,
though the bounty from his pockets was an irregular and minute trickle of
copper exclusively, the little boy strutted as proudly by his side,
worshipping him as loyally, as when these outer affairs were quite the
reverse. Yet he could not avoid being sensible of the fluctuations.

One year the parent would come with the long hair of one who, having been
brother to the red Indian for years, has wormed from his medicine man the
choicest secret of his mysterious pharmacopaeia, and who would out of love
for suffering humanity place this within the reach of all for a nominal
consideration.

Another year he would be shorn of the sweeping moustache and much of the
tawny hair, and the little boy would understand that he had travelled
extensively with a Mr. Haverly, singing his songs each evening in large
cities, and being spoken of as "the phenomenal California baritone." His
admiring son envied the fortunate people of those cities.

Again he would be touring the world of cities with some simple article of
household use which, from his luxurious barouche, he was merely
introducing for the manufacturers--perhaps a rare cleaning-fluid, a
silver-polish, or that ingenious tool which will sharpen knives and cut
glass, this being, indeed, one of his prized staples. It appeared--so the
little boy heard him tell Milo Barrus--that few men could resist buying a
tool with which he actually cut a pane of glass into strips before their
eyes; that one beholding the sea of hands waving frantically up to him
with quarters in them, after his demonstration, would have reason to
believe that all men had occasion to slice off a strip of glass every day
or so. Instead of this, as an observer of domestic and professional life,
he believed that out of the thousands to whom he had sold this tool, not
ten had ever needed to cut glass, nor ever would.

There was another who continued indifferent to the personal estate of this
father. This was Grandfather Delcher, who had never seen him since that
bleak day when he had tried to bury the memory of his daughter. When the
perfect father came to Edom the grandfather went to his room and kept
there so closely that neither ever beheld the other. The little boy was
much puzzled by this apparently intentional avoidance of each other by two
men of such rare distinction, and during the early visits of his father he
was fruitful of suggestion for bringing them together. But when he came to
understand that they