Sam Kimper hurried through a new street, sparsely settled, crossed a
large vacant lot, tramped over the grounds of an unused foundry, and
finally went through a vacancy in a fence on which there were only
enough boards to show what the original plan had been. A heap of ashes,
a dilapidated chicken-coop, and a forest of tall dingy weeds were the
principal contents of the garden, which had for background a small
unpainted house in which were several windows which had been repaired
with old hats and masses of newspaper. As he neared the house he saw in
a cove in the weeds a barrel lying on its side, and seated in the mouth
of the barrel was a child with a thin, sallow, dirty, precocious face
and with a cat in her arms. The child stared at the intruder, who
stopped and pushed his hat to the back of his head.
"Pop!" exclaimed the child, suddenly, without moving.
"Mary!" exclaimed the man, dropping upon his knees and kissing the
dirty face again and again. "What are you doin' here?"
"Playin' house," said the child, as impassively as if to have had her
father absent two years was so common an experience that his return did
not call for any manifestation of surprise or affection.
"Stand up a minute, dear, and let me look at you. Let's see,--you're
twelve years old now, ain't you? You don't seem to have growed a bit.
How's the rest?"
"Mam's crosser an' crosser," said the child; "Joe's run away, 'cause
the constable was after him for stealin' meat from--"
"My boy a thief! Oh, Lord!"
"Well, we didn't have nothin' to eat; he had to do it."
The father dropped his head and shuddered. The child continued:
"Billy's goin' to school now; Jane's servant-gal at the hotel; Tom
plays hookey all the time, an' the baby squalls so much that nobody
likes her but Billy."
The man looked sad, then thoughtful; finally he put his arm around his
child, and said, as he kissed and caressed her,--
"You're to have a better dad after this, darlin'; then maybe the
mother'll feel pleasanter, an' the baby'll be happier, an' Tom'll be a
good boy, an' we'll get Joe back somehow."
"How's you goin' to be better?" asked the child.
"Goin' to give us money to buy candy an' go to all the circuses?"
"Maybe," said the father. "I must go see the mother now."
The child followed her father to the house; there was not much
excitement in the life of the Kimper family, except when there was a
quarrel, and Mary seemed to anticipate some now, for she drawled, as
she walked along,--
"Mam's got it in for you; I heerd her say so many a time sence you war
took away."
"The poor thing's had reason enough to say it, the Lord knows," said
the man. "An'," he continued, after a moment, "I guess I've learned to
take whatever I'm deservin' of."
As Sam entered his house, a shabbily dressed, unkempt, forlorn looking
woman sat at a bare pine table, handling some dirty cards. When she
looked up, startled by the heavy tread upon the floor, she exclaimed,--
"I declare! I didn't expect you till--"
"Wife!" shouted Sam, snatching the woman into his arms and covering her
face with kisses. "Wife," he murmured, bursting into tears and pressing
the unsightly head to his breast,--"wife, wife, wife, I'm goin' to make
you proud of bein' my wife, now that I'm a man once more."
The woman did not return any of the caresses that had been showered
upon her; neither did she repel them. Finally she said,--
"You _do_ appear to think somethin' of me, Sam."
"Think somethin' of you? I always did, Nan, though I didn't show it
like I ought. I've had lots of time to think since then, though, an'
I've had somethin' else, too, that I want to tell you about. Things is
goin' to be different, the Lord willin', Nan, dear--wife."
Mrs. Kimper was human; she was a woman, and she finally rose to the
occasion to the extent of kissing her husband, though immediately
afterward she said, apparently by way of apology,--
"I don't know how I come to do that."
"Neither do I, Nan; I don't know how you can do anythin' but hate me.
But you ain't goin' to have no new reason for doin' it. I'm goin' to be
different ev'ry way from what I was."
"I hope so," said Mrs. Kimper, releasing herself from her husband's
arms and taking up the cards again. "I was just tellin' my fortune by
the keerds, havin' nothin' else to do, an' they showed a new man an'
some money,--though not much."
"They showed right both times, though keerds ain't been friends to this
family, confound 'em, when I've fooled with 'em at the saloon. Where's
the baby, though, that I ain't ever seen?"
"There," said the woman, pointing to a corner of the room. Sam looked,
and saw on the floor a bundle of dingy clothes from one end of which
protruded a head of which the face, eyes, and hair were of the same
tint as the clothing. The little object was regarding the new arrival
in a listless way, and she howled and averted her head as her father
stooped to pick her up.
