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

"Mrs. Prency," said the cobbler's substitute, taking his hat from the bench on which he had placed it and circling it in his hand as if he were endeavoring to stimulate his mental faculties, "whatever I believe on that subject I'm goin' to stick to, an' nobody, not even if he is the best lawyer in the county, or your husband himself, or the judge of the biggest court in the United States, is goin' to change my mind about it."

"Thank you, Mr. Kimper. I might have known as much from what I heard during your remarks the other night. I only wanted to say to you that Mr. Bartram is a very smart talker and very quick to see whatever mistakes any one else may make."

"If I make any mistakes," said Sam, "it's because of somebody who's a great deal smarter than I am, who don't back me up as much as I need for the time-bein'."

"Good-day, Mr Kimper," said the lady.

"Good-day, ma'am," said the ex-convict.

He stood in the dingy shop looking out of the window at the retreating form of the lady, and then at the gathering clouds over the evening sunset, and at the houses on the opposite side of the street, apparently that he might divert his mind from something. Then he looked at the coin which he had received for the work, as if it were an amulet or a charm.

Suddenly his attention was distracted by the appearance, on the other side of the street, of a very pretty young woman, accompanied by a young man in good attire and of fine bearing.

"Well, well," said the ex-convict, "I wonder if that's what it means? That's Bartram himself, as sure as I'm born, an' with him is Mrs. Prency's only daughter an' only child. Well, well!"

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