uttering plaintive cries from time to time. His mother was out of the house somewhere, and the baby continued to protest against its physical discomforts until Tom indulged in a violent expletive, which had the effect of temporarily silencing the child and causing it to look up at him with wondering eyes. Tom returned the infant's stare for a moment or two, and then, moved by some spirit which he was not able to identify, he stooped and picked up the infant and sat down in a chair. When his mother returned, she was so astonished at what she saw that she hurried out of the house, down to the shop, and dragged her husband away and back to his home. When the door was opened, Sam Kimper was almost paralyzed to see his big son rocking the youngest member of the family to and fro over the rough floor, and singing, in a hoarse and apparently ecstatic voice,--

"I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines."

"Well, doctor," said Deacon Quickset to his pastor one morning, "I hope you have persuaded that wretched shoemaker to come into the ark of safety and to lay hold of the horns of the altar."

"My dear sir," said Dr. Guide to his deacon, "the conversation I had with that rather unusual character has led me to believe that he is quite as safe at present as any of the members of my own congregation."

"Oh, doctor, doctor!" groaned the deacon, "that will never do! What is the church to come to if everybody is to be allowed to believe just what he wants to, and stop just when he gets ready, and not go any further unless he understands everything before him? I don't need to tell you, a minister of the gospel and a doctor of divinity, that we have to live by faith and not by sight. I don't have to go over all the points of belief to a man of your character to show you what a mistake you are making, thinking that way about a poor common fellow that's only got one idea in his head,--one that might be shaken out of it very easily."

"Deacon," said the minister, "I am strongly of the impression that any belief of any member of my congregation could be as easily shaken as the one article of faith to which that poor fellow has bound himself. I don't propose to disturb his mind any further. 'Milk for babes,' you know the apostle says, 'and strong meat for men.' After he has proved himself to be equal to meat, there will be ample time to experiment with some of the dry bones which you seem anxious that I should force upon him."

"Dr. Guide," said the deacon, with considerable dignity, "I didn't expect this kind of talk from you. I have been sitting under your ministrations a good many years, and, though sometimes I didn't think you were as sharp-set as you ought to be, still I knew you were a man of level head and good education and knew everything