"She's afraid you're goin' to hit her, like most ev'ry one does when
they go nigh her," said the mother. "If I'd knowed you was comin'
to-day, I'd have washed her, I guess."
"I'll do it myself now," said the father, "I've got the time."
"Why, you ain't ever done such a thing in your life, Sam!" said Mrs.
Kimper, with a feeble giggle.
"More's the shame to me; but it's never too late to mend. When'll Billy
get home, an' Tom?"
"Goodness knows; Billy gets kep' in so much, an' Tom plays hookey so
often, that I don't ever expect either of 'em much 'fore supper-time.
They talk of sendin' Tom to the Reform School if he don't stop."
"I'll have to stop him, then. I'll try it, anyway."
"It needs somebody that can wollup him harder'n I can; he's gettin' too
big for my stren'th. Well, if here they don't both come! I don't know
when I've seen them two boys together before, 'less they was fightin'.
I wonder what's got into 'em to-day."
The two boys came through the back yard, eying the house curiously,
Billy with wide open eyes, and Tom with a hang-dog leer from under the
brim of his hat. Their father met them at the door and put his arms
around both.
"Don't do that," said Tom, twitching away, "that sort o' thing's for
women, an' gals an' babies."
"But I'm your dad, boy."
"Needn't make a baby of me, if you be," growled the cub.
"I'd give a good deal, old as I am, if I had a dad to make a baby of me
that way, if 'twas only for a minute."
"Oh, don't be an old fool," said Tom.
"I heerd in the village you'd been let out," said Billy, "an' so I
found Tom an' told him, an' he said I lied, an' so we come home to see.
Did you bring us anythin'?"
"Yes," said the father, his face brightening, as he thrust his hand
into his pocket and took out the fig box. "Here," as he gave a fig to
each of the children and one to his wife, "how do you like that?"
"Good enough," growled Tom, "only I don't care for 'em unless I have a
whole box. I lift one out of a train-boy's basket at the station once
in a while."
"Don't ever do it again," said the father. "If you want 'em any time so
bad you can't do without 'em, let me know, an' I'll find some way to
get 'em for you."
"An' get sent up again for more'n two year?" sneered the boy.
"I don't mean to get 'em that way" said the father. "But I've got
somethin' else for you." Here he took the circus pictures from his
breast, where they had been much flattened during the several
demonstrations of family affection in which they had been involved.
"Here's a picture for each of you."
Billy seemed to approve of the monkey, but Tom scowled and said,--
"What do I care for an elephant's head, when I seen the whole animal at
the show, an' everythin' else besides?"
"S'pose I might as well get supper, though there ain't much to get,"
said the wife. "There's nothin' in the house but corn-meal, so I'll
bile some mush. An'," she continued, with a peculiar look at her
husband, "there ain't anythin' else for breakfast, though Deacon
Quickset's got lots of hens layin' eggs ev'ry day. I've told the boys
about it again an' again, but they're worth less than nothin' at
helpin' things along. The deacon don't keep no dog. Now you've got
home, I hope we'll have somethin'."
"Not if we have to get it that way," said Sam, gently. "No more
stealin'; I'll die first."
"I guess we'll all die, then," moaned Mrs. Kimper. "I didn't s'pose
bein' sent up was goin' to skeer all the spirit out of you."
"It didn't, Nan, but it's been the puttin' of a new kind of spirit into
me. I've been converted, Nan."
"What?" gasped Mrs. Kimper.
"Thunder!" exclaimed Tom, after a hard laugh. "You goin' to be a
shoutin' Methodist? Won't that be bully to tell the fellers in the
village?"
"I'm not goin' to shout, or be anythin' I know of, except an honest
man: you can tell that to all the fellers you like."
"An' be told I'm a blamed liar? Not much."
Mrs. Kimper seemed to be in a mournful revery, and when finally she
spoke it was in the voice of a woman talking to herself, as she said,--
"After all I've been layin' up in my mind about places where there was
potatoes an' chickens an' pigs an' even turkeys that could be got an'
nobody'd be any the wiser! How will we ever get along through the
winter?"
"The Lord will provide," croaked Tom, who had often sat under the
church window during a revival meeting.
"If He don't, we'll do without," said Sam, "but I guess we won't suffer
while I can work."
"Dad converted!" muttered Tom. "Dad converted! d'ye hear that?" said
he, hitting his brother to attract attention. "I must go down to the
hotel an' tell Jane; she'll steal me a glass of beer for it. Converted!
I'll be ashamed to look the boys in the face."