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talk without money.  I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warnā€™t no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldnā€™t pass nohow, even if the brass didnā€™t show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time.  (I reckoned I wouldnā€™t say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldnā€™t know the difference.  Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good.  He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldnā€™t see no brass, and it wouldnā€™t feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball.  Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.





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Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right.  He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to.  I says, go on.  So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me.  He says:

ā€œYoā€™ ole father doanā€™ know yit what heā€™s a-gwyne to do.  Sometimes he spec heā€™ll go ā€™way, en den agin he spec heā€™ll stay.  De besā€™ way is to resā€™ easy en let de ole man take his own way.  Deyā€™s two angels hoverinā€™ rounā€™ ā€™bout him.  One uv ā€™em is white en shiny, en tā€™other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up.  A body canā€™t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de lasā€™.  But you is all right.  You gwyne to have considable trouble in yoā€™ life, en considable joy.  Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time youā€™s gwyne to git well agin.  Deyā€™s two gals flyinā€™ ā€™bout you in yoā€™ life.  One uv ā€™emā€™s light en tā€™other one is dark. One is rich en tā€™other is poā€™.  Youā€™s gwyne to marry de poā€™ one fust en de rich one by en by.  You wants to keep ā€™way fum de water as much as you kin, en donā€™t run no resk, ā€™kase itā€™s down in de bills dat youā€™s gwyne to git hung.ā€

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his own self!







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CHAPTER V.

I had shut the door to.  Then I turned around and there he was.  I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much.  I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistakenā€”that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warnā€™t scared of him worth bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it.  His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.  It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers.  There warnā€™t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another manā€™s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a bodyā€™s flesh crawlā€”a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white.  As for his clothesā€”just rags, that was all.  He had one ankle resting on tā€™other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then.  His hat was laying on the floorā€”an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little.  I set the candle down.  I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed.  He kept a-looking me all over.  By and by he says:

ā€œStarchy clothesā€”very.  You think youā€™re a good deal of a big-bug, donā€™t you?ā€

ā€œMaybe I am, maybe I ainā€™t,ā€ I says.

ā€œDonā€™t you give me none oā€™ your lip,ā€ says he.  "Youā€™ve put on considerable many frills since I been away.  Iā€™ll take you down a peg before I get done with you.  Youā€™re educated, too, they sayā€”can read and write.  You think youā€™re betterā€™n your father, now, donā€™t you, because he canā€™t?  Iā€™ll take it out of you.  Who told you you might meddle with such hifalutā€™n foolishness, hey?ā€”who told you you could?ā€

ā€œThe widow.  She told me.ā€

ā€œThe widow, hey?ā€”and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ainā€™t none of her business?ā€

ā€œNobody never told her.ā€

ā€œWell, Iā€™ll learn her how to meddle.  And looky hereā€”you drop that school, you hear?  Iā€™ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be betterā€™n what he is.  You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear?  Your mother couldnā€™t read, and she couldnā€™t write, nuther, before she died.  None of the family couldnā€™t before they died.  I canā€™t; and here youā€™re a-swelling yourself up like this.  I ainā€™t the man to stand itā€”you hear? Say, lemme hear you read.ā€

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When Iā€™d read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house.  He says:

ā€œItā€™s so.  You can do it.  I had my doubts when you told me.  Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills.  I wonā€™t have it.  Iā€™ll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school Iā€™ll tan you good. First you know youā€™ll get religion, too.  I never see such a son.ā€

He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says:

ā€œWhatā€™s this?ā€

ā€œItā€™s something they give me for learning my lessons good.ā€

He tore it up, and says:

ā€œIā€™ll give you something betterā€”Iā€™ll give you a cowhide.ā€

He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:

ā€œAinā€™t you a sweet-scented dandy, though?  A bed; and bedclothes; and a lookā€™nā€™-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floorā€”and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard.  I never see such a son.  I bet Iā€™ll take some oā€™ these frills out oā€™ you before Iā€™m done with you. Why, there ainā€™t no end to your airsā€”they say youā€™re rich.  Hey?ā€”howā€™s that?ā€





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ā€œThey lieā€”thatā€™s how.ā€

ā€œLooky hereā€”mind how you talk to me; Iā€™m a-standing about all I can stand nowā€”so donā€™t gimme no sass.  Iā€™ve been in town two days, and I hainā€™t heard nothing but about you beinā€™ rich.  I heard about it away down the river, too.  Thatā€™s why I come.  You git me that money to-morrowā€”I want it.ā€

ā€œI hainā€™t got no money.ā€

ā€œItā€™s a lie.  Judge Thatcherā€™s got it.  You git it.  I want it.ā€

ā€œI hainā€™t got no money, I tell you.  You ask Judge Thatcher; heā€™ll tell you the same.ā€

ā€œAll right.  Iā€™ll ask him; and Iā€™ll make him pungle, too, or Iā€™ll know the reason why.  Say, how much you got in your pocket?  I want it.ā€

ā€œI hainā€™t got only a dollar, and I want that toā€”ā€

ā€œIt donā€™t make no difference what you want it forā€”you just shell it out.ā€

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky; said he hadnā€™t had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didnā€™t drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcherā€™s and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldnā€™t, and then he swore heā€™d make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didnā€™t know the old man; so he said courts mustnā€™t interfere and separate families if they could help it; said heā€™d druther not take a child away from its father.  So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldnā€™t rest.  He said heā€™d cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didnā€™t raise some money for him.  I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week.  But he said he was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and heā€™d make it warm for him.

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak.  And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said heā€™d been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldnā€™t be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him.  The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said heā€™d been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it.  The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again.  And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

ā€œLook at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. Thereā€™s a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ainā€™t so no more; itā€™s the hand of a man thatā€™s started in on a new life, andā€™ll die before heā€™ll go back.  You mark them wordsā€”donā€™t forget I said them.  Itā€™s a clean hand now; shake itā€”donā€™t be afeard.ā€





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So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried.  The judgeā€™s wife she kissed it.  Then the old man he signed a pledgeā€”made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death

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