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.